Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), 3D Systems Corporation (DDD): A Taste of Things to Come

If you really want to invest, and this is what’s interesting — I talk about this in the book too — is how to begin to think about local investing, about real-time local investing. How to see what’s going on in your community, how to set up… you don’t need alternative currencies to do that.

The people I want to talk to, if they’re listening, I want to talk to banks about looking at how do you do two-tiered loans, where you lend half the money to a business, and you help the business raise the other half of the money from their community in real time? How do you mitigate your risk, mitigate that sense that the community has, that you’re just extracting value from their town, and at the same time make money, being in the money business?

I think it’s these hybrid strategies that are going to be successful in the future.

Byrnes: Do you think individual investors can do that?

Rushkoff: I do. I really do think individual investors can do that. It’s no different form of educating yourself about a local business or the likelihood of your friend to do well with his restaurant, as it is to see what some mining company is doing 5000 miles away.

The article 3-D Printing: A Taste of Things to Come originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Brendan Byrnes.

Brendan Byrnes has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends 3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Stratasys. The Motley Fool owns shares of 3D Systems, Amazon.com, and Stratasys, Ltd. (NASDAQ:SSYS) and has the following options: Short Jan 2014 $36 Calls on 3D Systems and Short Jan 2014 $20 Puts on 3D Systems.

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