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Paul B. Farrell
Feb. 1, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EST
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The Super Rich at Davos: 40 years of disaster
First Take "º
Exxon Mobil's $30-billion year
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) "” Yes, it's war. Wikileakers vs Wall Street's mafia-like code of silence ... Wall Street's obsessive secrecy ... Wall Street's war against transparency "¦ Wall Street's relentless lobbying to defeat all government efforts to expose how much Wall Street is stealing from middle-class taxpayers, investors and retirees.
A war to the death. No compromise. No quarter. No surrender. A war that ends only if wikileakers, whistleblowers and wikihackers crack open Wall Street's darkest secrets. Or when Wall Street wins and along the way destroys the American middle class.
In an interview with Alan Murray, James Riady, CEO of the Lippo Group, discusses the future impact of dramatic wealth creation in the developing world.
Master wikileaker Julian Assange is on "Wanted" posters, on Forbes, the New York Times, 60 Minutes, everywhere. Wall Street is pushing government to silence this guy. He went public with a half million classified U.S. government, military and diplomatic documents.
Worse, he's created a whole new industry of wikileaker-clones. And soon, he will be releasing a "doomsday file" on Bank of America, exposing a vast "eco-system of corruption" throughout Wall Street banking. Bigger than "the e-mails released by the Enron court," said Assange in a Forbes interview.
So who's the second "Most Wanted?" Don Tapscott, the man behind the new "wikinomics," an economic model the opposite of Wall Street's elite capitalism for the Super Rich. Wikinomics shows "how masses of people can take part in the economy like never before," how "billions of connected individuals can now actively participate in innovation, wealth creation and social development in ways we once only dreamed."
And, yes, Wall Street is afraid. Why? Because wikinomics is democracy in action. And Wall Street hates democracy. The Internet levels the economic playing field. Wall Street hates giving the middle class a fair deal. Wall Street thinks that because Goldman Sachs is hustling the 500 million member Facebook IPO to Goldman's Super Rich friends, Wall Street is somehow a leader in the new wikinomics economy.
That's delusional. Quite the contrary, Wall Street's monopoly on capitalism is being swept along in a "creative destruction" wave triggered by wikileakers, whistle-blowers and wikihackers, and is being replaced by the rapidly evolving wikinomics.
Wikinomics is radically different from Wikileaks. Wikileaks acts as a virus infecting and exposing Wall Street's corrupted business model. Wikileaks distrusts the secretive old-boy network hiding a corrupt core. In contrast, wikinomics trusts that transparency and mass collaboration will build a new economic order that works for all classes, not just the wealthy elite. In their latest best seller, "MacroWikinomics," Tapscott and co-author Anthony Williams explain why Wall Street hates everything wikinomics stands for:
"One Goldman Sachs executive said to us off the record: "?We're a very private company. The less people know about us and pay attention to us, the better.' In commenting on the U.S. government fraud charges against Goldman, Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto says, "?Sadly for Goldman, transparency is not an attractive option. The better Goldman does in explaining exactly what its business is, the more outraged regulators and the public will be'."
Yes, we are outraged the more we see into Wall Street's dark interior. And publishing that one quote by a Goldman executive has to be a kiss of death for wikinomics on Wall Street, an act of betrayal as if Assange released a "doomsday file."
Where wikinomics thrives on transparency, Wall Street makes billions operating with maximum secrecy, minimum disclosure and near-zero transparency. Two radically different ideologies. Polar opposites. Mortal enemies. No compromise. In other words, unless forced, Wall Street banks will never surrender to the principles of wikinomics.
At its core, the new wikinomics is based on six working principles which for a generation have been evolving naturally, in spite of resistance from an entrenched Wall Street and its allies, a global Conspiracy of the Super Rich, fighting to hold onto their power and wealth.
But unfortunately for them, history reminds us that massive concentrations of wealth at the top inevitably end in revolutions, repeating the all-too-familiar "creative destruction" cycle, which is even now replacing Wall Street's self-destructive capitalism.
Here are wikinomics six working principles, loosely paraphrased. At the core of the model, we see economic prosperity emerging naturally in businesses worldwide, through mass collaboration in communicating and competing.
Networked organizations are already altering how government, business and financial institutions operate, how we educate children, how health care, newspaper, communication and energy industries serve their customers. Their books are loaded with examples of businesses, organizations and individuals already using all kinds of new mass collaboration technologies, revolutionizing economics.
Paul Farrell writes the column on behavioral economics. He's the author of nine books on personal finance, economics and psychology, including "The Millionaire Code," "The Winning Portfolio," "The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing." Farrell was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley; executive vice president of the Financial News Network; executive vice president of Mercury Entertainment Corp; and associate editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. He has a Juris Doctor and a Doctorate in Psychology.
Oil giant floats above the fray, with few investors betting against it in 2011. But there are no guarantees in this business.
7:11 p.m. Jan. 31, 2011
"Wikileaks vs. Wall Street in a war for our souls http://on.mktw.net/eajuvw" 12:59 a.m. EST, Feb. 1, 2011 from MKTWFarrell
"The Super Rich at Davos: 40 years of disaster http://on.mktw.net/hOVA1V" 12:23 a.m. EST, Jan. 25, 2011 from MKTWFarrell
"Four reasons Buffett's legacy will die by 2020 http://on.mktw.net/e9XjFj" 12:09 a.m. EST, Jan. 18, 2011 from MKTWFarrell
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