What do you want to know about how banks operate?

On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the differences between the too big to fail banks, community banks, and credit unions. According to the Credit Union National Association, last month, over 650,000 people moved $4.5 billion out of the big banks into smaller banks and credit unions. How do small banks and credit unions do business differently? Join us at 10 or email feedback@yourcallradio.org. What do you want to know about your bank? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Bill Peterson, Chief Credit Officer at New Resource Bank

Rob Johnson, a Senior Fellow and Director of the Project on Global Finance at the Roosevelt Institute

Click to Listen: What do you want to know about how banks operate?

How could the Slow Money movement help local food economies?

On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation about the Slow Money movement, which aims to connect small farmers and food entrepreneurs with investors. How promising is this economic model? And who is benefiting? Join us live at 10 or send an email to feedback@yourcallradio.org. What's in store for the future of Slow Money both on a national level and regionally? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:

Woody Tasch, president of the newly formed NGO Slow Money

Mason Arnold, founder and CEO of Greenling, the first and largest viable grocery delivery service in Austin and San Antonio

Marco Vangelisti, private investor, a founding member of Slow Money and an adviser to Ecocity Builders

Click to Listen: How could the Slow Money movement help local food economies?

What makes a protest powerful?

On the next Your Call, as the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations gain momentum and organizers prepare for a nationwide day of action on the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, we'll ask what makes a protest matter. Is it about a focused message or a broad coalition? What's the role of leadership? And how do you know when a protest has worked? Whether you're involved in the current protest movement or following it with interest, join the conversation on the next Your Call with Matt Martin and you.

Guests:

Janet Weil from Code Pink, an antiwar activist since beginning of Afghanistan War, one of the first protestors of the invasion as well as the embassy bombing shortly after September 11.

Morgan Fitzgibbons is the co-founder of the Wigg Party, a neighborhood group working to make the community that lives around San Francisco's Wiggle bicycle route a leader in the transformation to sustainability and resiilience.

Brent Schulkin, founder of the Carrotmob movement. In a Carrotmob campaign, a business agrees to take a socially-beneficial action and, in exchange, a network of consumers spends money to reward the business.

Click to Listen: What makes a protest powerful?

What's the Story with All our Stuff?

On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with Annie Leonard, creator and host of the short animated film, The Story of Stuff. Leonard is just out with a new book by the same title. She takes us on a journey from production to consumption and asks: Do we really need all this stuff?

Join us live at 11 or send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. How does what we buy affect the planet we live on? What's your story of stuff? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guest:
Annie Leonard, author and host of The Story of Stuff

Click to Listen: What's the Story with All our Stuff?

What's the True Price of Cheap?

America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low prices and bargains, but at what cost? On the next Your Call, we'll air a conversation Rose Aguilar had with Ellen Ruppel Shell about her new book Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. What effect does our love of bargains really have on product quality, the environment, wages, and international trade? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar.

Guest:
Ellen Ruppel Shell, a journalist, correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, and professor of science journalism at Boston University.

Click to Listen: What's the True Price of Cheap?

Want to Give Nothing for the Holidays?

This Holiday season, do you feel pressure to spend more money than you have? Think the national gift giving frenzy is more wasteful than wonderful? Joel Waldfogel agrees. We'll talk with him about his new book Scroogenomics: Why you shouldn't buy presents for the Holidays. When we buy for ourselves, we shop carefully and purchase items that are worth more than they cost. Gift giving is different. We make less-informed choices, and millions are wasted. How did it get this far?

Join the conversation at 11 a.m. or send your questions and comments to feedback@yourcallradio.org. Why should you give nothing for the Holidays? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar, and you.

Guest:
Joel Waldfogel, author of Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays

Click to Listen: Want to Give Nothing for the Holidays?

Agenda for a New Economy -- Who Wins the Credit Card Game?

How has the credit card industry remained so profitable during the downturn? Join us for a short course on the industry that lives in all of our wallets, with the Frontline team that created The Card Game: An investigation of the consumer loan industry. Who's regulating the big credit card companies? What shows up on your monthly bill? And what are the basic reforms that could make a big difference?

Join us live at 11 or drop us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. What's the credit card business getting away with? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Oriana Zill de Granados, co-producer of Frontline's The Card Game and award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker.

Dan Hirst, journalist with Frontline, and associate producer of The Card Game.

Gail Hillebrand, Financial Services Campaign Manager at the Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.

Click to Listen: Agenda for a New Economy -- Who Wins the Credit Card Game?

Your Call 081709 What fills the hole where the abandoned Wal-Mart was?

What fills the hole where the abandoned Wal-Mart was? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with Julia Christensen, author of Big Box Reuse. Communities across the country are transforming their vacant big box stores into libraries, indoor racetracks, museums, and more. Could the collapse of big box retail in your town have a silver lining?

Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. What would you transform your city's Big Box store into? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Julia Christensen, author of Big Box Reuse

Click to Listen: What fills the hole where the abandoned Wal-Mart was?

Your Call 041309 How are small businesses coping with the economic crisis?

How are small businesses coping with the economic crisis? On the next Your Call, we continue our Monday series on how we can create the economy we want by focusing on small businesses. A recent American City Business Journal poll found that 86% of small businesses have been hit by the recession. If you own a small business, what changes have you made? You can join us by phone or email at feedback@yourcallradio.org. Are you shopping small to ensure the local businesses in your area survive? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar, and you.

Guests:
Gary Marshall, Small Business Administration economic development specialist

Jenny McNulty, executive director of Urban Solutions

Kevin Ryan, co-owner of Green Apple books

Click to Listen: How are small businesses coping with the economic crisis?

Your Call 121708 Getting off the Gadget Treadmill

As the gift giving frenzy gets into relatively full swing, what happens to the discarded cellphones, computers and televisions? On the next Your Call we're talking all about the joys of holiday e-waste, and what we can do to reduce it. Electronic waste is only 2 percent of America's trash in landfills, but 70 percent of overall toxic waste. But most of the 100 million cellphones and 47 million computers thrown out each year are shipped to the poorest countries. Can you really fix the run down computer? Where can you recycle that extra television? Could someone else use your old cellphone? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests: Casey Harrel in Oakland
E-waste expert for Greenpeace International. He has been campaigning for over 10 years in the environmental field on toxic chemical reduction and energy issues, both for Greenpeace and other organizations in the Bay Area and Washington DC.

Jim Pucket in Seattle
Executive Director of the Basel Action Network, an international NGO working to end the global trade in toxic eWaste products.

Emy Tseng
Project Director for the Digital Inclusion Programs for the San Francisco Department of Technology. The digital inclusion program works with Goodwill and ReliaTech to collect used computers from City Agencies and businesses, refurbish them and place them in the community for people in need and distributes used cellphones in women's shelters

James W. Kao
Founder, President & CEO of GreenCitizen, a Bay Area eWaste recycling company.

Click to Listen: Getting off the Gadget Treadmills

Your Call 121007 Buy Less, Give More

What would it take to convince people to shop less in a country that bases its economic success on consumer spending? On the next Your Call, we’ll have a discussion about the culture of consumption in the U.S. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Americans are expected to spend $475 billion this year – four percent more than last year. What explains America’s appetite for shopping? What would it take to shop less and give more? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar, and you.

Guests:
Judith Levine, journalist and author of Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping

Andrew Szasz, chair of Dept. of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz and author of Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We Changed from Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves

John Perry, co-founder of Compact, a group whose members try not to buy anything new except food, medicine and underwear.

Click to Listen: Buy Less, Give More