Monday, January 24, 2011

Who Has The Best online reputation management Services

When agencies or persons fall prey to unfair opponents, irate ex-employees or disgruntled clientele, then a SERM turns into critical within the economic survival of the company.

Firms like SERMs are critical in preserving, and in some situations salvaging and restoring providers or person's popularity and very good title.




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Businesses are also appreciating the collateral advantage of having a Reputation Management firm on-board as an integral part of their business model, its awesome marketing! Even while securing a company's good reputation and title over the internet, it generates great press and beneficial exposure that ultimately adds considerably on the bottom line of a company's harmony sheet, creating the solutions to actually pay for alone in many conditions.




This tends to become an extremely robust promoting position for corporations too as persons, to know that they're cleansing and guarding their reputations and cyber photos, whilst at the same time operating a really efficient advertising initiative. From time to time organizations totally disregard their former advertising efforts on line and opt for the benefits of Over the internet Popularity Management.




Possessing a SERM firm on your side is lacking a doubt the way in which to go on this cyber age. For far more data on online reputation management and corporate reputation management, Please visit us at http://removeripoffreports.net/

Making Fast Money






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"Should I stay or should I go? - If you say that you are mine - I'll be here till the end of time - But you gotta let me know - Should I stay or should I go?"


—The Clash, "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?"


Nebraska fans are set for another round of uncertainty, as current LSU coach Les Miles has announced he will meet with administrators at Michigan to discuss becoming the next head Wolverine. Miles, a former Michigan player, has strong ties to his alma mater and many sites are reporting that he is seriously considering making the move.


Should Miles leave Baton Rouge for Ann Arbor, Nebraska coach Bo Pelini will likely be on the short list of candidates to replace him. And a move to LSU certainly has more substance than the rumors of Pelini taking the job in Miami, as was rumored last month. So would Pelini pack up and head back to the bayou?


There would certainly be some incentives to do so. Between Nick Saban and Les Miles, LSU has become a national force in recruiting. Louisiana itself is a hotbed of football talent, and LSU gets first pick of that talent in the way rivaled only by Texas. If Pelini wanted a situation where he could load up quickly, LSU would be attractive.


Pelini would be a familiar face in Baton Rouge, having been the defensive coordinator there from 2005-07 and being part of a national championship team. Pelini would have a familiarity both with the area and the competition in the SEC.





It doesn't seem possible that there'd be money to be made from lending e-books. But at least one woman figured out how to do it, and more little lending conglomerates seem to be on the way.


When on Dec. 30, Kindle decided to allow its customers to lend copies of purchased e-books (but only for 14 days, and only to one person), a 40-year-old Canadian woman named Catherine MacDonald had an idea that literally popped up in her dreams. She started the Kindle Lending Club. It started out as a Facebook site, where she'd match up people who wanted to lend a book to people who wanted to borrow. It quickly grew out of hand, so she looked for angel seed money.



Finding someone who was willing to invest $12,500, she launched a slick Web site and created a place where people can come and look for specific e-books, or offer to lend them. So far, she has lent more than 1,000 e-books among total strangers and it's all worked without a hitch.


But where does the money come in? If the lender finishes the book within the 14-day limit, no fees are assessed and everything is free. But if the borrowers discover that they can't finish within Amazon's 14-day lending window (and things do come up in life--someone gets sick, or a business trip comes up) lendees can offer a link to buy the e-book and lenders share a portion of the resulting revenue through Amazon's Affiliate Program. For anyone familiar with Amazon's affiliate program, it takes a lot to actually make any money, but if the business person is dogged about going about it, he or she can make some bucks out of the program. So the lendee gets an e-book at a good price, and everyone's happy.


However MacDonald in Canada is hardly the first person to come up with the idea of the Kindle Lending Club. She was merely one of the first. Now there are many on the Web and not just for Kindles either. There are nook lending clubs popping up too. Kindles and nooks don't mix, thanks to incompatible software.

Continued on the next page


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


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Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

Jack LaLanne dead at 96 – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

American fitness guru Jack LaLanne died Sunday afternoon at his home in Morro Bay, California, according to his long-time agent, Rick Hersh. He was 96. The cause, said Hersh, was respiratory failure due to pneumonia.

Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy <b>News</b> - Page 1 | Eurogamer.net

Read our news of Tiger Woods dev unfazed by controversy.

<b>News</b> Happening Now - KRQE

(KRQE NEWS 13) - As of 7:10 a.m. - President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on a State of the Union speech Tuesday that'll mostly be about one thing -- jobs. Comments. Latest Headlines. News Happening Now � Sunday News ...

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Making Money Ideas




...hopelessly outgunned presidential campaign as if it was a business, not even spending more money than he had in hand. C'mon now, how laughable is that in this day and age in modern America that someone who wants to run the federal government should live within his own campaign means? Just like normal people who live on a real budget with no ability to vote themselves a pay raise and a higher debt ceiling when no one is watching C-SPAN!


When the ultimate Democratic winner, in league with the extraordinary gentleman Harry Reid and the tough-talking San Francisco grandma who's House speaker, has decided to spend a gazillion more dollars than any non-federal calculator has digits to display.


These people, for Nancy's sake, are already spending the income taxes of the unborn grandchildren of those 4,000 babies that Paul delivered. A shocking realization that may be helping to fuel the recent re-examination of Ron Paul, who never met a federal dollar that needed spending -- unless it was going back to his district near Houston.


Ron Paul came within something like 1,000 delegates of catching John McCain for the Republican nomination in St. Paul. But when he finally gave up, Paul still had about $5 million left over. He's been investing it traveling around the country to speak and helping like-minded RFR's (Republicans For Real) organize all over. And, who knows, maybe sell a few books.


But now, just as his fierce supporters fearlessly predicted all along, many in American politics are coming around to think that maybe RP's crazy ideas, for example, of auditing and controlling the Federal Reserve, are maybe not quite so crazy.


Our news colleague in Washington, Don Lee, details the sea-change in opinion in a comprehensive look at the old guy's rebirth for weekend print editions, which we're sharing here this morning as a distinguished guest post for Ticket readers around the world.


And for any surviving Ron Paulites, who won't dare leave their typically snippy comments below because that would require them acknowledging that their favorite fiction about a MSM conspiracy to ignore the old guy is fiction.


-- Andrew Malcolm


Because no federal funds are involved, Ron Paul would want you to click here for Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. Or join us over here on The Ticket's new Facebook FAN page.


Here's Lee's reported news item:


For three decades, Texas congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul's extreme brand of libertarian economics consigned him to the far fringes even among conservatives. Not a few times, his views put him on the losing end of 434-1 votes on Capitol Hill.


No longer. With the economy still struggling and political divisions deepening, Paul's ideas not only are gaining a wider audience but also are helping to shape a potentially historic battle over economic policy -- a struggle that will affect everything including jobs, growth and the nation's place in the global economy.

Already, Paul's long-derided proposal to give Congress supervisory power over the traditionally independent Federal Reserve appears to be on its way to becoming law.

His warnings on deficits and inflation are now Republican mantras.

And with this year's congressional election campaign looming, the Texas congressman's deep-seated distrust of activist government has helped fuel protests such as the tea-party movement, harden partisan divisions in Washington and stoke public fears about federal spending and the deficit.

"People are wondering what went wrong. And they're not happy with what the....



....government is offering up," said James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, offering an explanation for why seemingly wonkish arguments over interest rate policy and the money supply are spilling over onto ordinary Americans.

Some of Paul's most extreme views are still beyond the pale for most economists. Despite the eroding value of the dollar, no one expects the U.S. to return to the gold standard, as Paul advocates; most economists think that could wreck the economy.

In their less drastic forms, however, Paul's ideas are being welcomed by conservatives and viewed with foreboding by liberals. For conservatives, runaway inflation constitutes the biggest potential threat to the nation's future. Liberals worry that cutting back stimulus efforts too soon could slow or even halt the current recovery.

The debate over that question -- what the basic thrust of U.S. economic policy should be -- is likely to dominate the coming elections and Washington policymaking.

And so far, Paul and his fellow conservatives are on the offensive. President Obama and congressional Democrats are repeatedly pledging not to increase the deficit and to begin cutting back soon.

"I think we're going to be in for more revival of fiscal responsibility," said William Niskanen of the Cato Institute, who headed the Council of Economic Advisors under President Reagan.

Niskanen sees the Texas Republican's increasing influence as stemming from the continued economic weakness. "To this extent, Ron Paul gains voice," he said.

Paul would go a lot further in cutting back the government's role than even free-marketers like Niskanen support. If Paul had it his way, for instance, he would do away with the Fed entirely. In his bestselling book "End the Fed," he lambasted the central bank as an "immoral, unconstitutional . . . tool of tyrannical government."

Such rhetoric might once have been dismissed as extremism.


But Paul's anti-Fed message has drawn broad support because of the central bank's failure to restrain the flood of cheap money and excessive risk-taking in the years leading up to the financial crisis.

It has stirred rallies on college campuses and supportive commentaries from Wall Street pundits. More than 300 representatives in Congress have embraced Paul's ideas for reining in the Fed.

The response "is even more than I ever dreamed," Paul said in an interview, reminiscing about one evening during his 2008 White House run when University of Michigan students chanted "End the Fed" and burned dollar bills.

Paul, a skinny 74-year-old with a hangdog expression, understands that historical circumstances have thrust his ideas to the fore. "An intellectual fight is going on," he said.

Paul traces his economic views to his frugal upbringing in Pittsburgh at the tail end of the Depression. He saved pennies from delivering newspapers and helping out his father's small dairy business.

And his first economics class at Gettysburg College was an eye-opener, Paul said. When a professor explained how banks keep only a tiny part of their deposits on hand and earn money by lending out the rest, Paul discovered one of the "tricks" of the financial system.

Beyond that, Paul's ideas are grounded in the work of economic thinkers from an earlier era who focused on problems similar to those besetting the U.S. today.

In particular, Paul is a disciple of Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian theorist born at the end of the 19th century who contended that government intervention in an economy would fail because free markets were better at allocating resources and fueling growth.

Having lived through Germany's devastating hyperinflation in the early 1920s, which helped pave the way for Hitler, Mises wrote long before the Great Depression that over-generous credit policies would encourage excessive borrowing, creating a boom and then a bust.

Mises' ideas became central to what is known as the Austrian School of economics, which emphasized tight controls on credit and money supply, a strategy that discouraged financial ups and downs but tended to slow growth.

By 1940, when Mises arrived in America, most Western economists had embraced the competing theories of Britain's John Maynard Keynes, who called for government to stimulate the economy by spending on infrastructure and cutting interest rates.

Obama has largely followed the Keynesian script, as President George W. Bush did when the economic crisis broke.

Paul's once-lonely espousal of the Austrian School's ideas has gotten new impetus from conservative economists and Republican political strategists.

"A lot of good ideas were shoved aside because of the Depression and the rise of the Keynesian view of the world," said George Selgin, an economics professor at the University of Georgia.

Paul contends that Austrian economics explains the most recent financial meltdown: "It says if you inflate too much, if you have no restraint on monetary authorities, you're going to bring on a crisis." Now, Paul says, administration policies are leading the country toward disaster.

Selgin and many mainstream economists agree that pumping too much money into the economy can lead to trouble, but they say Paul goes too far.

In the 1930s, say Selgin and many other economists, including Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the U.S. economy began pulling out of the Depression thanks to federal easing of monetary policy.

The economy tipped back into depression after the reins were tightened too soon.

"In this aspect of the monetary system, he's just blown it," Selgin said of Paul.

However, like Mises, whose portrait hangs on his Washington office wall, Paul is intransigent, and that has earned him an ardent following.


"His views are strong and hardheaded, but you've got to stand firm or you'll get blown over in this world," said Mark Skousen, editor of the newsletter Forecasts & Strategies and a former economics professor at Columbia University.


-- Don Lee


Photo: Larry Downing / Reuters; Orlin Wagner / Associated Press; Associated Press (Paul argues with Mike Huckabee in a GOP primary debate).


 


So Christmas has been and gone. Are you now facing the New Year and wondering how you can keep up the Christmas spirit and goodwill for the coming year? Well, it certainly helps when you know how to do so for free from your own home.

There are so many simple ways to volunteer or donate to charity by giving up a small amount of your time or re-purposing some money you would normally have spent. So here’s a list of five of the best quick and easy ways to volunteer or donate to charity. Bookmark the list of charities and use it to do the rounds weekly!

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Skip1.org

This is a great concept — it’s a site which makes you think about how much money you waste on frivolous things. You nominate something which you will give up, say a lunch or newspapers for a month. Then you donate that same amount of money to feeding a hungry child.

Yes, you’re handing over money to charity, but it’s money you would have spent anyway. It’s also easy to share news of your donation with your friends via social networks, and hopefully convince a few of them to skip something for charity too.

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Free Rice

Free Rice has been around a while, but it’s so good it’s worth making sure it’s on this list. Play a simple, addictive trivia quiz and Free Rice will donate rice for each of your correct answers. This is a free and simple way to give whenever you have a free moment. Read more on FreeRice here.

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Causes

There are a number of things you can do using Causes, including raising awareness for your chosen charity and helping to raise funds for them. By far the easiest way to donate money with Causes is to set up a birthday or holiday fund. This way, instead of receiving presents from friends and family, you simply ask them to donate the money on your behalf. It takes about two minutes to set up, since you can log in with Facebook Connect – just choose the charity and you’re set!

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Charity Gifts

Here’s another easy way to spend your money on charity instead of something you were already going to pay for. Instead of giving gifts to your friends, give them the knowledge that you have donated to charity on their behalf. The Donation4Charity website searches all the big charity gifting sites (such as UNICEF, WWF and Oxfam) and lets you search the gifts according to how much money you have available to spend. Buy a goat for charity for about the same price as a modest gift!

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Sparked

Spend 5-10 minutes donating your expertise to charity: Give website feedback, brainstorm fundraising ideas or help design an awareness campaign. This is what they need help with – if you can spend a few minutes working on it then you’ve made a difference to a real charity with just a moment of your time. Read more on Sparked here & get going!

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And many, many more!

There are so many great ways to donate your time to charity — the sites listed above are just a few. Here’s some more great articles which introduce many more you might like to try.

  • Introducing Jumo – The Social Network for Social Good
  • How To Easily Coordinate Volunteers Using Volunteer Spot
  • 5 Crowd Funding Websites To Support Your Favourite Charities, Bands & Projects
  • Find Volunteering Opportunities Near You with VolunteerMatch
  • 10 Search Engines To Help The Environment
  • 5 Cool Edutainment Games You Can Play and Also Donate To Charitable Causes
  • 5 Websites To Lend A Hand & Make A Difference To The World

What are your favourite sites for donating your time to charity? Do you appreciate charity gifts given on your behalf? Let us know in the comments!


Source:http://removeripoffreports.net/

Exclusive: Entertainment <b>News</b> Company TheWrap Acquires <b>...</b>

TheWrap, a venture capital-backed news organization focused on the business of entertainment and media, has acquired ItsOnTheGrid.com (IOTG), TechCrunch has learned. TheWrap made the acquisition for an undisclosed amount of cash and ...

Small Business <b>News</b>: Social Entrepreneurship on the Rise

In recognition of Martin Luther King Day, we present a roundup about an important new trend, the rise of social entrepreneurship. Instead of profit, the.

Modern &amp; Contemporary Design Platform / Good <b>News</b>/ Products <b>...</b>

so the user can be updated on the latest news, hopefully some Good news. Good news is made of 25mm lacquered oak veneer plywood. The product is "flat-packed" and is easily assembled by means of only one screw. ...


Friday, January 14, 2011

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Harvard Undergrads Launch Newsle To Find <b>News</b> About Your Friends <b>...</b>

Social news has many flavors. Twitter and Facebook function as social news feeds with your friends pushing out stories they find interesting. But what about news about your friends or other people you care about? Two Harvard sophomores ...

<b>News</b> Corp.&#39;s iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, delayed, reports say <b>...</b>

The Daily, the iPad-only newspaper from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., is being delayed a few weeks, according to the Associated Press. The digital paper is still working out subscription details, the AP said.

Obama&#39;s Tucson Speech Fails To Accommodate Cable <b>News&#39;s</b> Attention <b>...</b>

Did you watch the memorial service in Tucson last night? It sure seemed to me to be a cavalcade of statemanship -- presidents of nations and universities and student bodies, governors new and old, political figures on the left and right ...


Thursday, January 13, 2011

Companies Making Money



Rick Thompson is hoping that lightning strikes another time. Thompson was the chairman and co-founder of Playdom, the social game company that Disney bought last year for as much as $763 million. Now he has started a new game company, Wild Needle, focused on social games with a location twist.


“Wild Needle represents a shift in the way smart money is thinking of social games,” Thompson said in an interview.


It used to be smart to invest in a game company making social games for Facebook. But Thompson is putting money on the idea that mobile is becoming a larger opportunity. His six-person company will focus on making games for the iPhone and then expand to other mobile platforms. Japan’s DeNA validated this “mobile first” strategy when it bought iPhone game publisher Ngmoco earlier this year for $403 million.


Thompson said he isn’t looking for a similar transaction anytime soon. But because of Zynga’s dominance and Facebook’s crackdown on viral distribution, he doubts that small startups can make an impact on Facebook.


Mountain View, Calif.-based Wild Needle has raised $2.5 million in funding from Thompson and Shasta Ventures. Thompson said that he didn’t need the money to start the company, but he did want access to Shasta’s managing director, Robert Coneybeer, who is joining Wild Needle’s board. Wild Needle’s other top executives include Heidi Carson (vice president of product), Chris Kirmse (vice president of engineering), and Minglei Xu (software architect). Thompson also was founding chairman of online ad networks Flycast and Adify. Kirmse is a veteran game developer who worked at Xfire and was the co-creator of Meridian 59, the world’s first 3D massively multiplayer online game.


Thompson said that there is enormous untapped potential in mobile games that use a device’s location awareness and its always-on connectivity to a social network. Mobile games have lower distribution costs and potentially new kinds of game play around location awareness. Smartphones are also likely to be ubiquitous.


“Things go in cycles,” Thompson said. “Facebook is very challenging for startups now because of high-distribution costs and lack of virality. He said he has investments in a couple of Facebook game companies, one of which is Funzio.


Thompson said Wild Needle is aggressively hiring now. Dan Yue, co-founder of Playdom, and John Pleasants, who was CEO of Playdom, remain at Disney. Thompson said the company’s first game will be targeted at women and feature cool game play. He said he doesn’t think he has direct rivals, but other location-based game companies include Foursquare, Gowalla and Booyah.


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The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur filling in for Ed Schultz talked to former Labor Secretary under President Clinton Robert Reich about the recent request by U.S. companies for a tax holiday on the over $1 trillion in assets they have sitting offshore.


Dodging Repatriation Tax Lets U.S. Companies Bring Home Multinational Cash:


At the White House on Dec. 15, business executives asked President Obama for a tax holiday that would help them tap more than $1 trillion of offshore earnings, much of it sitting in island tax havens.


The money -- including hundreds of billions in profits that U.S. companies attribute to overseas subsidiaries to avoid taxes -- is supposed to be taxed at up to 35 percent when it’s brought home, or “repatriated.” Executives including John T. Chambers of Cisco Systems Inc. say a tax break would return a flood of cash and boost the economy.


What nobody’s saying publicly is that U.S. multinationals are already finding legal ways to avoid that tax. Over the years, they’ve brought cash home, tax-free, employing strategies with nicknames worthy of 1970s conspiracy thrillers -- including “the Killer B” and “the Deadly D.”


Read on...


Uygur asked Reich what solutions there are when we have one party that is a wholly owned subsidiary of big business as the Republicans are and too many Democrats willing to feed off of the same trough. Reich pointed to the obvious, which is campaign finance reform.


Transcript below the fold.


Cenk Uygur and Robert Reich on Corporate Tax Avoidance and the Need for Campaign Finance Reform


UYGUR: But we start tonight with the request by corporate America for a tax break for over $1 trillion they have sitting off shore. In a meeting with president, they asked for a tax holiday so that they can bring the money back into the country without paying their full share of taxes.


I love the terms they use. Wouldn’t you like to take a holiday from your taxes?


When big business does it, it’s not tax evasion, its tax avoidance. I’m sure we’d all like to avoid our taxes, but we don’t have the lobbying power of multinational corporations behind us. And we don’t have a whole political party devoted to making us richer. In case you’ve been living in a cave in the last 30 years, that would be the Republican Party.


Companies are playing a shell game, aided and abetted by the GOP, where they take money in and out country, depending on our tax laws, to make it appear as if they really didn’t make any money here. One common trick is to say that they made all their money in Bermuda, where they have to pay almost no taxes, but that all of their costs were here. Very convenient, of course.


So, in the end, we have a situation where ExxonMobil made $70 -- I’m sorry, $37.3 billion in profits in 2009 and paid zero dollars in U.S. taxes. Bank of America made $4.4 billion in profits, and not only did they pay nothing in taxes, the U.S. government owes them $1.9 billion.


I don’t know how they do that.


And GE, the parent company of MSNBC, in full disclosure, made pretax profits of $10.3 billion and somehow has a tax credit of $1.1 billion.


So I paid more taxes last year than the company that owns all of this? Now, does that mean the companies are unpatriotic and immoral? No.


You see, the most important thing to understand is that companies don’t have nationalities and they don’t have morals. They’re not immoral actors, they’re amoral machines. They’re profit-making robots.


They’re not allowed to have a soul or have feelings. If an executive paid the company’s full taxes out of his patriotic duty, he’d be removed from his post. That’s not how it works.


And remember, Google’s whole mantra is, "Don’t be evil." And they avoided $3.1 billion in taxes in the last three years by doing these same kinds of tax tricks.


Why? Because they’re legally bound to make as much money as possible for their shareholders.


When we had a ban on companies doing business with Iran, Halliburton set up an office in Tehran, Iran. They did it anyway. Their CEO at the time was this man. You might remember him. He’s Dick Cheney.


Later, Halliburton would move its official headquarters to Dubai to avoid U.S. taxes, while continuing to rake in huge contracts from the American government as a so-called American company.


So what’s the answer?


First, we have to recognize the problem. Politicians who talk about being "pro-business" are usually using it as an excuse to give corporations tax breaks. By the way, some of which gets funneled back to him in the form of campaign donations.


So let’s get this straight. No one’s anti-business. We want our big and small companies to do well so they hire more people. But at the same time, we don’t want people using the excuse of being pro-business to funnel our tax dollars to multinational corporations.


Most of those guys that are doing the hiring, these so-called American companies, are doing it abroad anyway. Look, the Economic Policy Institute says that American companies created less than a million jobs here in the U.S., but created 1.4 million jobs overseas last year. So you can see where their priorities are.


If we give a tax break to a company, it must be to specifically create jobs here, period. If they don’t, they can go get their tax break from Bermuda or Singapore.


No more American taxpayer money to finance multinational corporations. There has to be a separation of business and state.


This is not the United States of corporate America. Our representatives in this democracy are supposed to look out for us, their voters, not their corporate benefactors.


Secondly, we have to get much tougher on enforcing our tax laws.


In 2004, the Bush administration allowed, again, so-called American companies to repatriate $312 billion back into the U.S. at the comically low rate of 5.25 percent. The real corporate tax rate is supposed to be 35 percent.


Now do you see why the corporate world loved Bush? That means all of the executives at those companies got much fatter bonuses that year.


We did the Republican strategy of just trusting big business to create jobs with all of those tax breaks that we gave them, and guess what happened? Since that huge 2004 tax break, we have lost nearly seven million jobs.


Would you trust your personal money with an amoral machine? No way, right? Then why do we all trust our collective money with these guys? It’s time we built a wall between business and state so that our government looks out for our interests and not multinational corporations` interests.


Now, get your cell phones out. I want to know what you think.


Tonight’s text survey is: Do you think tax breaks for corporations lead to more U.S. jobs? Text "A" for yes, text "B" for no to 622639. I’ll bring you the results later in the show.


Now joining me is former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich. He’s a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and he’s also the author of "Aftershock."


All right, Secretary Reich, I want to play you a clip by President Obama, because there was a bill introduced earlier in the year to actually stop the subsidies for off-shoring jobs, and it didn’t pass. The Republicans killed it.


And here’s what the president had to say about it.


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)


BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Republicans in Washington claimed to draw their ideas from a Web site called America Speaking Out. It turns out that one the ideas that’s drawn the most interest on their Web site is ending tax breaks for companies that ship overseas.


The funny thing is, when we recently closed one of the most egregious loopholes for companies creating jobs overseas, Republicans in Congress were almost unanimously opposed. The Republican Leader, John Boehner, attacked us for it and stood up for outsourcing instead of American workers.


(END VIDEO CLIP)


UYGUR: Secretary, is that right? I mean, that seems so unbelievably egregious.


ROBERT REICH, FMR. LABOR SECRETARY: Well, Cenk, when you said a moment ago that this is the United States of corporate America, or at least that’s what it seems, that’s egregious enough.


I mean, big corporations are arguing in terms of getting more tax breaks or getting a tax holiday that they need it in order to have an incentive to create jobs in the United States. But most big corporations now have plenty of money.


Corporate profits are higher than they’ve been in years. In fact, big corporations are now sitting on almost a trillion dollars worth of cash. They’re not creating jobs in the United States, they’re creating jobs abroad.


UYGUR: So the fact that they kill a bill that would have stopped, you know, the loophole that allows them to get a subsidy for off-shoring, I mean, I feel like that’s such a no-brainer for the Democrats, I almost want to pull a Jon Stewart and just do this whole show and the next show and the next show after that about that.


How did the Democrats blow that? Why don’t they take advantage of that and tell the American people what’s happening?


REICH: Well, there are a lot of no-brainers for the Democrats when it comes to corporate malfeasance or nonfeasance.


Cenk, one of the problems -- and I don’t want to tar all Democrats with this, but at least some Democrats with regard to campaign donations are drinking at the same trough as Republicans. They’re going to big corporations.


Now, earlier this year, the Supreme Court, you’ll remember, said in one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in history, in Citizens United against the Federal Election Commission, that corporations are people and they’re entitled to provide as much money to campaigns and to politicians as they want. Otherwise, their First Amendment rights would be breached.


Well, you can’t have it both ways. You said it earlier, and I agree with you, that corporations are not people. They’re just machines. They are just designed to maximize profits.


If we actually treat them as people and say they have First Amendment rights to undermine and corrupt our politicians and our political process, then we’re really in trouble, because they don’t really represent America and Americans.


UYGUR: Well, they keep calling them American companies, or even corporate America. But do these so-called American companies have any obligation to America?


REICH: Well, unfortunately, they don’t. I mean, these global corporations have a primary obligation under the law, and also in terms of economics to their shareholders, to maximize shareholder returns.


That’s what under American capitalism corporations are supposed to do. They’re not obligated to maximize jobs. And it turns out these days, the most rapidly growing markets are in China, India, Brazil, several other rapidly growing markets, and so American corporations are over there not only selling but also creating jobs. Not here.


UYGUR: You know, the thing is, I don’t want people to get me wrong. I actually don’t think that’s crazy or bad. I get why businesses want to start factories in China and why they’re using India for labor, et cetera. I understand that. But what drives me crazy is the idea that we should be subsidizing that.


REICH: Exactly. Cenk, I couldn’t agree with you more.


In other words, corporations should be, according to the way we organize capitalism, maximizing shareholder returns, maximizing profits. So they should be going all over the world. But there is no reason for us, taxpayers, to be subsidizing those corporations, and then those corporations taking those subsidies, or those tax breaks, and using them for creating jobs all over the world. It makes no sense at all.


UYGUR: Unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask you the question that we always run into here. What can we do about it? Because the seems like the politicians, honestly, a lot in both parties -- certainly the Republicans are a wholly-owned subsidiary of multinational corporations, but the Democrats are partly owned, as you explained.


How do we get beyond it when they have already bought the politicians?


REICH: Well, what we have to, I think all of us, get serious about campaign finance reform. I mean, eyes glaze over. It’s not an exciting topic. We’d much rather talk about holding on to health care and everything else. But unless we actually stem the flow of corporate money into American politics, everything we want to do, everything we believe in is jeopardized.


UYGUR: Secretary Reich, thank you so much for joining us.


REICH: Thanks, Cenk. Happy New Year.


UYGUR: Happy New Year to you, too.




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... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

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Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


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<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

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President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


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<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


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<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


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<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...


bench craft company reviews bench craft company reviews

<b>News</b> Story Details

... McMurry, Schreiner, Sul Ross , Texas Lutheran, and HSU. The winner of the East Division is LeTourneau University of Longview, Texas. For more information, go to: http://www.ascsports.org/news/2010/12/16/GEN_1216105636.aspx ...

Giffords&#39; Eye Opening <b>News</b> - Political Punch

President Obama's dramatic news at last night's memorial service in Tucson that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' has just minutes before opened her left eye for the first time since the shooting has created some confusion in light of news from ...

Visualize This: Where the public gets its <b>news</b>

Perhaps the label should be something like “Percentage of respondents.” (The folks who collected the data allowed respondents to cite two “main” sources of news, which confused me.) I'll make the change. Thanks! ...

Monday, January 10, 2011

Making Money System


Not really. TD has always said that piracy is against the law. What Mike and others often aregue, is that the laws should be changed in favour of the consumers, not faceless megacorps.



I think you're right in that TD often encourages more sane laws in favor of the public vs corporations, but as far as piracy goes, my take on the TD line is that legality is a non-issue now that technology makes it hard NOT to copy something, what's important is finding a way to make money in spite of it. Pragmatism is the name of the game.



Now the *comments* on TD run all over the map. There's a lot of soft endorsement of illegal distribution, along with people who are outright loud about it. There are people who seem to think that artists are lazy chumps who want a free ride, and people who apparently have a problem with anyone exercising any legal muscle. Luckily there are some dissenting voices of reason, who are neither "IP Maximalists" nor "Freetards". (All these phrases and sloganeering are dumb as hell and only serve to trivialize how complicated these issues really are. "Pooperty" anyone? Let's cut out this ad campaign for issues and appeal to people through their reason and intellect)



I do kind of wish they would bring in some writers with more varied opinions. For instance, I agree with the criticism that TD loves to dispense business advice for musicians without any real clear idea of what goes into a musical career. The complicated web of credits and legalities that go into bringing multiple creative people together with their own input to and ownership of a project (We're not all solo artists!), the insane logistics of performing on a consistent basis and taking it on the road, the idea that fans just buy the hell out of merch, the notion that the internet has made distribution *easier* (it's not, it's *cheaper*, but only to get started), and the idea that grass roots projects can "bubble up" to the surface without a professional PR push and management team (Amanda Palmer works with a publicist and several managers, besides the fact she's "married" to Neil Gaiman, one of the most popular writers of the last 20 years. She's not a model for future musicians). But the reality is that even a no name blogger is pitched music by major labels every day, so not having a professional management/publicist team to pitch you, more importantly to give you legitimacy, means your emails most likely will never be opened.



Now, it is true that some artists will in fact bubble up, but it's mostly going to be boring mid-level talent with an interesting story behind them. Meh. I'd trade a thousand Susan Boyles/Ted Williams/Homeless Flavor of the Month for just one Jim Croce or Leonard Cohen.

(reply to this)
(link to this) (view in thread)



A couple of months ago, I bought this drawing from New York artist William Powhida. It’s called “A Guide to the Market Oligopoly System”, and it’s lots of fun, as well as being very astute.


It’s dominated by a big pyramid, with “the yearning masses” at the bottom — “submerged artists”, “deep in debt”, with enthusiasm rather than money. There’s a little dot over on the left, saying “you are probably here”. Powhida explains the economic condition that most artists find themselves in: There are always more people who like to earn their income as an artist than there is demand for them: there is a structural excess supply of labor. So, why do they persist? It’s a labor of love, or willful ignorance of the odds.


At these levels, art-making is simply not an economic activity, and as such it might be the purest art of all. There’s something quite noble about a labor of love, and indeed most artists, galleries, and museums at much higher levels of the pyramid are happy to continue to pretend that the art they’re showing is still a labor of love, even as it sells for millions of dollars. Art is getting bigger and glossier because that’s where the money is, but few artists (Takashi Murakami, perhaps?) will unabashedly admit that they make art for the money.


For the most part, then, as you rise up the pyramid, you encounter a steady increase in hypocrisy and artspeak, with the latter largely designed to obfuscate the former.


At the same time, however, it’s easy to sneer at the labor-of-love types: the art world has internalized the idea that labors of love are only worthwhile so long as they fetch a goodly number of dollars, or at the very least have a veneer of art-school sophistication — a veneer which becomes even more important if your art is popular or decorative or minimally functional. (Elsewhere, Powhida notes that “fashion isn’t considered art. Sorry!”)


The next level of the pyramid is what Powhida calls “the broad primary market”, which includes “tons of commercial galleries everywhere” as well as non-profits, pop-ups, co-ops, and the like. This is the point at which art starts being traded for money — the artists in question typically make a three-figure sum selling smallish works, with larger pieces at more respectable galleries going for a few thousand.


At this point, both artists and collectors start thinking in terms of what any given piece might be “worth.” Everybody in the system — artist, collector, gallery — has a natural desire to want to believe that an artwork is “worth” more than the collector paid for it, and that the trajectory of the artist’s future career will mean that in years to come, the collector will be able to sell it at a profit.


This is where the collector hypocrisy comes in: collectors love to say that they buy art just because they love it, and that they will never sell it. For them, just as for the artist, it’s important to keep up the pretense that what they’re doing is a labor of love; when collectors are caught flipping artworks to auction houses and making a profit on the deal, they’re sneered at, especially if they don’t immediately reinvest the proceeds in even more art. But the fact is that beyond a relatively modest initial level, no collectors will buy anything unless they think that it has real monetary value now, or will have it in the future.


This is why galleries are so important: they’re the mechanism through which an artist’s career can be tracked and reduced to a handy dollar figure. Everybody knows that there’s much more art than science to setting the dollar amount, and that’s why they always keep an eye on the auction houses, which are considered more objective. There’s an interesting tension here: galleries and artists love to see new records being set at auction, even as they hate the collectors who take their work to an auction house in the first place.


The auction houses are actually two full notches higher up on the pyramid, above the blue-chip galleries in London, LA, and New York and the major art fairs such as Art Basel and Frieze. At these levels, art becomes more explicitly a commodity: virtually everything bought here has some kind of immediate resale value, and you’ll probably be able to borrow cash money against it if you put it up as collateral. Galleries will nearly always buy back the work they sold you, if not at the price they sold it to you for, and much of the work will happily be accepted by the big auction houses.


The barriers to entry, at this level, are high: in the primary market, individual artworks start in the five-figure range and go right up into seven figures or even eight for massive works by megastars. Meanwhile, the same dealers operate a highly-exclusive secondary market where works can occasionally break the $100 million mark.


As its position on the pyramid suggests, the auction market is even more exclusive. It’s actually smaller, even as a secondary market, than the behind-the-scenes dealings of gallerists, and it’s also much more brutal in its assessments of an artist’s career trajectory. Auction houses are happy to sell relatively cheap works by up-and-coming artists, but they are much warier of more expensive works by artists seen as being on the decline. There’s still a market, for instance, for 80s superstars like Julian Schnabel or Eric Fischl, but you’re very unlikely to find their work at auction: they’ve been kicked out of the auction world, back down to the primary dealers.


It’s worth noting that this mechanism creates a very strong survivorship bias in the official art-market returns, quoted by Powhida at being 0.55% per year. Those returns are calculated by looking at pieces which have come up for auction more than once, but the fact is that in the big auction houses will often simply refuse to accept pieces which are no longer in favor, with the result that those works end up being sold in the opaque secondary market of galleries, and never get incorporated into official statistics. Auction sales are emphatically not a representative sample of secondary-market art sales more generally. What’s more, most art collections are built up in the primary market rather than the secondary market, and art indices give no indication of the rate of return on primary-market purchases, again because those numbers are so opaque.


Most people who buy art will, to a first approximation, “lose” all their money: like most other consumer products, it won’t or can’t be resold after being bought. Many of those people kid themselves that their work is “worth” roughly what it would cost them to replace it; they’re only disillusioned when they actually try to sell the thing and find no willing buyers. And even the clear-eyed often think of their art as a lottery ticket: it might be worthless today, but maybe, in the future, if the artist becomes hugely successful, it could be worth a fortune.


Art only really becomes an asset class at the very top of the pyramid: the auction houses, the museums, and the stars (a/k/a Damien Murakoons). Artists are constantly if slowly being inducted into this world, and museums are constantly receiving donations of art and buying it themselves, thereby taking it off the market. As a result, the total size of the market remains roughly constant, even the art which makes up the asset class is constantly changing. Right now, you’ll find Richard Prince and Francis Bacon in high demand; in ten years’ time it’ll be someone else.


One of the things I like the most about Powhida’s piece is the various different ways that he characterizes what you might think of as the y-axis: the thing that changes as you go higher up the pyramid. One sequence looks at the artists, who go from “submerged” to “emerging” to “established” to “stars.” Another looks at the artists’ net worth, which goes from “deep in debt” to “loaded.” Then of course there’s the price of art: “hundred$” to “thousand$” to “million$.” There’s a line characterizing the art from the collector’s point of view, from “speculation” to “investment.” There’s an upside-down pyramid, showing the art world in terms of effect rather than mass. And then there’s this:



You can argue the toss on some of these, but the main thrust is clear: the value of a work of art is to a very large degree a function of the city where it’s being sold. New York’s at the top of the heap (or, to be precise, Manhattan); Berlin punches well above its weight; Paris, the erstwhile center of the art world, is conspicuous by its absence.


Art schools, too, are ranked: Yale’s at the top, followed by Columbia, RISD, the Art Institute of Chicago, MICA, Cal Arts, UCLA, Bard, and Pratt. No foreign art schools are on the list, which is a shame, but Powhida is a very American artist.


In any case, I love this particular piece — I’m geeky enough to think that there should be much more art with footnotes — and I’m glad to own it. Naturally, I’ll never sell it. But I can still dream of a day when Powhida is famous and it’s worth a fortune.



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