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Lessons from SOCAP 2012: trend towards social impact investing continues | Guardian Social Enterprise Network. There may not be enough money to solve the world's increasingly complex problems, but capital is gravitating towards investments that have a positive social or environmental impact. Delegates at the recent SOCAP 12 conference, an annual event dedicated to increasing the flow of capital towards social good, heard how the emerging field of "impact investing" is seeking to achieve more than just making a buck. As financial returns from traditional investments limp along at low levels because of the global economic and financial crisis, impact has become an important differentiator among investors.

"Impact investing is an enormous opportunity for people, not only to get a return on their investment, but to also help make an impact on major societal needs at the same time – the two can go hand in hand," said Jed Emerson, chief impact strategist at ImpactAssets, a non-profit social investment company. There are encouraging signs nonetheless. Social Entrepreneurs Hack Capitalism. Think Like a Family. President Obama’s current appeals to fairness — as in the wealthy paying their “fair share” and letting ordinary Americans have a “fair shot” at a middle class life — will likely do more harm than good for those of us who care about economic equality. A Gallup poll conducted in mid-December reports that 58% of Americans polled say that they do not see society divided into “haves” and “have nots” despite Occupy Wall Street’s efforts to highlight growing economic inequality.

The references to fairness appear to be the Democrats’ attempt to capitalize on the rhethoric of the 99%, a tactic they should seriously reconsider as it will likely backfire with serious consequences to our nation. Fairness is inevitably in the eyes of the beholder. If the President and the Democrats actually want a more equitable distribution of wealth, then they should pretend they are managing a household or large family, rather than running a business. S blog » Blog Archive » Multidimensional value and the future of transactions. I was talking recently to people who have been using our neighborhood rewards debit card in Bernal Heights, and they mentioned: Something we are striving more and more to do is to be considerate and conscious of supporting our neighbors. Sometimes, I could go find something cheaper, but then it wouldn’t support the merchants on the hill who are making Bernal what Bernal is.

Each of these merchants are daily stops. Maybe economically it does not make much sense, but it feels more involved to see people everyday and say hi, have that process. Why is it that something that feels like it makes sense may be said to not make much economic sense? I recently met Alexandro Lazlo, a system scientist, who shared with me his typology of capital. We may soon realize that the things that didn’t make sense economically only didn’t because we were making economic calculus with very limited information.

Here are Lazlo’s 10 dimensions of capital. Blueprint for P2P Society: The Partner State & Ethical Economy. A new way to produce is emerging. By this I mean: a new way to produce anything and everything, whether it is software, food, or cities. What once required rigid organisations and a society defined by the mentality of hierarchies, we are discovering now (and in many cases re-discovering) how to do through free association of peers. It is also becoming clear that entering an era defined by an ethos of free association and horizontality doesn’t mean institutionality itself will dissappear, but that it will undergo the deepest of transformations.

In the emerging institutional model of peer production, most visibly in the free software industry, we can distinguish an interplay between three partners: A community of contributors that create commons of knowledge, software or design; An enterpreneurial coalition that creates market value on top of that commons; and A set of for-benefit institutions which manage the "infrastructure of cooperation" 1. 2.

But this is not the whole story. 3. 4. 5. Cancers or Endowments « Reading Nature's Signals. In Continuing the Conversation on Resilience John Fullerton offered a provocative summary and invited more comments on the subject that started with examples found from Bill Reese and Donnella Meadows of resilience as “a Double Edged Sword”, like either social or biological diseases that change to become resistant to treatment. My comment on it got to be 1000 words…, so I just posted the introduction there, and continue it here, where I also can edit it if needed. Hmmm…. I think I both agree and disagree with all three, Geoff, Dave and Ted.

I’m sure they’d point out problems with how I fit the various issues together, the way I draw the bigger picture too, of course. The reality we’re looking for will need crucial parts contributed from many different perspectives, as no one sees what a complex society needs to work by themselves. It’s very odd, indeed, that human society is very actively destroying its own planet, in the name of its own self-interest.

(edit in progress 4/12) _________ Taleb on Antifragility. 14 Ways an Economist Says I Love You. Give your loved one a nerdy Valentine and they'll be yours forever! Why? Because if you give them diamonds/cufflinks this year, anything you get them next year will fall short. Give them one of these and anything they receive next year will be a step up. It's called expectation management and is the key to a long and happy relationship. On that dismal (science heyoo) note, Happy Valentine's Day. Global Economics Gets a Facelift With The Atlas of Economic Complexity - Business.

Launch Slideshow Economists Ricardo Hausmann and César Hidalgo released their Atlas of Economic Complexity at the Harvard Center for International Development on Thursday. The 300-plus page atlas is unlike any you’ve seen before—it doesn’t inform readers where they are geographically, and it won’t be any help when charting pan-continental adventures. But from an economic perspective, the atlas will tell readers where their countries rank in terms of productivity—and, most astonishingly, where it will be in 10 years.

It’s not a crystal ball, but it could very well be a map for global investment over the next decade. Plus, it sure is pretty to look at. The atlas starts with the idea that the wealth and potential of nations is derived from productive knowledge. By this measure, Uganda has the most potential of any country in the world, followed by Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Madagascar. All images courtesy of Atlas.media.mit.edu. Michel Bauwens: A peer-to-peer economy. This interview is part of an exclusive series Paper.li is doing with the CulturaDigital.Br festival in Rio. Paper.li is CulturaDigital.Br’s media partner and is bringing our community a taste of the keynote speakers’ talks ahead of the event. Peer-to-peer originated in technology… but can it help transform society?

Michel Bauwens, leading P2P advocate, tells Paper.li that Yes, it can. Michel Bauwens is an academic, former dotcom entrepreneur and information management pioneer who coined the idea of the ‘cybrarian’. Above all, it’s a relational dynamic in which people exchange not with each other as individuals, but with a commons. We are coming out of 300 years of a system where people were led to believe that only self-interested exchange would bring progress to themselves and society, and that such exchanges had to be mediated by institutions such as the state and large corporations. It is moving from the world of knowledge and executable software, to the world of design-for-making.

Www.plancanada.com/capitalism3.pdf. Welcome to the Metacurrency Project | The MetaCurrency Project. MetaCurrency Collabothon in NY, October 21-23 - P2P Foundation | The P2P Daily. Bitcoin and ethics. Recently I have been following and participating in some political discussions on IRC and the Bitcoin forums. What has impressed me is the diversity of political opinions expressed in relation to Bitcoin. In one discussion you can find a person defending libertarian islands, while in another someone else is espousing the virtues of socialism. Although it would be fair to say that the majority of those who express their opinions on these fora are skeptical of the state and critical of the status quo, you also find quite a few who support traditional parties, their platforms, and representational politics as conducted in North America and Europe.

What seems abundantly clear to me is that Bitcoin is not a political movement. Oh, I already hear my critics raising their voices at me! When you ask someone why they use Bitcoin, for example, they will likely give you an explanation that will tell you about their political views or personal values. So what is the Bitcoin ethic?

Wealth creation and macroeconomics: The parasite problem.