Preface
Starting Anew
It was early September 2009, the first anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which precipitated the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Fifteen million Americans were out of work and the economy was still shedding massive numbers of jobs each month. Millions of people owed more on their homes than they were worth and faced foreclosure. All over the country, small businesses—the engines of job creation and innovation—were starved for credit and growth capital.
Yet on Wall Street things were looking up. The S&P 500 was rebounding. After a $700 billion taxpayer-funded infusion and trillions more in emergency lending and guarantee programs, the nation’s biggest banks were doing swimmingly. The top four banks emerged with an even greater share of the pie, counting 60 percent of all bank deposits between them. Goldman Sachs had recently posted the largest quarterly profit in its 140-year history, largely fueled by proprietary trading gains in a volatile market. Bonuses were back to boom levels. Morgan Stanley set aside a whopping 62 percent of its revenue to lavish on employees.
That massive disconnect between Main Street and Wall Street was starkly clear as I flew to Santa Fe to attend the inaugural national gathering of Slow Money, a Slow Food–meets-finance organization whose goal is to “bring money back down to earth.” Hundreds of social investors, entrepreneurs, farmers, and citizens had assembled to see if we couldn’t somehow begin ...
