Attraction Is In the Eye of the Beholder
by Rob Kirby | July 7, 2008
PrintWhile I will never be accused of agreeing with Professor A. Fekete on every point he makes, as a proponent of sound money, his is a voice that deserves to be heard. Thus, I was saddened to hear that Professor Fekete’s Gold Standard University Live was losing the support of its “angle investor” Eric Sprott as a source of funding:
Mr. Eric Sprott said in his letter that "we weren't attracting enough interest to justify that ongoing expenditure".
I have no idea to what extent Gold Standard University Live was being subsidized, but what I can say is this; promotion/education of the true state of our current financial system, which is seriously broken – and discussion regarding practical alternatives - is vital.
What I found particularly disturbing, was the manner in which Professor Fekete summed up the reasons for his effort’s perceived failure:
“To give you an idea of the odds I am facing let me quote from the article in Wikipedia (June 9, 2008) captioned under my name: “It should be noted that mainstream economic theorists criticize gold standard-oriented monetary economists and monetary reformers such as Professor Fekete as ‘fringe’ or ‘amateur’ economists, not worthy of serious study. Professor Fekete has never held a teaching position in the economics department of any prominent university”.
As a researcher/writer myself – one who shares many of the same core values as Professor Fekete – I’ve all-too-often heard the same commentary from ‘mainstream’ analysts and the mainstream financial press – that my work was too conspiratorial or even kooky - and only had appeal to like minded conspiracy theorists or kooks. In short, his cause is the same as mine.
Since the nature of my research is best described as both forensic and macro-economic, I can personally attest and am pleased to provide – through ‘mining’ data from my own web-log [kirbyanalytics.com] – a list of kooky institutions that have read at least one of my articles and visited my web site over a recent 3 month period. You see folks, when these entities visit my web site – they leave an electronic ‘foot print’ or their URL in my web log statistics.
All of the traffic that visits my site originates from “links” at the end of articles I post free on the net. So, if folks don’t read the articles – they would never see the “link” to my site at the end of them now – would they?
So, without further ado, here’s a list of entities, or “cherry picking” of kooks if you prefer [which I’ve attempted to limit to educational, government, financial and big business] which have visited my web site over a recent 3 month period:
Universities
University of Texas
Universidad Nacional de Mexico
California State University
Wayne State University
Australian National University
Inter University Network – Thailand
Caldwell Community College – North Carolina
Open University of Israel
Institute of Technical Education - Singapore
Colorado State University
San Jose State University
Columbia University
University Pierre et Marie Currie – Paris
Danish Network for Research and Education
College of William and Mary – Va.
Methodist Ladies College – Claremont Australia
University of Oklahoma
Corinthian College – California
Cologne University – Cologne Germany
Wageningen University – Netherlands
Yale University
Canakkale University – Istanbul
Concordia University – Montreal
University of Geneva
University of Washington
University of Liverpool – U.K.
Laurentian University – Ontario
University of Hawaii
Banaras Hindu University – India
University of East London – U.K.
Kuwait University
University of Kentucky
Perdu University
Kings College London – U.K.
University of Westminster – U.K.
Morgan State University
University of Lincoln – U.K.
Utah State University
Princeton University
University of Redland – California
Simon Economic Systems
York University – Toronto
University of Lausanne
College of Charleston – South Carolina
Northern Alberta Institute of Technology
Saarland University – Germany
University of Fort Hare – South Africa
Boston College
Indiana University
Rhode Island Network for Education Technology
Banks / Financial
Deutsche Bank
KPMG Peat Marwick
Nesbitt Burns - Canada
Barclays Capital
Accenture
Investment Dealers Association – Canada
Joint Stock Company TEO LT – Lithuania
UBS
Commerzbank
PNC Bank
SEI Investments
Christiania Securities – Norway
Scotia McLeod – Canada
CIBC World Markets
ABN Amro
Credit Suisse
J.P. Morgan
Goldman Sachs
Royal Bank of Canada
Bank of Montreal
Raymond James
Edward Jones & Company
Mid America Asset Management
Cheuvereux Securities – France
Gulf Investment Corporation - Kuwait
Political
Northern Territorial Government – Australia
Indiana Dept. of Education
Singapore Housing and Development Bd.
Fairfax County Gov’t – Va.
Louisiana Dept. of Health & Hospitals
City of New York
Georgia Dept. of Education
City of Toronto
Education Dept. of West Australia
United States State Department
Northern Territory Government – Australia
Australian Department of Defense
Hertfordshire County Council – U.K.
Dallas Independent School District
Cumbria Lancashire Education Online – U.K.
King County Gov’t – Washington St.
School Board of Broward County – Fla.
Georgia Dept. of Education
U.S. Dept. of Justice
City of Peterborough – Canada
State of Nebraska
Los Angles Unified School District
Denver Public School District
Ministry of Defense – Netherlands
State of Tennessee
Canadian Dept. of Education
Orange County Dept. of Education – California
City of York Council – U.K.
Metropolitan Education Council – Dublin, Ohio
Securities and Exchange Commission
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – Washington
Public Administration of Berlin
State of Arkansas
Business
Yamana Gold
Kennecott Copper
Petro Braz
Gazprom
Baker Hughes
Intel Corporation
Exxon Mobil Corporation
Saudi Aaramco
Ontario Hydro
Brascan Corp.
Apria Healthcare
General Motors
J.C. Penny
Northrop Grumman Corp.
Chevron Corp.
Lockheed Martin Corp.
Boeing Corp.
Twentieth Century Fox
Research In Motion
Target Corp.
Pars Online – Tehran
Do the above institutions appear as run-of-the-mill kooks to any of you?
In commiseration with Professor Fekete – I certainly can relate and I too am sick of the lies and deceit. As for me, I’m also certain the reason why readership is so widely reported as being “down” at most mainstream media outlets is precisely because they refuse to report the news.
As you can see from the list above – there is demonstrably, without-a-doubt, HUGE demand and HUGE interest for accurate and timely reporting on the true condition of our failing financial system and learning about honest money in a straight forward manner. The numbers simply do not lie like so many of our politicians, bankers and journalists with their pre-packaged-superficial-pabulum do.
So in conclusion, I’m saddened that “our cause” has lost the support of someone of the ilk of Eric Sprott. But let us never be “fooled” or deceived that there is no interest or concern among a broad base of the waking public.
God bless.
Copyright © 2008 Rob Kirby
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Rob Kirby | Kirby Analytics | Toronto, Ontario, Canada | Email | Website
The opinions of FSU contributors do not necessarily reflect those of Financial Sense.
