"Invest Locally" What does that even mean?

Alcohol production is a very good investment to be in if you are in a farming community. However biodiesel production is another option. Wind energy and solar are another. These energies can all be produced locally if investment is made in the right equipment.
grant

Becoming involve in local government is also a way to invest (your time) locally and make a profit (eliminate corruption).
grant

If the government owns the banks, the stock market, controls the issuing of paper money then it becomes capable of buying all corporations. This of course is all paid for by the taxpayer and workers. Welcome to the Socialist U.S. government corporation. This is why it is important to divest from government bonds, stocks and banks. Invest locally.
You can also invest your labor in a small business and accept goods and services as payment.
grant

The originator of this topic, Mike Lawson, asks "How is this possible?" and then proceeds to tell us he has his own small business.

Mike, if you used savings to start your small business, you are invested locally. If you borrow to finance production, or items for resale, then your banker is investing locally.

Other possibilities: Instead of buying stock in a mega-corporation, whose profits are spent somewhere else and over which you have no control, buy the lot next door when the opportunity arises. If you live in a growing town, buy a few acres near the edge of town and wait a few years for the town to grow.

Do like Mike and start your own business with your savings.

Buy from your local coin shop instead of online.

Where is the mystery?
Invest locally.

Also known as distributism and distributionism, distributivism is a political philosophy similar to agrarianism. The means of production should be distributed as widely as possible among the populace; they should neither be hoarded by a oligarchy, nor controlled by the government. Certainly the means of production should not be held by the government in the name of fictitious communal entities, but should be held by individuals in their own hands, or in the case of land, under their own feet. For those projects beyond the scope of an individual or family, a guild system is recommended.

Although the Distributist League was founded in 1926, distributivist ideas predate G. K. Chesterton, Distributivism's most famous proponent. The turn-of-the-century Populist and arts & crafts movements embraced distributivistic goals, as did several literary figures of the day. In more recent times, distributivist ideas have reappeared in the guise of "back to the land" or "Small is Beautiful" movements.

More info:http://distributism.blogspot.com/

For 102 ideas on implementing this philosophy in your own home, see:
http://www.justpeace.org/encourdistributism.htm

Invest locally by buying tax deeds. Go to your local clerk of court website, find the tax deeds going up for sale and do your homework on the property. You can buy a property for back taxes usually $ 100 and up to usually 20K you can then rent the property out dirt cheap to the owner or help needy families.

Or buy tax certificates: Same start as above except when you go to the tax certificate sale, the state guarantees you (in Florida) a 20% ROI. You buy tax certificates for 3 years then the property goes up for tax sale on the third year. Whoever buys the tax deed the state returns your original investment with a 20% ROI by law.

If you need help with this, let me know.

Detective Krum Investigates:
http://victory1project.wordpress.com/
http://v1-p.com/

If you have a local farmer who raises beans and you buy those beans you are invested in his business. But instead of giving you paper as would those at the stock market, he gives you beans. But as you say that isn't really investing, it is just buying. Well then try another approach; A farmer may produce milk or meat, and of course you can''t store all the milk or meat at once, but if you were to pay in advance to recieve a fixed amount of milk or meat over a period of time, then the farmer bypasses the need to go to the bankers and can use your advanced purchase to buy fertilizers, pesticides and seeds. You can do this with services as well.
Don't say it can't be done, it just requires people to think. Of course you may prefer to invest and hold paper.
grant

What I do to INVEST LOCALLY is to shop locally at independantly owned businesses. I shop at the local farmer's market,the local hardware instead of HOME DEPOT or Lowe's, the local whatever store it is when there is a choice. I get my gas at a owner /operator station instead of a corporate owned station. My money is in the local credit union. I have quit using credit cards because that is about a 4% fee out of the merchants pocket. I usually don't shop at corporate stores.

I think the idea is something that cannot be applied to much of industry and business as it is right now. The idea is that part of our problems economically and such is that we rely on corporations whose offices are offshore, or at least their factories are, and that reduces the vitality of local businesses. There is a good documentary about how Walmart kills any "mom and pop" shops in a 20mile radius and that is part of this idea. It's something that I think is still emerging and will become more a part of people's personal paradigms than it is now. Especially when you factor in possibilities like peak oil, there is very likely to come a time when our mass-production, high energy consumption economy will be unsustainable except for only the very wealthy, and so then the logical thing to do for the rest of us would be to "invest locally".

By investment, we aren't talking about stocks and shares and things like that, which are tools of the dying system, but rather supporting local business, getting away from the urban sprawl model of living and re-energizing smaller towns where local economies can thrive independent of whatever fluctuations occur on the national/global market. If "invest locally" were a meme that started catching on fifty years ago then this current economic debacle wouldn't have nearly as much the impact as it currently does. . .