TED Community » Tom Key

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Justice, Prosperity, Water and Air Quality

An idea worth spreading

The economic collapse, of the world, in the Summer of 2008, will be studied for years: Wealth attracts economic predation. Since the 1940's the largest single source of wealth in the world was the American Middle Class. It became the target of predation, and "investment bankers" focused on taking it--they succeeded. The Collapse is the result of the removal of trillions of dollars of the equity owned be the American Middle Class. The idea worth spreading is that Credit is not debt, and is not money. It is an asset, and it can be liquidated and stolen by criminals. Business associations are often taken over by the wealthiest members and rarely act in favor of what business needs for long-term growth. This is especially true of banking.

Talk to me about

Doing Business

People don't know that I'm good at

Tending my garden.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +1.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Talk: Steven Johnson on the Web as a city

  Jun 15 2012: cities...centralized in space, decentralized in function...recovered quickly
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Lesley Hazleton: On reading the Koran

  May 23 2012: 1/3 of the Koran is a reprise of semitic scriptures bandied about in the area, 1/3 is a story of battles, and 1/3 is simply opaque (Hazelton says "subtle"). No 72 virgins in the Koran. And "paradise" is peace, running water, and gardens.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: New world order is gravitating towards democratic system of governance but overwhelming number of corporations follow top down approach ?

  May 16 2012: Peter Drucker, often credited with prescriptions for modern corporate business, would often remark that dramatic wealth inequality was a watermark of a business on the way out. He warned that a Board of Directors filled with men about the retire would be practically useless. And he thought that shareholders should have meaningful information about the directors "running" for office within the corporate governance. He used the word "sham elections" to describe rich CEO's holding perpetually re-elected sinecures by means of interlocked Boards.
  
  The point is, just as the difference between a Monarchy/dictatorship and a republic is the "election" process, Drucker also taught that elections should play a meaningful role in the corporations, for the same reasons. Elections do not guarantee great leadership, or good business judgment within the corporation, but if it may be best practice, for both public and private organizations.
  
  The free market model is not based on ideology -- the Marxists and the Austrian/Chicago school are both based on Adam Smith logarithms -- nor is the model limited to incentivizing the productivity of private enterprises. The freedom of the market should also be valued and protected in the public service sectors as well. Adam Smith warned us in his 1776 Wealth of Nations that once a Republic is in place, the great danger of oppression is not from Government but from the large private monopolist enterprises. Capitalists seek to destroy competition and acquire monopoly. Hence the need for meaningful elections in both public and private enterprises, as a means of protecting the free market.
  
  At the heart of the election process is the free market concept of "choice". And the key to meaningful "choice" is transparency and information. Ultimately the informed voter participating in a market protected from monopolist tendencies is what can insure good business judgments for both public and private enterprises.

• A comment on Conversation: Is there any essential part of the "human self" that confers on a person human rights? Mind? DNA? Memory? Soul? What I do?

  Jan 30 2012: No one part of the brain is "in charge" -- all is interdependent upon blood, digestion, muscle memory, other parts of the brain. And then there are the dictates of morphology -- what we do based on our size, shape, and physicality.

• A comment on Talk: Julian Baggini: Is there a real you?

  Jan 30 2012: But Julian, do you know anyone who has "shaped" themselves differently? Changed? From one type to another type, from one character to another? Buddha himself did not make the claim.

• A comment on Talk: Julian Baggini: Is there a real you?

  Jan 30 2012: The person is an assembly of its parts. Hard to shake off the notion of a "core" in a person, but it just is not there. Central Control is missing. Yet, there is the regulated state of the thing. A unified operation, as when oxygen and hydrogen are separate and then combine and there is water.
• +2

  A comment on Talk: David Gallo: Underwater astonishments

  Jan 30 2012: There is a gap in our view of criminal law that permits polluters and exploiters to create gyres of trash and stripped deserts in the sea, and cesspools and toxic plumes on land. In the name of keeping our enterprises "free" and flourishing, we need regulations which will preserve and protect what is being destroyed by idiots who do not care about the future. What will a future without these wonders be?
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  A comment on Talk: Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun

  Jan 30 2012: Support our Soldiers!
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  A comment on Talk: Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun

  Jan 30 2012: Weapons can do harm. And, they can help make a better world. At a decisive moment in Dutch history, his father was given an old gun that could not hit the other side of the river. Germans invaded. Then troops who he did not know, came to liberate the Dutch. He now stands to protect us. He does not speak of the glory of weapons--there are none to speak of by anyone who has been under fire. He has been deployed in Lebanon, Sarajevo. Violence has declined dramatically in the last 500 years. Wars, murder, declined since WWII. Living in a relatively peaceful era. Less instinct for revenge, rage? Or the spread of the democratic republics with the state monopoly on violence under checks and balances. Nonviolence works like a fly-wheel. Where violence is reduced, trade flourishes--mutual gain. War is no longer the best option. The Armed Forces reduce violence--the controlled use of the gun. Soldiers using guns as instruments of peace. Compare, a "failed state", which has no functioning balances. One of the main tasks of the Dutch armed forces is to support international law. Great presentation.