Gift Hub

Wall Street Socialism

WSJ on Wall Street Socialism:

So now the Bush administration proposes to make the federal guarantee explicit and even to offer taxpayer money to help recapitalize the two banks if needed. Everything has been nationalized -- except the profits and the pay scales of the bank's executives.

That's right. If the guarantees work, private speculators, having driven the stock down, will clean up on the upside. And the bank's CEO's will continue to pocket the multi-million dollar salaries that are de rigueur on Wall Street. Call it Wall Street socialism. Their losses are socialized; their profits are pocketed. You and I will pay for their failures. And if conservatives have their way, their families will pocket their successes, without even having to pay a tax for the transfer of the estates we've helped to create.

So one hand washes the other. No need for conspiracies. The players just do what they know to be right to preserve the system. The "hidden hand of the market" helps all their pals. We the smaller players suffer, but that is the law of the jungle. If we weren't so stupid we would not get taken. 

How to Raise Money for Bush Library

Times Online:

A lobbyist with close ties to the White House is offering access to key figures in George W Bush’s administration in return for six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.

There ought to be a wall of honor at the library to commemorate the lobbyists and funders who have made this 8 year masquerade possible.  Down one column would be names and amounts, and down the others the political favors traded for those gifts, with a tracking number coded to the materials in the library. Children could go the library to learn how democracy really works. As things are, the kids could learn as much by going to Staples to price a shredder.

Discover Scholars

Heard today from a Gifthub reader, Jonathan Bydlak, who is starting a non-profit called DiscoverScholars.org, the goal of which is to award scholarships to the types of students valued by donors in the marketplace.  Donors specify any combination of characteristics, from grades and majors to extracurricular and athletic activities, with the knowledge that worthy students possessing those attributes will benefit from their donations.  The website, not surprisingly, is http://www.DiscoverScholars.org

He is also blogging about the project on the regular basis, and has written a piece about the troubles that come from tying financial aid to individual schools.  Jonathan feels there’s little reason for donors to give to colleges in order to financially support students who need it. Instead, he would rather that students had the same amount of financial aid regardless of where they choose to go to school.  All that’s needed is an organization like Discover Scholars.

Jonathan has also blogged about the troubles in the securitized loan industry and how they limit a students’ ability to get financial aid.

Here is Jonathan's bio:

Jonathan Bydlak, Founder and Executive Director, is the former Director of Fundraising for the Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign, where he oversaw a fundraising apparatus that raised over $35 million. Jonathan plans to apply his experience with using web 2.0 social networking tools to build a dedicated donor base for DiscoverScholars.org.

Prior to his service on the campaign, Jonathan worked as an investment analyst at one of the largest hedge funds in the world. Philosophically committed to market-based solutions to problems, Jonathan graduated in 2005 with an A.B. in economics from Princeton University.

Very interesting concept. Scholarships are a hot topic with donors these days. Private foundations have to go through some hoops to offer them. Community Foundations are one way donors get scholarships done. Discover Scholars could be an interesting alternative. I wonder if it will evolve into a Kiva style site where Scholars could also borrow money? As the securitized student loan industry seizes up, an alternative linking private lenders and specific scholars might be in order. (Could turn into a program related investment or mission aligned investment for foundations?) Anyway, Discover Scholars is a very interesting addition to the philanthropic landscape. I have not done detailed due diligence on the execution, but the concept is intriquing.

Changents

Many online philanthropy sites want to be "the eBay of philanthropy." Here is one that wants to turn social change agents into the equivalent of rock stars with their own backers, fans, and funding.  A post about it here at TriplePundit. As for the business model, for profit and proud of it:

We believe that business can help us save the world – that’s right, good ‘ole capitalism. On Changents, good corporate citizen companies are able to connect with the freshest group of conscious consumers on the Internet. We understand that Changents members increasingly make purchase decisions based on what they know about a company’s commitment to social responsibility. Our commitment to the Changents community is that they will only see messages on this site from companies that are committed to ethical behavior, giving back or whose groundbreaking initiatives are having a material impact on changing things for the better. (In case that was too subtle, green washers need not apply.) In particular, we welcome companies that have been vetted and favorably rated by reputable third parties like KLD, Calvert, CRO Magazine and so on. The point is that when you see an ad on Changents, you know you’re in the good company of good companies.

Philanthropic Leverage

Pull the right levers for maximum effect, by Charles Bronfman and Jeffrey Solomon in the Financial Times.

Sartor Resartus, or the Tailor Re-Tailored

Omniorthagonal:

"Phil Cubeta, Morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families".

No mere mass-market ethicist is this guy, no, he runs a boutique service. I imagine if you are rich enough you can get a moral system tailor-made to your specifications, the same way you get your bespoke suits.

Exactly; we measure the client's shape, then cut and trim the ethical system to fit, then press, crease, and fold. Were we to do otherwise, our referral business would suffer. As it is, we spend most of our time patching threadbare ethical suits and letting them out as the client's worldly success grows.

Inspiring Women are Gullible

Phyllis Caldwell of Washington Area Women's Foundation:

I was thrilled when the Dove representative told me how they’d found us.

"We did a Google search for “inspiring women,” she said, and we came up with a blog on your site by Wendy Weaver.

I can’t think of a better Google search I’d like for us to pop up on, since inspiring is really our business.

I know how she feels. The first time Mistress Candidia had me shine her boots, I felt the same way. Imagine! Little me! Shining her boots! So inspiring. Wow!

Pump and Dump Goes Global

C.A. Fitts: "Think of it. The housing bubble has reached the ultimate high. Instead of buying a home for no money down, insiders can now buy a country for no money down." 

Flat World Order

Jim Kunstler, author of  The Long Emergency,

That said, I will feel a little sorry for Mr. Obama if he gets to the White House. He'll have to find a gentle way to tell the truth to the people who elected him, people who will be suffering mightily, and who will be very sore about their losses. He'll have to tell them that the previous "release" of the American Dream software is obsolete, and the new version will require a whole lot more of them in the way of earnest effort, delayed gratification, and revised expectations.

"As many of you may already know," said the President in his Inaugural address, "the world is flat. What does this mean for you personally? Your standard of living is now that of laborer in Calcutta. While this will require some hardship for you personally, we do expect an uptick in global production and profits leading to further job creation in China.  I call upon Philanthropists to provide food and shelter to our American Middle Class."

Online Social Capital Markets Draw High Level Commentary

Aspen Philanthropy Newsletter:

Two social entrepreneurs have written a paper calling for a social enterprise research clearinghouse along the lines of Nexis or Amazon, using e-commerce technology such as that of music download services or purchase recommendation engines. Jed Emerson of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and Joshua Spitzer of the Sun Ranch Institute note that consumer-driven e-commerce innovations may offer the next advances in the sector in a paper for Oxford’s Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. From Fragmentation to Function: Critical Concepts and Writings on Social Capital Market’s Structure, Operation and Innovation offers six initial ideas to help improve what they call “social capital markets”: social enterprises broadly defined to include nonprofits and businesses that specifically aim to add social value. The online marketplace of ideas they propose would facilitate publishing, distributing, cross-referencing and controlling quality. Too much research into social capital markets lacks quality, cannot be considered objective and is too focused on case study and anecdote.                    

Meanwhile, a report reviewing “online philanthropy markets” calls for creation of a “performance data commons,” or an independent space for information and data exchange, pooling data on performance, donor behavior and other key data points. According to Online Philanthropy Markets: From ‘Feel-Good’ Giving to Effective Social Investing? by the nonprofit Keystone and funded by the Aspen Institute, online philanthropy markets, or Website platforms connecting small, individual donors to charities including Kiva and Network for Good, could indeed make a significant contribution, even transforming the entire field of philanthropy just as eBay altered the auction market. But they will do so only if they address their fatal flaw: the generally inadequate informational basis for understanding what difference the organizations are making. A data commons could allow long-term analysis to see what capabilities turn out to correlate to actual performance, helping to identify the capabilities that best predict impact.

It still seems, though, that the model is a penny stock exchange, ebay, or a dating site, rather than, say, The Bost Tea Party. Buying, selling, consuming, investing - is that your sociopolical ideal?