Category Archives: Community

Tom Has A Big Idea

The August issue of “Chicago Magazine” has a feature on how to make Chicago even better. They selected six Big Ideas. Mine was #5. It’s about establishing a public bank for Illinois.

“THE RATIONALE: A state bank could help Illinois reduce its budget deficit and make more credit available, thereby boosting the economy.

THE PROPONENT: Tom Tresser, cofounder of Illinois Citizens for Public Banking and a former teacher who coorganized the opposition to the 2016 Olympics

HE SAYS: “Illinois has more red ink than any state but California. It owes $34 billion in principal on its bonds; pension debt stands at $76 billion, the highest in the nation; and it pays a ton in bond interest and fees, not just because it has a poor credit rating but also because it also uses big out-of-state banks and investment firms to do the deals.

“Contrast that with North Dakota. Since the economic downturn began in 2008, North Dakota has had a budget surplus every year. It has no state debt, excellent credit, and the country’s lowest unemployment rate [3 percent]. While student loans in Illinois carry interest of 8 to 12 percent, in North Dakota it’s 4 percent.” Read the full story.

Tom’s Talk About (and Prototype of) The Gift Economy

I presented at TEDxIIT on Saturday, April 14, on the south side campus of IIT. I talked about The Gift Economy and created one among the attendees. 82 of the 100 attendees actually offered something to their fellow attendees!

Here is the presentation:

Click on the player below to listen and click on the Slideshare viewer to watch the presentation.

The Gift Economy + Report of Prototype

View more PowerPoint from Thomas Tresser

You can watch all the presentations here – http://mypages.iit.edu/~tedxiit/video2012.html

Tom To Present @ Occupy Midwest

I’ll be in St. Louis on March 16 and 17 as part of the Occupy The Midwest Regional Conference. Join me and thousands of activists, concerned citizens and Occupiers under the Gateway Arch. I’ll be presenting on the No Games Chicago campaign and also “Community Organizing 101.” You can see the presentations at my teaching web site.

Support Will Guzzardi for State Rep

Will Guzzardi is the real deal. I’ve been urging cultural workers, nonprofit managers and social change agents to run for office for over 20 years. I tried it myself. Will is a grassroots journalist and has done investigative work on social change issues and has fully participated in the social change movements in his community of Logan Square. Now he is a candidate in the race for the Democratic nomination for State Representative of the 39th District. He has got the Democratic Machine on the run! Listen to this seven minute speech and you will know why the people of the 39th District are excited about the idea of having a real fighter for the 99% representing them – and not a mouth piece for large corporations, the tax evasion industry and big pharma – they ALREADY have enough paid reps shilling for them!

Join the push to take back our local government from the 1%!