Democracy for Wall Street

Just joining the workforce? Start saving NOW!

2010-11-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

I did a calculation over the last day or so that should be a wake-up call to everyone. If you get a good steady job, and save 10% of your paycheck each month, and if you invest very wisely in a way that earns you 10% in interest or dividends, it will take you 25 YEARS to have enough in your savings account to earn through interest or dividends what you are making from your job.

25 years. Wow.

Now, that's assuming a lot, like you don't get a raise or change jobs, that your finances are strong enough throughout that time period so you don't have to reduce how much you are saving, and that you stay on top of your investments to make sure that you are always getting at least 10% out of them.

The first assumption is actually a good thing. Most people earn more and more over their working lives as their wages go up or they find better jobs.

The second assumption is not as big as you think. Most employers make it pretty easy to save money out of your paycheck so you don't ever see it and so you can learn to live without it. But nobody goes through life without having some kind of problem that results in stopping or slowing your savings rate.

The third assumption is the hardest. It's not impossible to earn 10% in dividends or interest, but in any market situation it's not easy either. You have to keep an eye on what you are getting and make adjustments on the fly, day by day. I have a list of hundreds of stocks that pay dividends monthly, but only around 30 pay higher than 10%. And those that do might not keep doing so over a long period of time. Constant vigilance.

How are you doing in your savings plan?

Dividend Snowball Investing

2010-11-05T07:52:00.001-07:00

I've been into investing for a number of years. Of course, I can't afford to save much, but I save as much as I possibly can. It's actually over 10% of my paycheck when you add all of the pieces up.

About 10 years ago, I opened an account at Sharebuilder, a local online brokerage firm that I looked at and decided to support with my business. It was easy, but the amount of money I had available was really low. They didn't mind. Over the next 4 years, I slowly added a small amount of money each month, sometimes skipping several months when things were tight. Then in early 2004 I had a CD mature, and I put a thousand dollars into AT&T, right when it was merging with Southern Bell. I started getting significant dividends from that. Ok, "significant" for me. Most people wouldn't consider these numbers to be that impressive. But it got me thinking.

I opened an account for each of my sons, and started saving a little bit into those. I got hit hard when Shea's biggest stock, GM, went under. But whatever. That's the market. It was also nice when Microsoft started paying dividends.

I kept coming back to dividends. I know that there were stories coming out of the Great Depression that the stocks where the price had collapsed kept doing business, kept making profits, and kept paying dividends. A modest investment made in the late 20's, if the investor didn't get cold feet, came up to quite a revenue stream in the 1980's by reinvesting their dividends every quarter.

Then Google launched Google Finance. I'd been using Yahoo Finance for a while to track things, but they stopped trying to expand their service and I moved away from them. Google put up dynamic charts where I could see what the trends have been, and what the dividends had been. New research tools gave new ways of seeing the same data that I remember my grandfather pouring over as I was growing up. Then I heard about something else. Monthly stock dividends.

There are quite a few companies, or exchange traded funds, that pay their dividends not on a quarterly basis, but monthly. This increases the compounding quite substantially. So I started looking for them. I found some lists, combined them, filled in the blanks, looked at the calculations for dividend yield and return, and started coming up with a plan. I still didn't have a whole lot of money to play with, but I decided to play with what I had. So I came up with a plan.

The trick was to stop looking at the account balance and the stock price. If you're going to invest for dividends, you are going to be holding on to the stock. And when I really started studying and planning, we had just entered the latest downturn in the market where stock prices were going down into Davy Jones Locker. But a lot of them were still doing business, still making profits, and just like during the Great Depression still paying dividends. Even the monthly dividend stocks didn't skip that much. Maybe a month here or there, maybe an adjustment downward, but they didn't stop paying. There are right now over 400 stocks that pay dividends on a monthly basis.

What I eventually landed on was a snowball scheme. I say scheme because it's a fun word to use. Makes people think of shady secrets and exclusivity. It's not. It's just a word. Here is how it works.

Say you have 3 stocks. AAA, BBB and CCC. Each one pays a dividend, each one has a price. Say they all pay their dividend monthly.

Stock	Dividend	Price	Frequency
AAA	$0.10	$10.00	12
BBB	$0.08	$12.50	12
CCC	$0.15	$25.00	12

From this data we can calculate the Calculated Yield.

Stock	Dividend	Price	Frequency	Calculated Yield
AAA	$0.10	$10.00	12	12.00%
BBB	$0.08	$12.50	12	7.68%
CCC	$0.15	$25.00	12	7.20%

This is actually fairly typical. The range of dividend yields on my list of monthly dividend stocks averages between 6% and 7%.

I set my goal as earning $100 in dividends per year from as many stocks as possible. So we need to add a few more columns to the table.

Stock	Dividend	Price	Frequency	Calculated Yield	Shares to earn $100 per year	Shares needed	Money needed for $100 per year
AAA	$0.10	$10.00	12	12.00%	83.33	83.33	$833.33
BBB	$0.08	$12.50	12	7.68%	104.17	104.17	$1,302.08
CCC	$0.15	$25.00	12	7.20%	55.56	55.56	$1,388.89

So, what do we do with all of this? These random number examples show that in order to collect $100 from stock AAA, we need to purchase $833.33 worth of stock to buy 83.33 shares. In Sharebuilder, you can set automatic deposits, and automatic investments costing $4 each. Once you get the first one, you simply change the stock you want to buy to BBB, and go from there. You can do this with the Blue Chips, you can do it with Renewable Energy Stocks, or any other type of stock list.

Can this work? You tell me:

Ideas for Seattle

2009-11-25T11:54:00.000-08:00

So, I submitted two ideas to Mayor-Elect McGinn's website asking citizens of Seattle for ideas.

Create a way for citizens to buy municipal bonds at $100 denominats

Neighborhood Endowment Funds

If you live in Seattle, please help me get the votes to get these ideas on the top of the priority list!

I'm not a mortgage expert

2009-02-18T09:37:00.000-08:00

I'm not a Realtor, a banker nor someone who has ever purchased a house. I have been incredibly lucky. Growing up, my grandparents owned both the home they lived in and the house that my mother lived in down the street. My grandfather was a Realtor and developer in South King County. He purchased a 30 acre plot of land, and subdivided it into 30 homes. This was in the early 1960's, and most of the homeowners who purchased those houses are still the owners today. Very few of the homes have been torn down and replaced at all. Growing up in that neighborhood, I watched the surrounding land be developed, adding more families and kids that I could play with and go to school with. I don't have contact with any of them anymore, but I had a very stable community growing up.

I've rented apartments and houses, but never gone into a mortgage. I've never had the income necessary to make that a reality, so I've never tried. When I moved into my wife's condo, she had already paid off her mortgage, and we don't plan to move. So I don't have to dig into the mess personally. But because this is part of the core to why my community is in trouble, I still want to talk about what I know.

What I have seen and read about how the housing market has worked over the last 30 years has taught me that our system is fundamentally broken. In the 1950's and 60's, people had good jobs that paid a living wage. You got a job that you expected to have for a long time, maybe even your entire career. You signed into a mortgage agreement with a bank, and paid the mortgage off over 30 years. I don't know if the rates were flat or variable, but they were paid because people could afford them. The housing market was pretty stable at that point.

In the 1970's and 80's, we started seeing a concentration of wealth. This gave bankers and investors the ability to start to influence things like wages, through fights against unions and the search for higher profits that cut our ability to maintain high wages and high standards. In the 90's, the drop in incomes started to affect the housing market, and lawmakers started looking at the problem. But because conservatives controlled Congress, the solution that they moved towards was designed to help the banks and investors more than the people trying to own homes. There was a fundamental choice involved, whether to increase wages so that people could again afford homes in the community, or by lowering the standards and allow people who fundamentally could not afford a mortgage get into one anyway. Interest only loans, no money down, lower initial interest rates, and other attempts to make it possible for lower incomes to be able to sign paperwork that was against their best interest. It took a few years for the rot to start to stink. Here we are. I'm not even going to go into the investment games that sliced these mortgage agreements up and sold them on the stock market promising investors high interest rates until the cows come home.

President Obama is right when he says that we have to do something about this. People shouldn't be punished for trying to create a stable home for their children. But someone earning a minimum wage can't afford to pay $1,500 or more every month on a mortgage for a home that they shouldn't have signed for in the first place. What can they afford? The minimum wage in Washington State is $8.55 per hour. Assuming 8 hours a day and four weeks per month, that gives a monthly gross income of $1,368. According to this calculator that I found, and given a flat 5% mortgage interest rate which might be unreasonably low, the monthly payment on the loan would be $383.04, and the affordable home amount is $72,353.31. I don't know any home in my area worth that little, or if it is would it be worth living in? I don't know.

If we adjusted home values to allow people to afford things like this, there might be a huge drop in home values, which is likely why the conservatives tried to lower the standards rather than increase wages or lower home values, which really should be a market rate in the first place.

So, what do we do?

The first thing we really need to do is establish a foundation, and then stand on principle. I believe that our standards for buying a home should be high. It's important, because we need stability. So let's start with these three principles:

1. 10% - 20% down payment on the loan.
2. Monthly payments should not be more than 33% of montly gross income.
3. The rate of the mortgage should be a flat rate for the life of the loan.

Here are the problems with these principles as I see it. Not very many people working today would be able to put forward 10-20%. Not many homes are a low enough value to allow people to limit their housing expense to 33% of their monthly income. And variable interest rates are popular to banks because the inter-bank loan rate is variable, allowing them to adjust things to fit circumstances so they can maintain their profit margin.

The solutions to these problems are actually pretty simple. Raise wages, both by increasing the minimum wage and by providing and encouraging jobs so that people can afford to save for a down payment and afford a better home. Stop using the Federal rate as a yo-yo to try and manage the economy. Instead, focus on building a solid foundation and then building on that foundation. The foundation of our country is a strong middle class, with good paying living wage jobs that last for years. It's a good education that opens doors of opportunities and expands industries into new technology and resource bases. Change our monetary policy to build an economy on a foundation of wealth instead of a foundation of debt.

Gee, where have we heard this before?

TWX Reverse Stock Split

2008-12-09T06:12:00.001-08:00

Got a proxyvote email this morning about the Time Warner (TWX) Board of Directors recommending a reverse stock split. Here's the proxy statement.

I voted yes. What the heck.

Dividend Record

2008-11-24T09:39:00.000-08:00

Ok, so the numbers aren't really high. But the direction of the graph is one that I like.

Money as Debt Video

2008-11-08T10:47:00.000-08:00

I just sold HPQ

2008-11-04T06:55:00.000-08:00

Not too bad of a total return over the entire investment, but it's only making 0.84% dividend return, and there are any number of investments that will do better, even in this market.

I've held the stock for around 7 years. This is the second time I have ever sold a stock. Now that I'm focused on dividend returns, it was time to cash out.

Hearing on Retirement Security

2008-10-20T06:48:00.000-07:00

Committee on Education and Labor Hearing, October 7th, 2008

This page includes the statements presented by the witnesses, and a video of the hearing itself.

A delightful quote

2008-10-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongan_pa%CA%BBanga

If money were made of iron and could be converted into knives, axes and chisels there would be some sense in placing a value on it; but as it is, I see none. If a man has more yams than he wants, let him exchange some of them away for pork. [...] Certainly money is much handier and more convenient but then, as it will not spoil by being kept, people will store it up instead of sharing it out as a chief ought to do, and thus become selfish. [...] I understand now very well what it is that makes the papālangi [white men] so selfish — it is this money!

The chief of Haʻapai, Fīnau ʻUlukālala

Federal Reserve research

2008-10-11T13:49:00.000-07:00

http://www2.fdic.gov/idasp/main.asp?formname=inst

I think it's time to buy. We haven't hit the bottom yet, I know. But if we wait for "the bottom", then the private capital investors with lots of spare pocket change will swoop in and claim "their share" of all of these companies.

Want to nationalize the Federal Reserve? Right now it is "owned" by 871 different banks around the country. I say buy shares in those banks and hold those shares hostage. Let the people, either through the government or as individuals, buy controlling interest in the Federal Reserve, or we buy controlling interest in the banks and do this the hard way.

Maybe I'm just raging against the machine...

Hit 'em where it hurts!

2008-09-04T06:10:00.000-07:00

Now this is what I'm talking about!

http://my.barackobama.com/page/speakout/advertisers

Contact companies advertising on these stations and tell them to take their money elsewhere.

Our online tool will help you share your voice.

Microplace, invest change for change

2008-08-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

Just found my way to Microplace, a website set up by Ebay to provide investment opportunities into the Microfinance financial industry. I hope this is the beginning of a huge change in how we invest for change. That's fantastic.

Steve Greenberg gets it right.

2008-08-12T06:02:00.000-07:00

(click here to view)

Steve Greenberg
Ventura County Star
Aug 2, 2008

EditorialCartoonists.com

Dividend research links

2008-08-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to peel back the layers of the onion, and I'm finding quite a few people who have been doing research on Dividends for a while. Here are a few links that I'd invite you to follow:

The DIV-Net

The Dividend Growth Investor

I will add more as I find them.

Warren Buffett

2008-08-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

Found a lecture by Warren Buffett that I wanted to keep handy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Ching. Ching. Ching.

2008-08-01T08:56:00.000-07:00

I've heard some people liken the concept of dividends like coins dropped onto a pile of money. Every three months, or every month for some, a little bit more change falls onto the pile.

I like to think of it like the hammer of a blacksmith, continually shaping the future, one strike at a time. The higher the dividend amount, the harder the strike, and the more stocks paying dividends, the more blacksmiths working. After enjoying reading the Elfquest saga over the last week or so, it's like I'm hearing the Trolls down in the depths of the mountain, pounding out their future with hammers, anvils and forges.

How many blacksmiths do you have working for you? Are they getting stronger? Are they training future blacksmiths to strike when the iron is hot?

T: $22.18. Holding the iron firm.

Open source investing

2008-07-24T16:11:00.000-07:00

I've just realized that I haven't really been that open with what I'm doing as far as my investments go. So here's a link to the Google Spreadsheet that I'm using to track my research into high dividend stocks. If you have questions, please comment on this post and I'll do my best to answer them.

Dividends

2008-07-23T17:04:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a way to focus my investments into the highest possible dividend yield, and just discovered that Sharebuilder has upgraded their Dividend Reinvestment abilities. We can now change how dividends and capital gains are reinvested down to the individual stocks. That's really cool.

The list I'm collecting has some stocks that are currently paying up to 40% yield. I don't have a lot of money to put into them, but the money I am putting in is growing fast. I'm also focusing on monthly dividend stocks so they compound faster. As long as I keep my eye on things, they'll be growing pretty fast.

Let me know if you want to know more.

Citadel Broadcasting, 2008

2008-04-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

Class II directors are up for reelection:

Michael J. Regan has been a Director of the Company since 2007. Mr. Regan (age 65) is a former Vice Chairman and Chief Administrative Officer of KPMG LLP and was the lead audit partner for many Fortune 500 companies during his 40 year tenure with KPMG. Mr. Regan is a member of the board of managers of Allied Security Holdings LLC and serves on its audit committee. He also is a director of Scientific Games Corporation and serves on its audit committee. Mr. Regan is a member of the Board of Trustees of Manhattan College.

Hard to narrow down on OpenSecrets, since it's a popular name. Approve.

Thomas V. Reifenheiser has been a Director since 2007. Mr. Reifenheiser (age 72) served as Managing Director and Group Executive for the Global Media and Telecom Group of Chase Securities Inc. (“Chase”) from 1977 until 2000. He joined Chase in 1963 and was the Global Media and Telecom Group Executive since 1977. Mr. Reifenheiser is a member of the board of directors and also serves as a member of the audit committee of Lamar Advertising Company, Mediacom Communications Corporation and Cablevision Systems Corporation.

Donates to Republicans. Deny

Herbert J. Siegel has been a Director since 2003. Mr. Siegel (age 79) was Chairman of the Board and President of Chris-Craft Industries, Inc. and Chairman of the Board of BHC Communications, Inc. until July 2001, when the two companies were acquired by The News Corporation Limited. Mr. Siegel was a senior advisor to The News Corporation Limited. He is currently a consultant to News America, Inc. Mr. Siegel is also a
director of IMG Worldwide Holdings Inc.

Donates to Republicans. Deny

Deloitte & Touche LLP: Approve

3M Proxy Votes

2008-04-12T10:52:00.000-07:00

2008 3M COMPANY Annual Meeting of Stockholders
MEETING DATE: May 13, 2008
For Holders as of: March 14, 2008

Research on OpenSecrets.org shows the following:

Linda G. Alvarado - Gives to mostly Democrats - Approve

George W. Buckley - 3M Co PAC only - Approve

Vance D. Coffman - Mixed, but Rep Senatorial Committee stands out. - Deny

Michael L. Eskew - All Republicans - Deny

W. James Farrell - Mixed. Ted Stevens and Dick Durbin? Interesting combination... - Deny

Herbert L. Henkel - 15K to RNC. - Deny

Edward M. Liddy - Donates to Hillary - Approve

Robert S. Morrison - Donated to Mark Kennedy (R) - Deny

Aulana L. Peters - Mixed, mostly D - Approve

Robert J. Ulrich - Massive Republican Donor - Deny

Mr Ulrich is a new nominee, and was the CEO of Target. I'm not interested in rewarding that anyway, but he has given 176 times, nearly all to Republicans and Republican PAC's for a total of $201,827. No thank you.

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as Auditor - Approve

Long-Term Incentive Plan - Approve

Pfizer, Inc. Annual Meeting - My Votes

2008-03-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

Dennis A. Ausiello
No records on OpenSecrets
Michael S. Brown
No records on OpenSecrets
M. Anthony Burns
No records on OpenSecrets
Robert N. Burt
No records on OpenSecrets
W. Don Cornwell
No records on OpenSecrets
William H. Gray III
John Kerry,
Constance J. Horner
No records on OpenSecrets
William R. Howell
No records on OpenSecrets
James M. Kilts
No records on OpenSecrets
Jeffrey B. Kindler
Mixed, mostly Democrats
George A. Lorch
No records on OpenSecrets
Dana G. Mead
No records on OpenSecrets
Suzanne Nora Johnson
No records on OpenSecrets
William C. Steere, Jr.
Mixed, mostly Republican

SHAREHOLDER PROPOSAL REGARDING STOCK OPTIONS
Voted against

SHAREHOLDER PROPOSAL REQUESTING SEPARATION OF CHAIRMAN AND CEO ROLES
Voted for

Veterans Family Fund

2008-02-25T07:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.veteransfamilyfund.org/

This is fantastic!

Friday, January 18, 2008

http://seattle.bizjournals.com/

With the goal of securing $300 million in deposits by the end of 2008, the Veterans Family Fund CD was conceived by Jane Jacobsen, a resident in Vancouver, Wash., with help from Mike Worthy, CEO of the Bank of Clark County. The two wanted a way to provide quick and flexible assistance for veterans in need of financial assistance.

Ideas from Dennis Baer

2007-10-11T16:51:00.000-07:00

Call GOP contributor and war contractor General Electric Corporation at 203 373 2211 and ask for the public relations department. Tell the person in public relations that you want the GE CEO to get Bush to end the war in Iraq and then Bush resign with Cheney and until that happens you will not buy any GE products and that you will tell your friends about this.

Call GOP contributor Rite Aid at 1-800-325-3737 and tell the person to get the CEO to get the GOP to enact HR 676 Single payer universal health care and repeal Medicare Part D and place the drug benefit in Medicare Part B covering 80% of drugs with no extra premiums, no extra deductibles, no means tests, no coverage gaps, and remove the means test for Medicare Part B and until that happens, you won't buy ANYTHING from Rite Aid.

Call GOP contributor Wendy's restaurants at 614 764-3553 and Tell the person in public relations that you want their CEO to get the GOP to help enact a $10/HR MIN. WAGE into law and until this happens you will not go to a Wendy's Restaurant.

Source: Email from "Dennis Baer"

I don't personally believe in the effectiveness of Boycotts, but then again who knows. I think the more people do, the better.

Shared Debt Relief

2007-07-14T20:23:00.000-07:00

Made a new connection today.

http://shareddebtrelief.com/

Still getting a picture of what their plans are, but the articles written by Stephanie Wilkinson jive well with what I've been reading elsewhere.

A missing piece of Savings

2007-04-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

I'm reading through the works of Gene Sperling, and he keeps talking about providing incentives for lower income workers to save, either through a Universal 401K, or tax code changes, or whatever. It all sounds great, but it's missing an important element.

We can't, through changes in law, require individual savings. It's not that we couldn't pass a law requiring people to save some money, it's just that a law like that would cause a lot of ugly political consequences. Who wants to be the candidate for reelection who says "I voted for the bill that took 10% of your money away from you."

That doesn't work, and there's a better way.

While we can't have direct effect on the behavior of individuals, we can pass laws that affect how our government works. There has been a Balanced Budget Amendment introduced in Congress for years, if not decades. It's an idea that makes sense, and the last several years of the Clinton Administration shows what a budget written in balance can do. We were on track not just to pay down the National Debt, currently 8.9 Trillion Dollars, but to pay it off. This is a debt that exploded under Reagan and Bush I, and Bush II has reversed the positive direction that we had started to move.

So, why is a balanced budget so important? Because we owe money to other countries, and we have to pay interest on that money every year, regardless of anything else. Add that interest to the fixed expenses of Social Security, Medicare, and all the other promises that the Government has made, and we're heading towards a downward spiral that we won't be able to get out of.

Here's my spin. I don't think Balanced Budgets are the answer. They're not enough. We didn't pay down the Debt under Clinton by having Balanced Budgets, we paid it down by having a Budget Surplus. That's the key.

If we could require a 1-10% budget surplus at the Federal level every year, we would be able to start to pay down the debt that we have, and after a few years (or decades since we're so far in the hole), we would start having extra money. Before people start crying for tax cuts, I have a different idea. Wouldn't it be better to put that money to use in our overall economy?

Here's an even larger picture. If every level of government, from Federal down through States, Counties and Cities, were required to have a 1-10% budget surplus, all of them could start to pay down their debts and start putting money aside. For my own city of Seattle, the extra revenue could be put into local banks, and made available to businesses and home buyers as low interest and fixed rate loans. The interest earned from those loans would be made available to the city in the next budget cycle as part of the general fund, and that extra money would justify a reduction in taxes.

There are 50 states. Washington has 39 counties. Each county has several dozen cities. We're talking big bucks, and it's time we started using that money to help ourselves and rebuild our infrastructure. Building our civilization on a foundation of Debt is destroying us a little at a time. Building on a foundation of wealth has long term positive consequences for us and our children's future. I think it's a better course.

Sallie Mae buyout

2007-04-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

Sallie Mae agrees to $25B takeover

I found this really troublesome. It says that we won't see changes in how the loans are handled or paid, but how do we know that will stay true? If you're a shareholder in Sallie Mae, I would vote against this deal. It's not about the money, it's about keeping institutions like this out of the hands of private sector people that only care about the money. Which is more important, after all? Are we only out to make a buck, or do we actually care about how much debt we are putting on our kids?

Disclaimer, I am paying off a student loan to Sallie Mae, so I have a personal stake in this. Do I own Sallie Mae stock? No. I can't own everything.

Research notes on Washington State Savings Plan

2007-04-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003598128_spitzer05.html

CEO Homes linked to stock performance

2007-04-11T06:22:00.000-07:00

This was an interesting article. Anyone in the market for a mansion?

When your CEO buys a megamansion, is it time to dump stock?

Capitalism is sooo 20th Century

2007-04-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

http://kuow.org/programs/theconversation.asp?Archive=04-10

Scroll to the 45:00 mark and listen to my talk with Ross from KUOW.

City of Seattle Micro Bonds

2007-04-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

I made an inquiry of Seattle City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen about the possibility of having the city offer municipal bonds at lower denominations than $5,000. He sent the question to Dwight Dively, the city's Director of Finance.

Tom, we tried this about 12 years ago. Several other nearby jurisdictions had issued what are called "minibonds" in denominations of $500 or $1000, so we tried it with a City Light issue. The theory was that citizens and employees would want to buy these bonds. It turned out that there was almost no interest in these bonds. Further, they require a significant administrative expense because they aren't managed through the usual municipal bond process, which is administered through the Bank of New York. City Light incurred substantial administrative costs for a relatively small amount of bonds. So, our experience suggests this just isn't worth it. Please let me know if you have other thoughts. Thanks.

Here is my response:

Thanks for the voice of experience. I pretty much expected that the administrative costs of such an enterprise would limit the effectiveness. The problem is that just like almost nobody has $5,000 to put into an investment, not many more people have $1,000 or even $500. $1,000 is a mortgage payment. $500 is a car payment. $100 is groceries for a week. $50 is a dinner out. $25 is an amount that people can spare. Until we can figure out a way to enable people to put down as little as $25 for a community investment, the interest won't be there from the general public.

What we did not have 12 years ago was the Internet. We didn't have online banking institutions like PayPal and Sharebuilder, each of which have $25 minimum investments. We didn't have Citigroup or Bank of America having market capitalizations above $200 Billion. And we didn't have a negative national savings rate. We were just starting to launch the Internet, and everyone was after 10% returns. It makes sense that the administrative costs at that point were prohibitive for micro-bonds.

But new ideas are the only way that we are going to dig our way out of the mess that we are in. If it's not worth the investment for the Bank of New York, maybe it would be something that Google.org would look at. The online financial services are trying to figure out a way to enable efficient transactions of $25 or less. How many of them would jump at the chance to create an investment vehicle for people to put in $25 or more? All I can do is ask, and hope that I can find someone who shares my vision. I'm tired of watching my city and my country build a foundation of debt. I'd rather watch, and help, as we build a foundation of wealth instead.

I don't know if that sounds too much like a soapbox article or not, but I have real concerns that we're headed towards a financial meltdown at a global level, and that the only way to stem the tide is to start saving money at an individual level.

I've started to work on a presentation that outlines the issue and what I think the solution is. I guess I was inspired by Al Gore. And now that I have a laptop, I can work on it at any time.

PS, is anyone watching this blog? Please let me know. Dialoge is always better than an echo chamber.

Review of Capitalism 3.0

2006-11-30T19:54:00.000-08:00

Ok, I've finished reading the book by Peter Barnes, and I really think he's on to something.

First, the website link:

http://onthecommons.org/

This is a collaborative website between Peter are a few other authors on similar subjects, all focused on getting people's attention to the commons and our need to safeguard it and protect it.

The site is a project of the Tomales Bay Institute, a search for which came up with a whole bunch of interesting links, especially this one! I'll have to check those out a bit later.

Ok, back to the book. The core concept is that we need to establish property rights for the commons, and put trusts on par with corporations that would balance the needs of future generations and all life on earth with the corporation's need for profits. He cites the Alaska Permanent Fund as an example, and suggests that similar funds could be set up in other states, at a national level, and even global for something like the ocean.

I'm hoping that the book will be translated into Spanish so the new leaders in Latin America can try out the ideas down there.

Community Investment Trust

2006-11-17T20:21:00.000-08:00

I'm almost done with Peter's book, but I just had something come to mind that I need to get down.

A Community Investment Trust would be a way to start building what I'm foreseeing as the future. The Trust would be open for people to invest in, and part of the interest would go to a charity of their choice within the community. The principle would always grow, and the more people that invested, the better.

Capitalism 3.0

2006-11-14T08:25:00.000-08:00

There's a new book out by Peter Barnes, "Capitalism 3.0". Peter is the co-founder of Working Assets, and his thesis is that we need to upgrade our economic operating system to incorporate the concept of the commons. Just started reading it, but it sounds really good.

Find it here.

I'll post a review when I'm done with the book. And if anyone has contact information for Peter, please let me know.

Donation Certificates II

2006-11-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

This is an idea that I've been working on for a while. The core concept is that we should be building our civilization on a foundation of wealth instead of a foundation of debt.

The idea behind Capitalism is that capital is made available by people who have it to those that need it. That usually comes with a price. That price is interest rates. If you borrow money from a bank, they will charge you interest on that debt. If you have money in the bank, they pay you an interest on that wealth, because they can offer that money to other people in the form of loans. That is the basic concept behind banking.

There's nothing wrong with that, except that the people who have money are getting more benefit than the people actually using that money to improve our lives. The current system of borrow and spend, then pay back with interest does only one thing. It consolidates the wealth of our economy into the hands of those with the money.

That means it consolidates the power into the hands of those with money. And that's against everything that the United States stands for.

I believe that our growing economy should be the funding source for our charities while at the same time providing a steadily growing source of financial security for our future. Social Security was never meant to be a savings program. It's an insurance program for those who need a boost. If we don't need it, we should leave it to those people who do.

If you open a high yield savings account, you can get interest on that money. Let's use 4% for our examples. My idea is to split that return in half. 2% would build the balance of the account, and 2% would go to a charity or cause that you support. That's the core concept.

A charity could sell bonds and handle the account. You would buy the bonds, and they would put the money into an account earning 4%, and each month when the bank paid interest on the account, half of that interest would be available to the charity to fund their programs. So, if you buy $100.00 worth of bonds, at the end of the year you will have $102, with $2 going to the charity. Doesn't sound like much? What if you buy $1,000 worth. At the end of the year, you will have $1,020, and $20 will go to fund the charity. $20 per year is a standard annual membership fee for many non-profit organizations. Get some friends to also buy some bonds, and the account balance goes up. And with many banks, the higher the balance, the higher the interest rate they will be willing to pay, because it means that they have more money to lend out at 10% to people buying homes or financing a business venture.

President Eisenhower said it this way:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

What the President was leaving out was the fact that investment in infrastructure, be it a school, a power plant, a highway or a hospital, provides the community with value for years or decades into the future, but spending it on a bomb means that as soon as that bomb explodes, that money is gone. And since there is no purpose to building a bomb except for it to explode, even building the bomb is a waste of the money when compared to other potential uses. And it must be said that the money goes to the military contractors.

I'm not saying that we should not have a military. I'm saying that we should understand the true cost of what we are putting our money towards. If it is still worth that cost, so be it.

In finance, a similar principle can be cited. Every dollar that goes directly to a charity goes to do good work. But the money once given is gone. With our economy building the way it is, there is a better way. With Donation Savings accounts and Non-Profit Bonds, the main advantage to the donor is that the amount of money never goes down. Nobody loses money. It's an investment that always grows and never loses value.

This is not going to replace direct donations. Many charities have budgets of a million dollars or more. To get that from a 4% Interest rate would take an account balance of $50 million dollars. While this might not be impossible for someone like Bill Gates, it's still a heck of a lot of money. And in order to be comfortable with that amount of money "just sitting in the bank" will take a major adjustment in our attitudes about money and a better cultural understanding of the entire monetary system.

However, considering the money that we raise for nationwide political campaigns, $50 each from one million people doesn't seem that impossible anymore.

Please download my PowerPoint presentation and send me feedback. You can also view the presentation on this website.

Please send me feedback. I need help to get this off the ground.

And to those who are reading this wondering why I'm working on this 2 days before V-Day, I've actually been working on it for months. I just finally had the time to put it together and post it.

New presentation for Donation Certificates

2006-10-29T12:58:00.000-08:00

I've finished putting together a basic presentation on my idea for Donation Certificates. You can view the slides here.

Please post comments here or send me emails. I'd like feedback on the idea, and help setting this up.

Question "Socially Responsible Investing"

2006-09-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

Got a post on the Northwest Progressive Community listserv.

I don't invest through mutual funds, mostly because I can't afford the minumum investment requirements for most of them. The only exception is within my 401K, but I don't have that many options there.

What I do instead is invest directly in stocks as a micro-investor. Sharebuilder.com makes that cheap and easy. There are other online investing companies as well, but sharebuilder has the lowest cost and lowest minimums. I currently have around $7,000 in their accounts.

I've always had a problem with socially responsible investing. My own reason is that it leaves the high-dividend, questionable ethics stocks in the hands of people who literally don't care about the environment, don't care about the middle class, and are willing to destroy the future in order to achieve immediate financial gains.

I strongly feel that we need to redistribute the wealth of our nation, and that a change like that must come from the bottom up. We have to put dividends into the hands of the people who will do something constructive and positive with the money, not just move it to offshore tax havens.

I can go on and on about this.

Here's an article that tells the story about SRI Funds.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_2415.cfm

Learn more at Paul Hawken's group, the Natural Capital Institute

http://www.naturalcapital.org/

Let's fix the savings rate in this country

2006-08-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

I've started sending out the following letter to Bank Presidents in Washington State.

Dear Bank President,

I am very concerned with the Savings Rate in the United States. I heard recently that the people of the US have had a negative savings rate for the past 15 months. I'm hoping that you can help me find a way to fix that, because I believe that it is damaging to our economy.

I also get calls every single day from charities asking for a donation, and most of them tell me that it is getting harder and harder for them to meet their budgets and keep their promises. But I don't make enough money myself to both save and help fund the charities that our communities depend on. So I'm looking for a way to do both at the same time. I am searching the banking industry in Washington State for a financial product that will meet my needs.

I would like to open a savings account where the interest paid each month would be split in half, with half going back toward the account balance and half being sent by the bank to a charity of my choice.

Do you have a product or service that would be close to what I am searching for? What kind of account balance would be necessary for you to be willing to justify the administrative costs?

If I can find a bank that would provide the service of setting up and managing an account of this nature, I would do everything possible to promote its growth in the banking service market.

Please contact me with any questions about this quest.

Chad Lupkes
Seattle, Washington

You can find the list of banks that I'm contacting here.

SpaceDev Recommendations

2006-07-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

After doing the research, I voted as follows:

MARK N. SIRANGELO You Voted: For

JAMES W. BENSON You Voted: Withhold

RICHARD B. SLANSKY You Voted: For

CURT DEAN BLAKE You Voted: For

GEN. H.M. ESTES, III You Voted: For

WESLEY T. HUNTRESS You Voted: For

SCOTT MCCLENDON You Voted: Withhold

ROBERT S. WALKER You Voted: Withhold

SCOTT TIBBITTS You Voted: For

$865MM IN CEO COMPENSATION WHILE SHAREHOLDERS SUFFER $640BN IN LOSSES

2006-06-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

The Corporate Library study – Pay for Failure: The Compensation Committees Responsible – highlights 11 of the largest companies in the U.S. that combined high levels of CEO compensation and poor performance over the past five years.

Portland, Maine, March 31, 2006 – A newly released study by The Corporate Library ("TCL") of executive incentive compensation practices finds that the gap between pay and performance over the past five years is most pronounced at 11 of the largest U.S. companies. At the 11 companies in the study, Pay for Failure: The Compensation Committees Responsible, The Corporate Library found that compensation committees authorized a total of $865 million in pay to CEOs who presided over an aggregate loss of $640 billion in shareholder value. The 11 companies are some of the biggest household names in Corporate America. They are:

AT&T Inc. (T)
BellSouth Corporation (BLS)
Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ)
Home Depot, Inc. (The) (HD)
Lucent Technologies Inc. (LU)
Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK)
Pfizer Inc. (PFE)
Safeway Inc. (SWY)
Time Warner Inc. (TWX)
Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ)
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT)

Each of the 11 companies: received a high risk rating from The Corporate Library; paid their CEOs in excess of $15MM in the last two available fiscal years; had a negative return to stockholders over the last five years; and underperformed their peers over the same period. “Our research shows that the link between long-term value growth and long-term incentive awards is broken at too many companies – if it was ever forged properly in the first place,” says one of the report’s authors, TCL Senior Research Associate Paul Hodgson.

The study examines in detail the incentive policies at each of the 11 companies; finding high proportions of fixed pay, poorly chosen performance metrics, and rewards for below median performance. The report also looks at the make-up of the compensation committees at the companies, listing the members by name, along with their compensation. The report also gives examples of Pay for Success compensation.

The full report is available from www.thecorporatelibrary.com for $150.

About The Corporate Library, LLC

The Corporate Library, headquartered in Portland, ME, is the leading resource for independent corporate governance and compensation information and analysis of U.S. top corporations. Founded in 1999, it continues to be the authority on corporate governance matters, as evidenced by the frequency with which key media, business and government leaders seek its unique insight and objective perspectives. Additional information on The Corporate Library and its suite of online corporate governance data and analysis products can be found on its website at www.thecorporatelibrary.com.

Contact:

Melanie Whittier
Media Relations, The Corporate Library
mwhittier@thecorporatelibrary.com
207 874-6921

Reward Qwest!

2006-05-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

When an elected official does something right, we reward them. If that official is a candidate, one way that we reward them is by sending donations their way.

Corporations are not the enemy by default. Abuse of power is the problem that progressives are fighting against. So, when a corporation does something right, they deserve a reward.

Qwest has consistently refused to turn over phone records to the NSA. Good on them! I think they need a reward, and the best reward they can get is for us to buy their stock. (NYSE:Q). Right now, the price is $6.42, and it's been depressed since 2001. Maybe this was a stock price based attack by the rest of the market, I don't know.

If you buy stock on a regular basis, consider sending a message to Qwest that we appreciate their resistance against the Bush administration.

--
Chad Lupkes
Democracy for Wall Street

Economists must learn to subtract

2006-05-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on changing institutions

2006-05-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

Fundamentally, there are two ways to change an institution. You can choose to either make changes from the inside, or mandate changes from the outside. Situations determine which of these is more effective. For corporations, because they are chartered and under the control of the states, changes in the law to force changes from the outside may be more long term. Changing them from the inside usually requires maintaining our value system while moving up the ranks giving the illusions of their value system. It's something I considered, and decided against. The only other option for changing from the inside is becoming a majority shareholder and putting individuals on the Board of Directors that will put human needs first. But the Republican Congress have changed the federal laws managed by the SEC to deny shareholder resolutions and board candidates from even getting on the ballot.

Unlike a lot of people in my circles, I don't fundamentally object to the concept of wealth and power. What I object to is the abuse of that position of wealth and the abuse of power. Both of these should be scrutinized and perpetrators prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I don't care how much money someone makes, because money is a man-made illusion. I have no objection to capitalism, but it doesn't work for everyone. Any distribution system for goods and services should have as a mandate that everyone receive their basic needs. Like I said yesterday, when everyone has "enough" to survive, all of us will have more than we can possibly imagine. That's not Socialism in my opinion. Everything would still cost money, but we would recognize money for the illusion that it is. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That should be the goal. Right now we are on a quest for survival, security and the struggle for basic needs. How much better could we be doing if we really focused on our goals instead of our distractions?

Project Update

2006-04-27T17:58:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

Ok, I had my meeting with Sue Donaldson of the Washington Appleseed Foundation on April 18th, and we went over the PowerPoint presentation that I've developed so far.

Sue recommended that I get in touch with Homestreet Bank. And she was willing to make an introduction. She also suggested that I do some research on the Community Reinvestment Act.

Also, just found this article about shareholders taking their ownership seriously in the Puget Sound Business Journal. It's from 2004, and I'll try and find out what the status of the proposed SEC rule is.

3M Recommendations

2006-04-02T00:06:00.000-08:00

I just posted my 3M recommendations for their 2006 Annual Meeting. Comments welcome, as always.

Project Update

2006-03-31T11:32:00.000-08:00

The good news is that the idea caught the attention of some people in Rep. Jim McDermott’s office. One of his chiefs of staff, Damian Cordova, is interested in hearing more as I develop the idea, and might be interested in a meeting sometime.

I have an appointment with Sue Donaldson of the Washington Appleseed Foundation on April 18th. I hope I’ll be able to get some good questions and maybe work out some answers. I have a feeling this is going to take a lot more of my time as we get going.

Some of the questions that have come up:

How is this different from a normal savings account?
Who has Fiduciary Responsibility?
What is the Federal Government component that might need legislation?

Any ideas?

Good places for your money

2006-03-28T11:48:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of places that I've found that enable Socially Responsible Investing.

Rudolf Steiner Foundation

Please contact me if you know of something that should be on this list!

End Corporate Personhood

2006-03-27T08:55:00.000-08:00

This is a collection of links for groups that are working on ending the tyranny of Corporate Personhood.

New Jersey Untouchables

Texas Instruments Recommendations

2006-03-19T21:04:00.000-08:00

Texas Instruments will be having their annual meeting on April 20th, 2006. You can view my recommendations here.

Privatizing Welfare

2006-03-15T11:40:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Karen Backman for sending this article to Democracy for Washington from the Wall Street Journal:

Privatize the Welfare State, by HOWARD HUSOCK

This is a really interesting article, from a high powered advocate of changing the current system of social funding into a market driven system of private charities. There are several assumptions that Mr. Husock has made when writing this article, and quite a few questions that I have that I would like to put on the table.

It is not a certainty that “the federal government will continue to devote billions to activities known as ‘social services.’” Starting the article with that assumption shows how far away from reality the author is. The Conservatives in the Republican Party have been working hard to eliminate the social services funding that so many people in our country depend on. I don’t want to say that they want to eliminate the actual services, just the funding coming from the government. Never mind that the Constitution says it is one of the purposes of the Federal Government to ‘promote the general Welfare’.

Mr Husock refers to ‘robust public debate’ about ‘whether … parts of the New Deal legacy still make sense’. What are the positions in this debate? He doesn’t say.

Then he goes into ‘a historic confluence of circumstances’. The wave of charitable giving forgets the fact that the Baby Boomer generation is defined by it’s own watchers as the most selfish generation in history. Consumerism runs rampant, and has since the phrase ‘keep up with the Jones’ came into our lexicon. TV puts thousands of advertisements in front of our eyes on a daily basis. In the movie “Good Night, and Good Luck”, the Aluminum and Tobacco industry commercials were real. That’s how the news media was funded in the 1950’s, and the only thing that has changed since is that the corporations now own the media outlets themselves outright. Another assumption that he is presenting is that the Federal Government will be for the foreseeable future just as incompetent and unable to be responsible with the public money as it has over the last 5 years. I have to agree. As long as the Republican party is allowed to stay in power, that will be true. Remember, Cheney has said openly that “Reagan showed us that deficits don’t matter”. We knew that was false when he said it, and we’re seeing the results.

Then he comes to the concept of a new generation of social entrepreneurs. This I strongly agree with. But the question he’s not asking is why. Here’s my take. I think the non-profit industry is seeing a massive upsurge because we see the generation after the Boomers coming to terms with the fact that without this upsurge this country won’t be worth living in. Let me put it another way. The youth, meaning the children of the Boomers like me in Generation X, are seeing that the Federal Government has failed us. This administration is not keeping the promises set forward by the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. They have been fighting against the policies of social responsibility since FDR's administration put them forward in the 1930's. And they have arranged the current political system such that we (GenX) are unable to gain access to the political process enough to be able to try and fix what we see as wrong. Paul Hackett. Debi Golden. How many others?

I'm not attacking the Boomers. I'm asking you to take a look at the world that your generation has created, and judge for yourself if that world is something you are proud of. And I'm asking you to join Generation X to fix this mess.

Let me give a personal example. I am saving money for my future. I’m saving as much as I possibly can, to the detriment of my life today. Why? Because I don’t think that Social Security will be there for me when I need it. Because I can’t trust my government to keep it’s promises. Twist that any way you wish, but that’s the way I feel. I’m going to fight until the end of time to fix the system, from within the political process and from without, but I feel so powerless politically I’m having to do everything possible to protect my own foundation. And that prevents me from donating to any of the charities and political efforts that contact me every single day, either by phone, letter or email. How many others are in my position? Too many.

So, this is a massive influx of non-profit effort, funded by the Boomers who suddenly have all their retirement benefits that corporations are trying to steal, and managed by a generation of people who are tired of seeing their civil society being destroyed by that theft.

This is something to be proud of? I don’t think so.

Taking on The Free Enterprise Action Fund

2006-03-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

I just found this when doing a search for 'social activist investment' in Google.

http://www.freeenterpriseactionfund.com/about.html

Well, well. This reminds me of the Powell Memo.

"Business is under attack, run for the hills and plan your strategy for the next 30 years on how to take back this country!" - paraphrased of course.

Give me a break. These people may have a clue on how to put together a financial organization and buy some stock, but that's about it. They don't know what the Constitution says, they don't know the vision put forward by Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, and I'll venture to say that they don't understand what Adam Smith wrote in 1776. I haven't read the book "Wealth of Nations" myself yet, but it's on my list. What I do know about the book is that it is an Academic work about Economic Theory, and it flies in the face of where the current US economy is going.

So, I want to address some of the accusations that are put forward on that page. Let's see what I can come up with here.

"Left-wing social and political activists are harnessing the power, resources and influence of publicly-owned corporations to advance their social and political agendas. (1) Frustrated by their failure to advance their agendas in the public political process, these activists use capitalism against capitalism under the guise of “corporate social responsibility” and “socially responsible investing.” (2) Their movement threatens shareholder value and the American system of free enterprise."

How can we not?! It's been working wonderfully for the Conservative Movement since the late 1960's, and at that point in time they were just as frustrated as we are now. It's actually the concept of "socially responsible investing" that I'm also worried about, but for different reasons. I don't think we help our causes at all by letting the money being collected by the Oil companies and the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex continue to go into the hands of a small number of people, which is what is happening now. All companies should be investment targets, not just the ones that we like. What's the point of having 13% of the investment market if we're letting some companies get away with murder?! Literally!! What do you think Iraq is? It's murder as far as I'm concerned, but we let the oil companies and arms manufacturers get away with it and have their shareholders get all the profits because we're too 'good' to touch their stocks! I think it's critical to invest in these companies, because otherwise we have no control at all, and no voice in anything that they are doing.

Hmm, the minimum investment in their fund is $1,000 with subsequent investments at $250. Not as bad as many of the other funds that I've looked at, but still, who among the people on the street can pull $1,000 out of their savings account to put into ANY investment.

I digress...

Our Core Principle. “The social responsibility of a business is to increase its profits.” [Milton Friedman Winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Economics]

I think there is a Supreme Court case that put this into our legal framework as well. Ok, fine. So our businesses are supposed to earn the profits and grow the economy. And then what? What do the owners do with their money? Are they donating to causes that need money? I keep hearing people talking in support of free enterprise and against government funding to social programs that if the need is really there, the money will be there because good people will donate. I'm calling that total BS. I get calls every single day from charities that are begging for money to stay in operation. There are dozens of charities within 5 miles of where I live that are struggling. The Portland Rescue Mission chairity is having to scale back operations because the money is not there. So where are the owners of Exxon-Mobil or Haliburton? They're moving their corporate headquarters overseas so they DON'T HAVE TO PAY TAXES, and hoarding their money in off-shore bank accounts where the interest isn't taxed either. They don't give a damn about the charities that our people need, sometimes to survive.

What actions will the Fund take?

Engaging corporate managements.

Using the media.

Marshalling support for Fund activism.

There's more, but why bother. They are doing the same thing that people have done since the beginning, advocating for their ideological position and for an increase in their financial return. Yeah, so? Are they saying that they should be able to do this while those of us in the Social Responsibile Investment community do not? To bad they don't have any means of making that threat a reality. What are they going to do, encourage companies to take their stocks off the market? Or refuse any and all shareholder resolutions? Clamp down on media outlets that advertise SRI funds? They can't. Because if they do these things, they're preventing themselves from continuing their own activities.

However, here is something I somewhat agree with them on:

We believe that social activist investors and anti-business activists threaten shareholder value and the American system of free enterprise.

I'm not against business. I fully support the capitalist system of economics. Capitalism is a method of the distribution of goods and services that uses capital and the collection of capital in order to get things done. There's nothing wrong with that until someone comes along and tries to say that because they have lots of money, their voice should be heard above those that don't have the same amount of money in the political arena. So, those shareholders who hold a majority in the stock of a company are right now pushing these business managers and CEO's to ignore their own best interest and pollute the air, water and airwaves with poison. And if the "social responsibility" of a company is to make money, then they most certainly are threatening shareholder value and the American system of free enterprise", because they are pissing off the people who work for these companies beyond the breaking point.

There should be a wall between Wall Street and the State that is as high as the wall between Church and State.

I don't want to move towards Socialism or Communism. I like the fact that if I have an idea for a business, I have the opportunity start a business and try and sell that product or service in the market. What I don't like is that unless I have the money to pay for the advertising needed to get the word out about my product or service, big corporations can quickly come out with similar or even the same product or service and steal my thunder. And they can pay the dividends that go into the pockets of their shareholders that support certain candidates for political office who will write and pass laws that ALLOW THESE COMPANIES TO GET AWAY WITH IT!

So this is quite the post. Here's the bottom line:

If it is the responsibility of a business to make money for their shareholders, it is the responsibility of the public to become those shareholders so we can make sure that the profits being made are going towards causes that we support. And that's what I'm preaching. Let the companies make all the money they want until we can get the laws changed. Just make sure that you are gaining a benefit from that money in the big picture. If you want your air and water polluted, then let them continue to do business like they have been. If you want to make a change, it's up to us. We have the power to turn things around in this country, and in this economy. And nobody can take that power away without taking away their own power.

Dear National Space Society,

2006-03-06T18:43:00.000-08:00

I have been a member of the NSS for several years, but this year I just can't afford it. I received my 'final reminder' letter today, and I responded by email. Here is what I sent to them:

Dear National Space Society,

I just received my last reminder letter from Buzz Aldrin, and I wanted to reply on why I am not renewing my membership. To be completely candid, I just don't have the money. I can't afford $60, I can't afford $30, I can't afford $5. I am starting to break into tears whenever I get another donation request through the mail or over the phone, because every single charity that I am aware of deserves all the money that they are asking for to fund your educational programs, their medical research and whatever else a charity might be asking for.

Please tell Mr. Aldrin that is why I have not renewed my membership in the NSS. I fully support what you are doing and what you stand for. You have done nothing wrong.

Thank you for everything that you do in support of a positive future for our children. Please don't give up, and don't quit. Neither will I.

---

Here is what I decided not to send to them:

I blame George Bush for this disaster, along with all the others that he has had happen on his watch. The Conservative fools in power are not Republicans, and they are destroying the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, while at the same time working hard to destroy the Democratic Party of Thomas Jefferson and John Kennedy. These destroyers are constantly telling people that the market will provide for people and the charities that people depend on, and that the rich people will step forward and make the donations that are necessary. This is a flat out lie, and they know it is a lie, and they do not care.

I am spending every waking moment, every dime I have and every breath in my body trying to rid this country of these people and their ideology.

---

One last thought on this. I do believe the market will provide for the needs of our charities and our people. It will be able to do that when we have taken it back from the people who have stolen it from us.

Donation Certificates

2006-03-02T13:13:00.000-08:00

Problem: Our 501(c)3 organizations, especially progressives ones, are constantly lacking in operating funds, and are constantly begging for money to keep afloat and fund their initiatives.

Problem: Our national savings rate is the lowest it has been since the Great Depression. People are pulling money out of their equity, taking out unsecured loans, living on credit cards and not preparing for the future. At the same time, Social Security is under attack by people who want to shut the entire system down by privatizing it. SSI should not be the only resource that people count on to pay for retirement at any time, and especially when the conservatives are trying to destroy it.

Problem: The American People no longer own our own country. From the ports being sold to Dubai to the massive list of companies on economyincrisis.org, we are watching the ownership of our infrastructure being transfered to private corporations that are unaccountable to the people.

Solution to all three of these problems:

I want to create an investment method where people put money into a savings program by buying bonds or what I call "Donation Certificates". The money would go into an account that earns interest in a local bank, and each person that buys a certificate increases the money in that account. Each month when the bank pays the interest on that account, the returned interest is split in half, with half going back into the account and the other half going to the charity. The more people that buy the certificates, the more money we will have to earn interest on.

Now, I call these bonds because they are redeemable. If someone purchases a $100 certificate, they would be able to come back after 5 or 10 years and cash it in. The value of the certificate would increase based on half the interest rate the account earns. It wouldn't be as much as if they had put the money into an account by themselves without making any donations with it, but with so many organizations to donate to, it would be good for people to know that their money is going to help provide for the charities they care about.

I need help looking at the numbers and figureing out how to create this kind of funding stream. I'm thinking a 501(c)3, but the accounts would be making a profit, selling certificates, etc. So a for-profit company might be a better choice. But I don't know enough about the law to know how to do this.

If you know anyone who might be able to help me create this, please let me know. I want to turn charity fundraising on its head with a brand new idea that encourages people to save and puts people into the mindset that they are owners of the future of their society.

Chad Lupkes
chadlupkes@gmail.com

Copyrights are giving me a headache

2006-03-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

This is something I just posted on Wikipedia, and I wanted to post it here as well:

I thought the fundamental purpose of a copyright was to prevent other individuals from making a profit on content that I create. If I want to copy something from a website to Wikipedia, like information about the CEO's and Board of Directors of publically owned corporations, I'm not making any money on it, Wikipedia is not making any money on it, and the company I'm getting the information from is not losing any money from it. If people don't want any information about you on the web, don't become a member of the board of directors of a public company, or a politician, or an artist, or whatever. And to relate this to Google, if their indexer can find information and not get in trouble for copying it into their search results, why would Wikipedia get in trouble for grabbing the information and creating links to it and from it to other articles on the site? We're putting up walls and protections to protect things that have no financial value, but have tremendous civil and social value if they are shared information. What's the point?!

Social Security: The Poison Pill

2006-02-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

President Bush's 2007 budget proposal includes funding for a Social Security privatization plan.

"His plan would let people set up private accounts starting in 2010 and would divert more than $700 billion of Social Security tax revenues to pay for them over the first seven years. ... Unlike Bush's generalized privatization talk of last year, we're now talking detailed numbers. On page 321 of the budget proposal, you see the privatization costs: $24.182 billion in fiscal 2010, $57.429 billion in fiscal 2011 and another $630.533 billion for the five years after that, for a seven-year total of $712.144 billion." - Newsweek

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11235990/site/newsweek/

Something else I found interesting:

"Bush also wants to change the way Social Security benefits are calculated for most people by adopting so-called progressive indexing. Lower-income people would continue to have their Social Security benefits tied to wages, but the benefits paid to higher-paid people would be tied to inflation.

"Wages have typically risen 1.1 percent a year more than inflation, so over time, that disparity would give lower-paid and higher-paid people essentially the same benefit. However, higher-paid workers would be paying substantially more into the system than lower-paid people would."
What this doesn't say is that wages are something that can be kept under control by the corporate libertarians, while inflation is out of their control. And the minimum wage is something the Conservatives want to eliminate so they can pay people even lower wages. And don't forget that the coming financial situation thanks to $8 Trillion in deficits will raise inflation, thereby giving higher-paid people a steady increase in benefits while leaving our grandparents and the poor out on the street. Maybe a better plan would be to tie lower-wage benefits to the cost of living, while tying higher-wage benefits to the minimum wage. That would be an incentive for future administrations to raise the minimum wage.

The Conservatives want that $712 Billion for Wall Street. And this plan in the budget bill is their poison pill for the American people. So it's time to introduce our own poison pill.

I'm making a pledge right now that every dollar that I can spare will be going towards private investment into stocks that pay a high dividend, like Haliburton and GM. Half of those dividend checks that I get back will be going to progressive think tanks like the Center for American Progress or the Institute for Washington's Future. The other half of those dividends will be reinvested back into the stocks it came from, giving me a growing collection of stocks. This is basically what they've been doing for 30+ years in support of the Heritage Foundation and 80 other thinktanks that push their schemes to destroy this country.

So, for example, if I invest in WalMart stock, half of the dividend will go to Wake Up Walmart. If I purchase GM or Ford, half will be going to the United Auto Workers. If I buy ExxonMobil, half will be going to the Sierra Club or Greenpeace. If I buy News Corp, half of the dividend will be going to Media Matters for America.

That's my poison pill that I'm shoving down the throat of the corporate libertarians. The more money they are able to steal from public money to go into private hands, the bigger the stock dividends will be, and the more money I'll be able to make available to build a strong progressive infrastructure. And I invite everyone who can afford $10 per month to join me.

It's time to fight back, with every tool at our disposal. They have designed the global financial system to make them money. It's time we took some of that money back and put it towards a positive future.

How to vote Blue on Walt Disney Stocks

2006-01-15T21:51:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I posted a recommendation, but I just finished voting my Disney shares. You can read my recommendations on Democracy for Wall Street.

I'm hearing that Corporations want to know who their shareholders are so they can head shareholder resolutions off before they really get started. Well, everyone in Washington State knows who I am, so if they have any questions, they can call me.

Chad

Another article to read

2006-01-03T10:13:00.000-08:00

David Sirota as another piece that we need to read.

NY Times Article of note

2006-01-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

December 9, 2005
Do Companies Need a Little Democracy?
By FLOYD NORRIS

FOUR years after Enron's bankruptcy shocked investors - and revealed that there was almost nothing there once the lies were stripped away - reforms have changed many things in corporate America.

Corporate directors are newly empowered, and in many cases a lot better paid than they were in the old days. Auditors are more closely regulated, but in ways that have improved their income significantly. Wall Street's way of doing stock research has been turned around. Corporate officials must now personally certify their companies' financial results and the quality of the internal controls that assure accuracy. Mutual funds, with more independent directors, may seek to avoid paying too much to the managers who run and market the funds.

But one change that seemed likely - an increase in shareholder power - has not been realized.

Shareholders legally own companies, but in practice they have little influence. Elections of directors are seldom contested. The ballots companies send out allow shareholders to withhold votes from directors, but do not provide alternatives. If 99 percent of shareholders vote against a director, but he votes for himself, he will win.

It is possible to mount a proxy battle but that involves a lot of expense, because someone running against the incumbents cannot even get on their ballot. Insurgents must send out their own ballots, as well as campaign literature, and pay for it. Few even try.

William H. Donaldson, when he was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, promised to change that. The rule the S.E.C. proposed was a mild one: it would have allowed institutional investors in some cases to put forth, on the company's ballot, a so-called short slate of directors that, if successful, would control only a minority of seats on the board. But even that infuriated corporate America, and after intense lobbying Mr. Donaldson did not pursue the plan. There is no indication that his successor, Christopher Cox, plans action in that area.

Some doubt the wisdom of shareholder power. Iman Anabtawi, an acting professor of law at U.C.L.A., argues that differing groups of shareholders can have divergent and conflicting interests, and that board power is needed to mediate. Her point is reinforced by efforts of hedge fund managers to influence companies in ways aimed more at short-term stock performance than long-term value creation.

But defenders of the status quo should ask whether any additional limits on the power of self-perpetuating boards are needed.

If so, they might be wise to act now, rather than after abuses create another stampede for change.

An interesting suggestion comes from Leo E. Strine Jr., a Delaware vice chancellor and as such a judge who can decide the outcome of corporate battles. In a coming issue of The Harvard Law Review, he sets forth a proposal, which he is careful not to endorse, that could thread a middle line between reformers and traditionalists.

It suggests changes in state laws to allow contested elections of director - outside of the takeover context - every three years. If insurgents, who could appear on the ballots sent out by management, received 35 percent of the votes, they could get some of their expenses reimbursed. And, of course, they might win.

In return for getting real authority, shareholders would no longer be able to propose nonbinding resolutions that now appear at annual meetings every year.

The risk now is that reforms have freed boards from domination by chief executives without creating any other controls, other than the courts, over directors. A limited dose of democracy might help to ensure we are not entering the era of the imperial board of directors.

Responsible Wealth Press Release

2005-11-17T12:41:00.000-08:00

Boston Wal-Mart shareholders today filed a resolution with the company requesting public disclosure of who gets Wal-Mart stock options, broken down by race and gender. In each of the last three years, between 4.8% and 13% of all Wal-Mart stock options went to the top five officers, who make up 0.0003 percent of the company's employees. All five are white men.

The filing of the resolution was timed to coincide with a national Wal-Mart Week.

In addition to Northstar Asset Management clients and other members of Responsible Wealth, the resolution was filed by Martha Burk, the director of the National Council of Women¹s Organizations¹ Corporate Accountability Project. Dr. Burk is best known for leading the effort to open the Augusta National Golf Club to women.

A second-generation Wal-Mart shareholder, Dr. Burk presented a similar resolution at last April¹s annual meeting. She said today, "I am still concerned that the wealth creation opportunities afforded by the company are disproportionately going to white men. The company needs to disclose the data."

Last year's resolution won 15% of the vote, an unusually high number given how much of the stock is owned by Walton family members and Wal-Mart's top management.

Margaret Covert, Shareholder Action Coordinator of NorthStar Asset Management, said, "Wal-Mart¹s emphasis on 'Always Low Prices' comes at a cost to employees working for always low wages. The tremendous profits that have enriched the Walton family and other major shareholders, if shared more broadly with all Wal-Mart workers, could mean health coverage and homeownership for those now lacking them."

Added Scott Klinger, co-director of Responsible Wealth, "In the last few weeks Wal-Mart has committed to greater transparency. This resolution is an invitation to uphold that commitment. Shareholders deserve to know which employees are being rewarded with stock options, and whether their company is contributing to the growing U.S. racial wealth divide."

A court decision is expected in coming months on Wal-Mart's appeal of the formation of a class for the largest gender discrimination lawsuit in history, filed by current and former women employees.

The text of the resolution can be seen online at:

http://www.responsiblewealth.org/shareholder/2006/WalMart.html

Just posted on Since Sliced Bread

2005-11-14T15:09:00.000-08:00

I just posted this on Since Sliced Bread, a project of the SEIU:

http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/idea/8980

Right now companies are considered the property of the shareholders. We need to change the dynamic by pushing the idea of stakeholders. Everyone that works for a company is a stakeholder. Everyone that does business with a company is a stakeholder. Everyone that lives around the company is a stakeholder. Democracy is the idea that our voices and opinions matter. We have groups focused on Democracy for America. We need Democracy for Wall Street.

Ideas that could come from this idea: The concept of one person one vote for shareholder resolutions and board elections; Employee ownership of companies; Requiring companies building in an area to have a certain percentage of shares owned by people living in that area; etc.

Why do labor unions focus so much attention on fighting against the owners of the corporations. I'd rather see them TAKE OWNERSHIP of the corporation and make the Board of Directors do the right thing for their employees, the community and the environment.

Press Release with good news

2005-10-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

US Renewables Group Closes Initial $80 Million to Fund Renewable Energy Projects
Company Both Owns and Operates Renewable Energy Assets

LOS ANGELES, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 10/05/2005 -- US Renewables Group ("USRG"), a company organized to acquire, develop and operate renewable energy and clean fuel assets, today announced an initial close of $80 million as part of its plan to raise a total of $250 million in financing. Initial investors include Rustic Canyon Partners and several other investors. Founded in 2003 to invest in renewable energy operating assets, USRG focuses on stationary power generation (landfill methane, waste-to-gas, biomass and geothermal) and clean fuels (biodiesel, ethanol and coal-to-liquid).

Several factors have converged to dramatically improve the outlook for the renewable energy market -- the adoption of renewable energy portfolio standards, now effective in 21 states; the environmental challenges posed by the continued use of non-renewable resources; and rising fuel prices. According to Global Energy Decisions, a provider of market data to the energy industry, renewable power and clean fuels are two of the fastest-growing segments in the US energy industry, with compounded annual growth rates of 10-20 percent per year.

USRG addresses an opportunity in the renewable energy market that neither traditional private equity nor venture capital investors currently address. Renewable energy financings require a strong understanding of project equity, senior and subordinated debt structures, regulatory compliance, fuel supply and power purchase agreements. Because of its unique structure and management team, USRG has the necessary skills to successfully operate renewable energy assets in a cost effective manner.

"In an increasingly volatile energy market, USRG believes that owning and operating renewable energy assets is an excellent hedge against rising oil and natural gas prices. USRG offers investors a method to obtain above-average current income and capital appreciation," said Jim McDermott, the CEO of USRG. "No one questions the environmental benefits of renewable energy as an alternative source of power and fuel. Yet when you also consider the growth fundamentals and lack of legitimate pure play renewables companies, it becomes clear why USRG is such a compelling investment opportunity."

Consistent with the company's stated goal to become the US' leading Independent Renewable Energy Company ("IREC"), USRG owns and operates two landfill methane facilities in California (Los Angeles) and is building another facility in Texas (San Antonio). In addition, USRG is negotiating to acquire an additional 100 MWs of biomass power and to acquire more than 300 million gallons per year of ethanol capacity.

"USRG has gained a reputation as an organization that understands the intricacies of the renewable energy market," said Michael T. Eckhart, President of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE). "Companies like USRG, that can provide capital while managing the risks that are particular to renewable energy projects, are filling a very important role in our sector."

"Renewable and efficient energy is a growing and increasingly attractive investment opportunity, and USRG's innovative approach of focusing on the operation of renewable energy assets creates an ideal fit for us," said Tom Unterman, Managing Partner at Rustic Canyon Partners.

About US Renewables Group

US Renewables Group, LLC ("USRG") is an investment company capitalizing on the fastest-growing segments of the $650B energy marketplace. USRG acquires, develops and operates renewable stationary power generation and clean fuel assets primarily in North America. USRG operates nationally from headquarters in Los Angeles and offices in New York. For more information, please visit the company Web site at www.usregroup.com.

###

Let's try and prevent these guys from being bought out by the Mega-Corps.

Montana Energy Debacle

2005-07-03T19:21:00.001-07:00

Re: David Sirota's article

I find it disturbing that one of the topics on this blog entry on Working for Change is "Capitalist Pigs". The Progressive Movement needs to understand that they can't be Socialist and be serious contenders in our political system. Our economic system is capitalist, take it or leave it. The only way we're going to take back this country in the long term is by taking back the economy, and I'm not talking about a change in economic system. I'm talking about the people who want change in their country taking control of the companies that are destroying it. Public Ownership does not necessarily entail government ownership, especially since the government is almost as much of a problem as the corporations, thanks to current campaign finance regulations giving the advantage to the most valuable player from the onset.

I very much agree with David's comments, but it looks from the articles that Northwest Corp. is going to recommend against their shareholders approving the purchase. If they do, the citizens of Montana have another option. Beat them at their own game.

They are offering NWEC 1.17 Billion dollars. The NWEC stock is currently worth $31.87. That means that with this capital they could purchase 53 Million shares, or 15% of the company.

Progressives need to understand that they don't have to be anti-capitalist. They need to stop letting the rich people own the field and buy off the referees. We need to take control of our own economy and make it work for us. The only way of doing that is by taking control of the assets.

Chad Lupkes

The Seattle Monorail

2005-06-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at the Seattle Monorail recently. The board just came to contract agreements with Cascadia Monorail Company, LLC (http://www.cascadiamonorail.com/), and we're go for the start of construction. That's wonderful!

I've always wondered why the Seattle city Council didn't take on the management of the project instead of agreeing to a DBOM contract. That's Design, Build, Operate & Maintain. This model has evidently been used in other locations, and it's basically privatizing it as much as possible, while still keeping citizen oversight. What happens to the Monorail Board once the Green Line is complete is almost an open question, although to hear them tell it they're already starting to work on the next part of the project.

Now let's look at the Company itself. Cascadia Monorail Company, LLC, is a collaboration among a whole bunch of firms. Let's list them, and determine what information we can about them. Are they Public Firms? If so, we can get a piece of the action. If they're privately owned, who owns them? I can't answer all of these questions immediately, but it will be an interesting project. Much of this information is available on the Cascadia website.

Fluor Enterprises, Inc.

Fluor Corporation, the parent company of Fluor Enterprises, Inc., provides services on a global basis in the fields of engineering, procurement, construction, operations, maintenance and project management. The company has worked on a number of urban transit projects including the HSL South Transportation System in The Netherlands (a trans-European rail network), Railtrack’s East Coast Main Line in Great Britain and the Conway Bypass Project in South Carolina. Fluor Corporation, one of the world's largest, publicly owned engineering, procurement, construction, and maintenance services organizations, is a Fortune 500 company with revenues of $10 billion in fiscal year 2002. Consistently rated as one of the world's safest contractors, Fluor's primary objective is to develop, execute, and maintain capital projects on schedule, within budget, and with operational excellence. For more information, visit www.fluor.com.

Fluor Corporation is a public company (NYSE: FLR), and they actually advertise on their Investors page that we can invest in the company at ShareBuilder. That's really cool, and rare. They're based in Dallas, Ft. Worth Texas. According to opensecrets.org, their federal PAC donated $229,649 to federal candidates, 17% to Democrats, 83% to Republicans. We need to get their attention about Jay Inslee's Apollo Project. If they want major construction contracts, alternative energy would get them a lot more money than the old and dying oil industry.

Hitachi Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. is a leading global technology company, with approximately 320,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2001consolidated sales totaled $60.1 billion. The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors, including urban transit systems. With nearly four decades of experience, Hitachi provides advanced urban transportation solutions. Hitachi’s design technology has evolved over the past 38 years into a highly reliable and predictable mode of urban mass transit including the Tokyo Monorail, Kitakyushu Monorail, Osaka Monorail, Tama Monorail, and the Okinawa Monorail. Hitachi purchased a licensing agreement from Alweg for the production of Alweg-based designs in Japan during the 1962 World’s Fair. Hitachi has been improving upon those designs for the past 38 years, providing unsurpassed safety and reliability. For more information, visit www.hitachi-rail.com/products/monorail/.

Mitsui USA

The parent company of Mitsui USA is Mitsui & Co Ltd, (NASDAQ: MITSY) based in Japan. Mitsui & Co., U.S.A., Inc., a leading international trading house with an extensive global network, has over 100 consolidated subsidiaries and joint ventures across the U.S. The company's total trading transactions amounted to $7.5 billion for the year ended March 31, 2002. In the 2002 world’s largest corporations lists, its parent company, Mitsui & Co., Ltd., is ranked 6th in “The International 500” by Forbes magazine and 13th in “The Global 500” by Fortune magazine. For more information, visit www.mitsui.com.

HDR Engineering, Inc.

HDR is a nationally recognized employee-owned architectural, engineering consulting firm. Established in 1917, the company employs over 3,200 professionals across the U.S. and abroad, including architects, engineers, consultants, scientists, planners and construction managers, in over 85 locations worldwide, to provide solutions beyond the scope of traditional A/E/C firms. Engineering News-Record consistently ranks HDR as one of the “Top 20” transportation engineering firms. The company opened its first Pacific Northwest office in Seattle in 1975 and now employs more than 350 people in seven Northwest offices in Bellevue, Pasco and Port Orchard, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Boise, Idaho; Missoula, Montana; and Anchorage, Alaska. For more information, visit www.hdrinc.com.

Howard S. Wright Construction Co.

Howard S. Wright Construction Co., founded in 1885, provides professional construction services in the areas of commercial, institutional and industrial buildings. Since the company started in the state of Washington, it has performed work in a majority of the Western states including Alaska and Hawaii. Now a symbol of Seattle, the Space Needle was originally built by Howard S. Wright Construction Co. as the focal point for the 1962 World's Fair. The foundation of the Space Needle consists of 5,850 tons of concrete and steel, resting on a 30-foot deep foundation. The company was also the general contractor for the World’s Fair Monorail and the Seattle Art Museum. For more information, visit www.howardswright.com.

Hoffman Construction Company

Hoffman Construction Company was founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon as a family-owned general contractor, building apartments, schools and factories. Based in Portland, with offices in Seattle, Hoffman is a leader in specialized construction for transportation facilities such as station and maintenance facilities understanding the importance of maintaining traffic during construction; environmental requirements particularly those that relate to noise and vibration, and utility relocation requirements in the Seattle area. Hoffman has developed detailed procedures to ensure the safety of the traveling public during construction. Hoffman was the general contractor for some of Seattle’s more notable projects such as the Experience Music Project, the new Seattle Library and City Hall. For more information, visit http://www.hoffmancorp.com.

Atkinson Construction

RCI Construction Group

RCI Construction Group was founded in 1978 and is based in Sumner, Washington. RCI specializes in technically difficult projects including deep shaft and pipeline construction, steep slope outfall, and penstock installation. Coupled with comprehensive experience in pier construction, commercial, industrial and residential planned community development, and structural concrete capabilities, RCI brings all aspects of infrastructure construction and rehabilitation to the utility field. By virtue of owning one of the region's largest inventories of construction equipment ranging from sophisticated microtunneling machinery to specialized trenching and pile driving equipment, RCI is able to complete each project more efficiently and cost effectively. RCI’s experience includes utility projects such as the Denny Way Elliot West Pipelines and the City of Tacoma’s Second Supply Pipeline. For more information, visit www.rci-group.com.

Concrete Technology Corporation

VANIR Construction Management

David Evans and Associates

Kleinfelder, Inc.

PanGeo

Buckland & Taylor

PB Transit and Rail Systems, Inc.

H.W. Lochner, Inc.

Praha Strategies, Inc. (Patrick Kylen)

Alcatel Transport Automation, Inc.

Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc.

Berger/ABAM Engineers, Inc.

EDAW

Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK)

Wilson Ihrig & Assoc., Inc.

White Electrical

Holmes Electric

PSI

Doris Locke & Associates

Wow, quite a list! If I missed one, please let me know. It will take me a while to look at each of these companies.

What's my point in all this? I believe that the citizens of Seattle should be the owners and gain the financial benefits from the construction and operation of the monorail system. But I support the capitalist system. So that means to me that we should be owners of the companies that are getting the Billion dollar contract, so we can keep an eye on what the companies are doing and we can have a voice in the decisions they make. That's what this blog is all about.

Sources:

http://www.elevated.org/
http://www.cascadiamonorail.com/
http://www.opensecrets.org/

The Ed Shultz Show

2005-06-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

I want to start this by saying that I love the Ed Shultz Show. I listen every day, and the only thing that prevents me from calling in on a regular basis is the time slot, which is in the middle of the day. Of course, it's that time slot that allows me to listen in the first place, while I'm at work.

I went to the Seattle Town Hall Event on June 13th where the announcement was made that the shares of the show owned by Democracy Radio had been sold to a major player in the Radio business, Randy Michaels and P1 (Product First), a division of Radioactive LLC. Like the letter that Ed received and posted on his website said, the entire hall went silent. He had to tell us that it was a good thing, and many of us are still not sure.

I have a degree in business. I know how the market works, and I know you have to have money to get and keep your voice in the mix. That's all fine well and good. But here's the reality. Three people now own the shares in the Ed Shultz Show. My question is how is that Progressive? How is that Populist? Ed says all the right progressive and populist things, and he believes them. But like the vast majority of us, he can't live them. Not because he wouldn't want to, but because the system doesn't allow him to. It takes money, and he's now really excited about his ability to keep his show on the air through 2008 and help defeat whoever comes out of the Republican Party to try and keep this country going in the wrong direction. That's great, but then one of the show's new owners was on his show talking about all the money that they plan to make from advertising, and saying that it was a pure business decision that made them want to buy into the show, not because they support any of the things that Ed says. These two were part of the movement that brought Rush Limbaugh to the air, and they freely admit that. Ed says that doesn't make them Conservatives or Republicans, it makes them good businessmen.

Ed, THAT'S THE PROBLEM!

The impersonal nature of our businesses, corporations and the pure profit motive of our Capitalist economic system IS WHAT IS DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY AND DESTROYING OUR PLANET!

Our system of economics, thanks to Hamilton and FDR, is a capitalist system. It should be a free market that fosters fair competition of ideas, products and services. I'm not against that! I just recognize that 90% of the wealth in our country is owned and managed by 5% of our population. (Or some such rediculous statistic. It keeps changing depending on who you talk to.) How much of an influence do people making minimum wage or less have in our Congress? How much of the population am I talking about? Now, how much of an influence do people making more than $1 million per year have in our Congress? And how many people am I talking about? That's my point.

Ed, you read an email from me on the air on Wednesday. Sell stock. Sell shares in your show to the people who take a shower after work. Give us a chance to support you, and give us a chance to share in all the money that you and your two partners plan to make from advertising. Live your words, Ed. Become the progressive that we need you to be, and become not just the voice of the Progressive movement, but part of the heart and soul of the evolution of our country and the institutions that operate the machinery.

You're much better than Rush, Ed. Show us how much better you can be.

Welcome to Democracy for Wall Street

2005-06-15T15:31:00.000-07:00

Are we consumers, or investors?

If we are stakeholders, shouldn't we be shareholders?

The Democratic Party is Pro-Capitalism, but Anti-Elitism. If the progressive grassroots want to take back the White House, the US Congress and our local governments, we have to start by taking back Wall Street. We don't need lawsuits, we need porfolios!

You're all asking what we can do about the Conservative Movement. The distribution of capital must be balanced. FDR started on the right path with Social Security and the SEC, but nobody caught on to what really needed to happen. Question: what is the most powerful statement that you can give an elected representative in a letter or interview? "I am a voter in your district, and whether I support you or not depends on how you deal with my issues." So, we need to make another statement just as powerful. "I am a shareholder in your company, and whether I support your bid for reelection to the Board of Directors depends on how you deal with my issues." Howard Dean started Democracy for America. We need Democracy for Wall Street.

The Board of Directors for every company in the country is who is making these decisions. If we buy their stocks, we can vote the Board of Directors out of office! Everyone on the Liberal side is running away from the stock market, and the Conservatives are laughing all the way to the board room. We need a Union centered campaign to get these SOB's off the Boards. If everyone in a union could pitch in $100, we'd have enough to buy enough stock to take over the company those union members are working for. It has to be a coordinated effort, and it must begin now.

Progressive means people against Big Money, but we have to fight fire with fire. BUY THEIR STOCK, VOTE THEM OUT!

This blog will be a place for us to talk about taking back this country, one share of stock at a time.