Robert B Z wrote:
Hey William,
In a way you are preaching to the choir, of course. Still, your enthusiasm
has to be applauded and I only wish that more users would not only share
your view but also become more proactive in helping the gold currency
industry to achieve its potential.
So start collaborating. Write for the DGC News ;-) . Heck, join as a
member and start writing a journal. Submit news stories. Comment on
the stories already there. Remember, the only successful strategy is a
collaborative strategy.
BTW, DGC News will be enabling the Encyclopedia feature shortly, and
will be adding a new section: Economics 101. Econ 101 will address a
few of the shortcomings of past education efforts. In particular, we
aim to present a basic overview of how DGC's work (with appropriate
theoretical and technical drilldowns for those to whom these appeal).
In addition, it will present "HYIP or Business: How to Avoid Pyramid
Schemes, Ponzis and Other Con Schemes." Remember that the problem with
Ponzis and other fraud schemes doesn't arise out of DGC's, it arises out
of a lack of appropriate basic economic education through much of the
free market world. It just happens that DGC's make them easier to
implement (just as they make international businesses easier to implement).
Alas, this market of ours is unfortunately split into several factions,
some of which won't as much as talk to one another, while others insist on
spreading the gospel only as a package (total freedom now, nothing less
will do) and often bury potential future and already obtained past
achievements of the industry in political-idealistic gibberish.
Absolutely, this is a problem. I've been around and done the freelance
site circuit. I've talked to a lot of folks from one of those camps -
the ponzis. The majority of these people aren't trying to sucker people
out of their money. Their ignorance of economic forces and their greed
cloud their judgement. These people put a tremendous amount of effort
and skills into implementing their schemes. They tend to be quite
intelligent. Let's work to show them why what they're doing is not
sustainable, and what they could do to add real value to the market (and
ultimately their pocketbooks).
As far as the dogmatic Randians go, learn a lesson from the open source
community: Dogma doesn't sell - it does not add value to the
marketplace. Add value to the market, and your ideology will be shown true.
When talking to foreigners who should be the most obvious users of e-gold,
say, it usually takes a while until they grap the concept, before then
exitedly asking "can we do something like this here?". In other words,
foreigners find the whole industry too Americanized to be appealing, even
though they seem to see some of the benefits.
This should be a strong lesson to the currency operators. This one will
not be solved by offshoring or simply localizing web sites. This market
is seen as foreign by many groups because it does not have a physical or
cultural presence in these nations. Start to think of cultural
sensitivities - remember that American attitudes toward money, markets
and economics are not the only attitudes. Maybe forgo the Adam Smith or
Ayn Rand quote for one from Maurice Allais, Robert Mundell ;-) or Bertil
Ohlin. If you're an exchanger, start examining how other markets move
money - sometimes a wire transfer or credit card isn't the right choice.
At the same time, for many people the mere concept of using gold as
currency, rather than the paper they are used to, is quite alien.
Therefore plenty of education is likely to be the way to go, and in fact I
am recruiting users, one at a time, and have been doing so for years now.
Still, it's quite cumbersome and the utter lack of support from any of the
currency operators,
You know what? I'm happy to see limited support from the operators. It
means that they don't get dragged into ideological quagmire
discussions. It means that they retain their independance. For the
same reason that it was a good idea for e-gold to stay out of doing InEx
and OutEx, it's a good idea for them to stay out of the politics of the
industry as much as they can.
the infighting between operators, the bias against DGC
in the press,
There is nobody running a reasonable press kit right now. I'm sorry,
but given the state of the media now, you can't expect fair coverage if
you're not willing to spoonfeed the press. That means strong
backgrounders with catchy numbers and graphics that can _quickly_ be
grasped. That means strong, credible experts who are willing to take
the time to provide reliable interviews. That will be one of the next
big challenges over the next while.
The sites and links you mentioned are more of short bursts of creativity,
where some people show initiative - followed by long periods of
inactivity, peppered with negative remarks from those who by themselves
typically don't do much to further the industry.
I can assure you of this... DGC News is not a short burst of
creativity. It is integral to a real business that will be developing
over the next year or so. It prepares the groundwork for something
bigger and we are fully committed to developing it to its potential.
So yes, I'd like to heed your call and join in, but it'll take more than
us, more than a handful, it'll take a few dozen participants to get things
moving...
Yup. So join the crew. Pop over to DGC News. Heck, pop over to the
GDCA and help turn them into something more than the Better Business
Bureau for DGC's.
Patrick Kobly
President - Kobly Consulting Inc.
