Category: Business

Mark Brand’s inspiring talk on his restaurant and enterprise work in a troubled neighborhood in Vancouver BC.

http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/The-Impact-of-an-Unconventional

Language Warning: He is ‘colorful’!

An interesting interview with Joseph Stiglitz on the economic dangers of our current income inequality…I find the initial part more interesting than the Bain Capital conversation. But I completely agree that our current level of income inequality is because of manipulation and special privilege, not hard work and social justice creating wealth.

I also agree this special privilege economy will have a very bad ending if we do not create a more equitable and just government.

I’m getting more and more chatter on the street from folks who are unhappy with their investment options.

John Phipps, Illinois farmer/friend, recently posted ‘there aren’t many attractive (safe, rewarding, understandable) places to put cash these days’.

It appears that a broader segment of the American public – those folks with pensions and savings accounts – are seeing either minimal returns (less than 1%) or risking ‘investment black holes’ (abstract ‘what the heck is this really invested’ investment products).

Perhaps Mitt Romney’s business/personal life is also aiding the public awareness of how special privilege makes ‘making money on money’ a rich persons’ sport.

Anywho….it seems there is an opportunity in there! Can local communities structure and manage ‘knowable’ regional investments with low risks and sustainable returns? Can we also change investment and banking law to make community based investing legally practical?

I was reading an article on Facebook’s IPO and it brought up childhood memories. My father had a small printing and publishing company…and I grew up surrounded by the work and language of publishing and printing.

One of those terms – ‘ephemera’ – was a term we constantly used for flyers, brochures, catalogs…all the printed matter that existed only briefly. It was advertising.

The financial substance of Facebook – their business model – is currently based upon what businesses are willing to pay for ephemera (advertising). Their content – what we called books and publications in my father’s shop – is personal/insitutional information, primarily a stream of brief communications over time.

Facebook technology is a communication tool, like a cell phone or written letter. It seems the wealth creation potential of Facebook depends on how meaningfully that tool is used. High on the meaning meter is the Arab Spring, low on the meaning meter is personal gossip. The attractiveness of the tool has been explosive…whether it remains, and how high barriers to entry are for others, depends on how meaningfully Facebook develops added services and additional tools.

It will also be a test of the motivation of the Founders. Instant enormous wealth will have a profound psychological impact.

The City of Cleveland has taken a very interesting approach to the economic restoration of its inner city.

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