ACIPCO is a cast-iron pipe co. that has an employee-ownership structure of some kind.

One way the UN creates a cultural process includes a practice of declaring "the Year of the XYZ." In Dec. 2009 they declared 2012 the Year of Cooperatives.

ShoreBank Pacific with their Eco-Deposits program didn't engage in mortgage derivatives, but still was impacted by the 2008  mortgage derivatives crisis.

“Let’s take back our economy.  Let’s decentralize and democratize it,” Heather Young said, kicking off the panel called “Building the Alternative” at the Festival of Grassroots Economics, held September 26 at the Humanist Hall in Oakland.

Heather Young was one of the main organizers of the festival, a free, day-long gathering of several hundred Bay Area people who gathered to meet and discuss how to evolve alternative economies that benefit working people, support local small businesses, support pay equity, and address work through the framework of race, class and privilege.  Young, a co-founder of Bay Area Community Exchange wanted to make sure everyone arriving for the day understood that finding new economic models was the essence of the festival, whose slogan was “Building an Economy for the People and the Planet.”

Click the link to see the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmDHcZ0wZIU

The International Cooperative Alliance issued an open letter to the G8 Industrialized countries sending another message about the underlying issues involved in, and the solution to, the global financial crisis.