KarmabanQue
Above and beyond boycotting
January 13, 2005
Martin Brown Utne.com
Max Keiser, a former Wall Street broker and founder of the first
patented virtual stock exchange, is developing an organizing tool
that promises to take the tried and true economic boycott to
another level.
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Keiser's creation, KarmabanQue, is an organizational forum
designed to create corporate losses and generate profit from the
fallout. KarmabanQue's Web site will track the public reputation of
socially suspect corporations in an effort to calculate when they
would be most vulnerable to a boycott. The most susceptible will
also be selected for a hedge fund that has been set up for wealthy
activists. (Hedge funds are specialized investment packages that
pool multiple investors' resources for the purpose of selling
short. When selling short, stockholders invest in stock that is
likely to drop in price and return devalued stock to their lender,
keeping the margin between the original price and the lesser price
for themselves.)
When a chosen company is most vulnerable, KarmabanQue will
encourage interested activists to stage traditional boycotts, which
will help drive a targeted companies' company's share
prices down, enabling the short sell. A portion of the profits from
the fund will be given to 'victims of the American business model,'
people who have been injured by the targeted corporations.
KarmabanQue has already targeted Coca-Cola and Ireland-based
Ryanair and, by the end of March, KarmabanQue investors will set up
the fund that Keiser hopes to be worth $100 million (he's already
raised $12 million).
Go there >>KarmabanQue
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