Economics of Happiness

Brooklyn Flea 6.6.2010 Dean Kelm

Last Thursday, post blizzard no. 2, I stepped into my rubber boots (the brilliant Loeffler Randall pair), trudged through the piles of snow and slush ponds to attended a screening of The Economics of Happiness, the "closed" Cooper Hewitt Great Hall. My friend, gifted patternmaker and co-conspirator Gabby met me to watch this moving documentary about the effects of globalization and the localism movement bubbling up in response to our declining mental and environmental health.

It's a bit ironic, but I really believe I moved to NY to escape globalization and find my "Sesame Street". I wanted to find neighborhood to live in, a place where there were still local businesses, family owned businesses (like the one I grew up in), artists, craftspeople, food cooked from scratch in small batches and distinct culture. Brooklyn, more specifically has provided me with a nutritious local life and a foundation to build a happy life. This is where I have chosen to live but this movie showed many locations around the world where happiness thrives or thrived before the subsidized big boxes, western marketing and the pressure of consumption moved in.

This could turn into a REALLY long blog post but I suggest you,

SEE THIS MOVIE, buy the DVD, hold a screening.

We live on a planet with finite resources and continue to demand infinite growth at any expense.

In addition, check out these other organizations writing about New Economic Theory/Alternatives. Its not scary, it'll make you happy, I promise.

BALLE Business Alliance for Local Living Economies

SLOW FOOD

NEW ECONOMICS INSTITUTE (formerly the EF Schumacher Society)

SLOW MONEY MEET SLOW FASHION

Dave Cole, "The Money Dress," (Detail of dollar bill fabric), approximately one-thousand one dollar bills cut into continuous strips and knit together in the pattern of a Vera Wang evening gown, 2006.

SLOW FASHION MEET SLOW MONEY.

Slow Money Principles include:

I. We must bring money back down to earth.

II. There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex. Therefore, we must slow our money down -- not all of it, of course, but enough to matter.

III. The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later—what one venture capitalist called “the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history.” The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and non-violence.

IV. We must learn to invest as if food, farms and fertility mattered. We must connect investors to the places where they live, creating vital relationships and new sources of capital for small food (or may I suggest small fashion) enterprises.

V. Let us celebrate the new generation of entrepreneurs, consumers and investors who are showing the way from Making A Killing to Making a Living. (amen.)

VI. Paul Newman said, "I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out." Recognizing the wisdom of these words, let us begin rebuilding our economy from the ground up, asking:

* What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets within 50 miles of where we live?
* What if there were a new generation of companies that gave away 50% of their profits? (or what if they didn't have to b/c companies served legitimate human needs without exploiting humans and at an expensive to the earth.)
* What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?

SLOW MONEY, I KNOW YOU ARE REALLY TIGHT WITH SLOW FOOD, BUT LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO MY FRIEND SLOW FASHION. SHE'S REALLY PRETTY.

Minneapolis is cool.

Minneapolis is exceptionally cool, I had no idea. Even cooler than Brooklyn in some ways and you know how in love with home I am.
Here are 10 reasons why:
4 (could be more, in fact I'm sure there are) CENTERS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF CRAFT
1) The Minnesota Center for the Book Arts
2) Highpoint Center for Printmaking
3) Northern Clay Center
4) Textile Center

5) Skywalks.
6) Clancey's Meat and Fish
7) Walker Art Center
8) Arvonne Fraser
9) The American Craft Council's new home. After 66 years in NY they're out.
10) Restaurant Alma

FRESH the MOVIE

Visit www.freshthemovie.com to watch the trailer. Fresh, unlike another movie that came out around the same time and rhymes with, rude pink, makes you want to hug everyone in the room rather than poke your eyes out and eat a big mac.