The next step in Selective Spending

Wired in blogging for dollars highlites Fon for making money "Blogging for Dollars" .
I would like to combine that idea with something that supports "selective spending" .
Whatever system gets adopted needs to deal with:

Spammers & scammers
The huge amount of data
A critical mass to get started
Reliability of the Information

What I am talking about is the ecology of spending your money. When you have a choice do you spend your money with people who are good for your future & the future of your children or do you spend just on price alone ?

Some criteria for selecting a good company to spend your money with:

Does it have a website? -

Does it have a vision, mission, purpose or plan besides just making money?
Does it have a blog or some way for customers to give feedback?

Does it clean up it's own messes or does it wait for the government & lawyers to force it to do so
Does the company's employees like to work for the company - is it fun to work for this company?
Does the company treat it's employees fairly

profit sharing
health plans

Is the company environmentally friendly

Does it in-turn use products that are environmentally friendly?
Does it in-turn practice good environmental selective spending in producing & marketing it's products?
Does it recycle ?

Does the company produce healthy items & goods which align with the highest aspirations of the human spirit? or otherwise ?
Is the company or it's directors politically active? Is the way that it or it's directors politically active in alignment with your personal direction (choose on your own left-middle-right, that's up to you.)
If it is a large company that advertizes on TV what do it's commercials say about the company?

are they pandering to baseness just to get attention?
can you figure out what they really are advertizing?
are they just playing the statistics by repeating the same advertizement over & over again, perhaps even within the same segment ? Are they hammering you with just noise or inviting you in to look at something good they are selling ?

Is the company transparent in it's dealings or does it hide behind a mass number of holding companies?
Does the modus operandi of the company include "The end justifies the means" or is it more like "The end and the means must be congruent with eachother!" .. (an old motto of Common Logic Inc.)
Is the published material on the company website believable or is it just marketing hype ? Is the company just saying that it is environmentally friendly while it actually pollutes?

Your ideas are welcome ....(be positive as best you can)

Comments

Seth says

You want to combine which idea with selective spending? ... sharing wifi, or the viral marketplace where A-list bloggers becomming influence peddlers ...

source: Blogging for Dollars
In the old days, building an international telecom infrastructure and growing its market share required a colossal pool of capital. Today, Foneros do both of those jobs themselves. Sure, the company has $22 million to burn, which is nothing to sneeze at. But it also has an advisory board full of A-list bloggers like Dan Gillmor and David Weinberger, a powerful engine propelling the network to critical mass.

... and how?

Mark de LA says
I'm working on the how & fine tuning the what. Essentially the idea is to spread it via blogging & incentives to blog. The cited article just triggered this item, it may be less than appropriate - it is just

a success story.

Mark de LA says
I nominate Whole Foods as a model of what I am looking for. Here is their mission statement. I have shopped both at their store in Oakland California and here in Boulder Colorado. Both are the way I would like my local supermarket to be. There is a lot of other info on their website that I won't get into right now.

Mark de LA says
Some of the iPod competitors are mentioned in this article at the AppleInsider. Are their suppliers any better than Apple ?

Mark de LA says

M 2006-06-13 05:55:27 3693

And, I nominate Apple as possibly a bad example see this article in Wired. This article provides a lot of links that may be useful in doing research in the globalized market as well. What could be more American than Apple -- oops, maybe NOT!

Are not most electronics manufactured outside the US ? Taiwan, China, Singapore ?
The following were links from the article of possible interest in the research for selective spending -

I don't know what their biasses are nor what their point of view is, yet.

I am always suspicious of any organization with the word Labor in it!

Mark de LA says
Continuing improvement by Whole Foods is also a good benchmark of a good company. See this article on "humane" treatment of lobsters in the supply chain.

Of course what does humane treatment really mean to a creature you are about to eat

. If you follow Mother Nature you notice that most creatures tear their food apart while it is alive. Snakes strangle their food to death. Spiders inject the digestive fluids into the animal while alive or paralyzed and then hang it out in the web till they are hungry "food to go" , eh? Humans - try to make it quick with electrocution or machines that just chop off the heads. Lobsters just get to sit on death row for a long time in terms of lobster-years.

Mark de LA says
Here is another reason to seek out alternatives to goods & services produced in Russia, China & Iran (of course):

Iran appeals to Russia, China to bolster resistance to US
uri http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=11536089 is another view of the story from Google News.
i.e. google Iran Russia China

It's been a long time since I felt good about Russia; & that wonderful glow between Bush & Putin down in Crawford has faded.
China on the other hand is a dangerous competitor who is building up her military like she is planning to take Taiwan back. China is one of the reasons the price of oil is escalating. Now she is going to help Cuba drill for oil 50 miles off the tip of Florida!

Mark de LA says

Remember, selective spending is a concept given from within an individual. A boycott is taking your directions from somebody else. Learn the subtle difference. -M.R.

Seth says

M 2006-06-17 13:30:35 3693

Here is another reason to seek out alternatives to goods & services produced in Russia, China & Iran

One thing i've noticed is that there is a vrey real pressure from US mass marketers to prefer to get goods from China. I'm talking about the WalMarts, the CostCo's, the QVC's etc. Of course the knee jerk response is to say that the consumers demand lower prices and that is the only place those lower prices are available. But that may not be the real cause of our manufacturing industries migrating to China. I think the mass markerters are leading the consumer damand ... not the other way around. One motivation is that it drives out their competition because only they can afford the million dollar transactions that are necessary to make these LCs feasable. Don't forget that is is the WalMarts who actually make the choices that put the goods on the shelves for the consumers to purchase, not the consumers. Not selling an item that costs maybe $5 more and shows obvious quality which is made in the USA or Western Europe in preference for selling the same functionality in an item made in China is a choice made by the mass marketer not the consuming individuals. Telling the individual consumer to buy-usa when no such items can be found on the shelves is not going to change anything. But convincing the mass marketers that they are perverting our economy for no good reason, might be something we could look at.

Mark de LA says
IMHO, You can't really fight capitalism without turning it into communism (& visa versa). You can only spend where the goods & services work for you. I have never bought anything at Walmart. I tried once & only found cheap Chinese goods not worth buying at any price. They almost all smelled of cheap plastic. I have more expericence with a Breville juice fountain (juicer) and a burr coffee grinder both made in China (both bought thru Amazon.com) - both seized up after the 30 day warranty was over. So I am not likely to buy anything with a motor from China. & Amazon is on my shit list. Read the labels & notice where things are made. Capitalism of today will eventually lead us all to lower wages through globalization. Is that good or is that bad? - I don't know! We can all remember when goods from Japan were cheap & low quality. That has changed a lot in the last 25 years.

Mark de LA says

I recommend that you spend your petro$ in gas stations & on products NOT at CITCO.
His remarks & lies at the UN & for the last year & his alliance with the dictators Castro & Ahmadinejad gives me cause to ask why I would want to help make anything that he does survive.

See this link if you are interested.

Mark de LA says

M 2007-01-23 10:12:33 3693

See the terror-free oil initiative at this site - the only one I have heard of was Sinclair.

The site also gives lots of lists on where most of the common gas stations get their oil.

Mark de LA says

Then come the toy scandals from China's lack of controls:

let's see what's on the list:

toothpaste

fish

toys

...

Mark de LA says

seth 2007-08-15 12:19:56 3693

Why don't you put China on your selective spending list. That way you can get rid of most of the stuff in your house.

I check the things that I buy for where they are made & select otherwise if it is from China. The other day I bought some fencing that I was sure would be made in China & looked closely & found it was made in Israel! If I have a choice I select for Made in the USA!

The next step in Selective Spending

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