Ricardo Semler: Revolutionizing the Business Model

Ricardo Semler is a revolutionary in the business world. For centuries we have improved and evolved our government, technology, science, etc., but the structure of businesses has hardly changed at all. All of that changed when Ricardo Semler proved to the world that he could create a democratic business with record profits, record growth, and happy workers.





Favorite quotes:"When you look at your past and my past and anybodies past and say, 'When did I actually learn something' it was when you were very interested at the exact moment and there was somebody who was passionate on the other side--never in any other situation."

Detroit: The Perfect Example

My interest in Detroit peaked after a recent trip by my parents-in-law to the "Motor City" for the 2010 Ford Convention. To them, Detroit was like nothing they had ever seen or could put into words. They told us that no one walks on the streets alone and that you can see the desperation in the faces of everyone you meet. Since then, I have done some research of my own and found that Detroit's devastation and ruination did not begin with the latest economic downturn, but has continued for several decades, and it is not over. 77 parks will be shut down this month and demolition crews are planning to tear down 10,000 residential buildings over the next four years. Yet, the best way I can describe Detroit to you is with the latest TIME magazine pictures of the city's ruins: 

Detroit is the end result of a global economic system where employees have no say in the way their businesses are run. The same employees that built these corporations have been denied a piece of the ownership and thus the wealth that they created. These corporations have uprooted and moved across the planet in search of cheaper labor and lower working, pollution, & corruption standards--taking their pillage with them.

Ironically, only now that these oligarchical coporations have turned their backs on Detroit are real, local solutions being implemented. With the city’s current leadership hypnotized by what they see as a civic death spiral, new leadership is coming from the place it always does in the end–from the bottom up. There are now eight hundred community gardens on abandoned lots, peace zones for public safety, green retrofitting of empty houses, new open source media projects and an exploding hip hop and poetry scene. 500-1000 young people come to Detroit every summer for the Allied Media Conference where they create new ways to use participatory media as a strategy for social justice organizing. From June 22-26, as many as 10,000 people from around the world are convening in Detroit for the US Social Forum to discuss solutions for Detroit and the U.S. that include sustainable urban planning departments, student environmental organizations, food security, renewable energy, green building, new media, and alternative currencies.

The problem that remains is that this progress is likely to be pillaged again by oligarchical corporations. When money returns to Detroit, oligarchical corporations will take root again and the cycle will start over. Until the people of this nation and the world understand that oligarchical corporations within democracies do not yield democracy at all, we will continue this cycle. We must change the organizational structure of the corporation. If all we did was demand employee ownership, decentralized decision making, and financial transparency, we would eliminate the majority of our economic problems.
 
(Information from freespeech.org and boggsblog.org)

Bill Moyers' Last Broadcast

The long-standing PBS anchor, Bill Moyers, signed off yesterday (May 3, 2010) for the last time. During his final address, he spoke of democracy and the state of our union.

Bolivians to Reforest their Country...Without Money

What would happen if every person in the world walked outside and planted one tree? The effect on atmospheric CO2 levels would be greater than any multi-billion dollar, government project. According to TreesAreGood.com, in one year, an acre of trees can absorb as much carbon as is produced by a car driven up to 8700 miles.

This week, Bolivia hosted the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change. Among other resolutions, Bolivians decided that on Earth Day 2011, they would each plant one tree in order to reforest the country. Bolivian President Evo Morales, in an interview on 4/23/2010, spoke of the peoples' plan:

In Bolivia, we are going to begin reforestation...We are going to begin to plant them as of next year on April 22 (Earth Day). We will plant ten million trees. What does that mean? That a Bolivian, whether a child or an older person, will plant a plant or a tree--and we are ten million, and there will be ten million--without any international contribution. This would just be an effort by Bolivians to reforest our country.

What would be the effect if every person in the world planted one tree on April 22, 2011? Or two? Or three? Is there a better example of democracy, in the world, than the people of the world solving the problems of the world themselves?

The Most Democratic Workplaces of 2010

WorldBlu is a non-profit organization with the goal to inspire the formation of 20,000 democratic organizations by the year 2020. Each year WorldBlu recognizes, on it's website, the most democratic organizations in the world. Check out this year's achievers!

Union Cab of Madison Is a Democratic Business

I believe that one day, the majority of businesses will be run democratically because the standard business model will struggle to compete.

I'm a Podcaster Now!

I just signed up for Odiogo's (http://www.odiogo.com/) free service that converts your blog posts into podcasts, automatically. Now DemocraticBusiness.blogspot.com is a podcast! Click the "listen now" button in the top left hand corner of this post to listen.

Beyond Borders' Emergeny Efforts in Haiti

Beyond Borders is a democratic organization who's sole purpose has been to assist the people of Haiti--since the late '70s. Beyond Borders has the trust & support of the Haitian people. I can think of no better organization to donate to in order to help the people of Haiti, at this time.

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Fascism= The Marriage of Big Business and Big Government

On January 22, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that any corporation or union from any country in the world can spend as much money as it wants to win in any political campaign. Corporations can now recruit and finance, openly, its own candidates with however much money it is willing to spend. If, for example, Exxon Mobil decides that it will spend one percent of its earnings on it's own candidate, it will have spent more money on a Presidential Campaign than any candidate in history.

If left unchecked, this will be the straw that breaks the back of democracy in the United States. The sadest part is that, once again, the Republicans & Democrats are too busy fighting with one another to see that our country has just been hijacked.

Vote With Your Money

Move your money from Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs to a local bank. Vote with your money. Your choice of bank is much more powerful than you electoral vote.Enter your zip code at this website below to find high-rated, local banks. http://moveyourmoney.info/

How Can We Have a Healthy Economy and Healthy Ecosystem?

Euphoric Purpose Inspires Democracy

Joel Salatin is the owner of Polyface Farm in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

"Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other." -- Philip Yancey

"I Think in Ten Years Time We Will Look Back and Say, 'We Should Not Have Done That.'"

People Before Profits

"For the first 100 years after the founding of our country, no corporation was allowed to get a charter unless it could prove that it served the public interest, and charters came up for renewall every ten years or so; they didn't get a renewall unless they could prove that they served the public interest. That all changed after the supreme court ruling that made corporations equal to individuals in the late 1880's, and then, John D. Rockefeller stepped in and really made things get out of hand. We need to go back to an understanding that corporations are there to serve us." -- John Perkins (author of Confessions of An Economic Hit Man)

US Has the 20th Most Free Press

First Amendment - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Why is the United States number 20 on the list of countries with the greatest freedom of the press?

Is it any wonder that the nations (Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Netherlands, Switzerland, Iceland, and Lithuania) with the most freedom of the press tend to have the least corruption and the highest standard of living. Anyone who understands the principles of democracy should not be surprised.

The best medicine for corruption is a little sunlight.

(Read article and see rankings @ http://www.rsf.org/en-classement1003-2009.html)

As Foreclosures Hit All-Time High, Wall Street on Pace to Hand Out Record $140B in Employee Bonuses

Finance is supposed to exist for one purpose: to make the real economy work better. The fact that the DOW Jones has topped 10,000 and banks are doling out record employee compensations, while foreclosures are at record highs and unempoloyment is expected to top 10% is further proof that the real economy and the finance world have come unhinged.

How can the finance world make tons of money off of an economy in crisis?
By removing import legislation over the last decade that allows Wall Street & banks to grow like crazy, deliberately make bad loans with high interest, and to do it with other peoples' money. With that kind of a formula you are guaranteed to report record profits--not by creating anything of value, but by taking billions out of the real economy in trading profits.

Bailout for Bankers

"The average tax payer in this country, that's people making less that $75,000, should take a bow because every dollar in income tax they pay for four years went to this bailout." -- Donald Barlett of Vanity Fair

Big Government Means Big Business

In general, federal regulation benefits big business, and local regulation favors small business. Small businesses offer greater freedom and prosperity. Big business stiffles freedom, competition, and prosperity. You can be assured that big business will get bigger unless regulating power is decentralized to local governments. Here are two examples of the Big Government/Big Business effect:

Banks at Risk of Failure Has Reached 15-Year High
Banking regulators are warning that the number of banks at risk of failure has reached a fifteen-year high. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said the number of “problem banks” had risen from 305 to 416 during the second quarter. The FDIC has already shut down eighty-one banks this year. This comes at a time when the nation’s largest banks are getting even bigger due to a series of federally arranged mergers and taxpayer bailouts. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup now issue one of every two mortgages and about two of every three credit cards. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo now each hold more than ten percent of the nation’s deposits, despite a rule barring such a practice.

Taxpayers to Pay Banks Billions to Fix Loan Mess: A new report by the Center for Public Integrity has found that any of the lenders that helped fuel the housing crisis by issuing risky subprime loans are now lining up to receive more than $21 billion in taxpayer money intended to help bail out borrowers. At least twenty-one out of the top twenty-five participants in the Making Home Affordable program specialized in servicing or originating subprime loans.
(Examples taken from DemocracyNow!)

Maximizing Profits is not the Purpose of Business

Is the purpose of a doctor to maximize profits? Is the purpose of a teacher to maximize profits? Then why do we mistakenly believe that the purpose of business is to maximize profits?