Brandon Smith, who for many years has written under the alias Giordano Bruno, has launched a new website called Alt-Market.com. The goal of Alt-Market is to facilitate barter networking and the exchange of knowledge and ideas for thriving in a faltering monetary environment. Alt-Market’s developers would like to de-centralize and de-globalize our system of commerce and help us re-localize our economy, in order to insulate cities and states from a possible (and ever more likely) collapse of the dollar.
An 1874 newspaper illustration from Harper’s Weekly, showing a man engaging in barter: offering chickens in exchange for his yearly newspaper subscription.
Ilene: Hi Brandon, I’ve been enjoying your blog Neithercorp and was interested in your project "Alternative Market Movement," and its newly launched website, Alt-Market.com. Could you tell me a little bit more about who you are, and what you’re trying to accomplish?
Brandon: As far as my background, it’s funny, because the question I am asked the most is what kind of academic credentials and accolades I’ve received, and "how long have I worked on Wall Street"? To be honest, everything I know about economics was self-taught, and I’ve never worked on Wall Street. I work a regular day job, and I try to stay as far away as possible from any association with mainstream economics. Just look at how many "Ivy League" financial analysts were completely blind to the derivatives and ARM mortgage bubbles, and how many are continuing to ignore the massive bubble forming in Treasuries and the dollar.
My fascination with macroeconomics began a decade ago after the World Bank riots in Seattle. I had never seen such massive political action against an establishment construct, and I wanted to know every detail about what globalization really was. 9/11 reinforced my concern for the state of America. I was very disturbed by how easily the average person was led to support the invasion of Iraq, and how quick they were to accept the progressive dissolution of civil liberties that was being undertaken by the government. In 2004, I read G. Edward Griffin’s book ‘The Creature From Jekyll Island’, covering the dark history of the private Federal Reserve. After that, I found myself finally seeing the whole truth for the first time. In 2007, I felt steeped in enough information to begin writing my own analysis. My goal was to produce economic articles for the common American, instead of writing for investors and other analysts. If anything is to change, we have to educate regular people who don’t have a decade to pour over IMF white papers and stock charts.
Ilene: How can Neithercorp achieve its stated purpose: to "help bring you a possible solution to the economic debacle we now face as a country"? How are you going about that and do you feel you’re reaching your goals?
Brandon: Neithercorp is an anti-corporation that operates on copyleft principles, and it is designed to support the larger efforts of what we call the "Liberty Movement". Everything on the site is free, we don’t post advertisements, and any other website is welcome to republish our articles as long as they link back to us as the source. Our purpose is to get the information out to the public.
The first step to any solution is to first educate the people about the intricacies of the problem. We’ve spent the last four years of Neithercorp doing just that. Our web traffic is very high, and I think we have done well in this regard. Now a substantial portion of U.S. citizens are at least aware that the economy is not in recovery and that mainstream statistics are fraudulent, we have moved into the second phase, which is to provide a realistic and concrete plan to confront the situation. Our new project, the "Alternative Market Movement", is meant to offer that plan without centralizing all control of the Liberty Movement under one roof. Interested parties can read more about it here:
http://neithercorp.us/npress/Brandon: The biggest threat to our economy has always been globalization. We have allowed corporate banks to centralize nearly all financial control into the hands of a select few, and we have allowed our economic system to be forced into interdependency with numerous other countries. Globalists claim that this process is natural and inevitable, but in reality, it is the product of deliberate engineering.
Now, the economy of every nation is tied together like a string of dominoes; one falls, and we all fall. The only solution to this dire situation is to decentralize the economy, and bring back local and community based commerce again. Only with flexibility and redundancy will the system be able to survive a collapse of broader markets or the dollar.
The biggest threat to our government is, again, those organizations which are attempting to herd us towards globalization. I think it has become patently obvious that the leaderships of both major parties have been thoroughly corporatized, and that regardless how we vote, the Democrats are going to continue the policies of the Republicans, and the Republicans are going to continue the policies of the Democrats. Instead of paying attention to the empty rhetoric of the party heads, we need to look at their voting records. Barack Obama is a blaring example of this hoodwink. Not only is his administration awash in global banking proponents, he has fully supported the Patriot Acts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even the FISA bill which allows the government through telecom companies to spy on anyone it pleases without fear of legal reprisal. He’s a clearer speaking clone of Bush Jr, and that’s all.
Ilene: Is Alt-Market ready for use in bartering now?
Brandon: Yes, visit us here.
Ilene: How does it work: Is it like a trading version of eBay? For example, If I want to sell a cow in order to get medical care, will I have to find a doctor who wants my cow? If transactions with just two people prove difficult to efficiently match up, is there a way that many people can make multi-person exchanges? Am I even picturing this correctly?
Brandon: No, transactions wouldn’t take place in an online market, rather relationships would be developed. The new site is meant to help participants meet like minded individuals to expand their barter network. All trade must be done privately between those individuals, not on the website. People are going to have to start walking away from their damn computers and dealing with each other face to face. (Click here to join a group in your area)
Ilene: So you’re not looking to hook up people from across the country to make online trades with each other – you’re wanting to introduce people who are nearby each other and interested in forming more physical networks?
Brandon: Yes. I think the secret to a successful bartering network is to keep open as many options as possible for transactions. You could trade gold, silver, your cow, a useful skill, or even dollars if the doctor is willing to still take them. The point is not to force Americans to turn away from the dollar based system only to be limited again by gold, or their livestock, but to use all means of trade until the dollar collapses. After which, we will have grown used to several alternatives beyond the greenback, instead of none. If we do not have an alternative system in place to shield citizens from a dollar implosion, we WILL see unprecedented chaos in this country, along with a crackdown on our civil liberties most people can’t even fathom.
Eventually, when we rebuild the monetary system, we can return to a paper currency backed by real commodities, or a basket of commodities. The concept of fiat has to go. The Keynesians got it terribly wrong.
Ilene: If this takes off, do you worry that the government will start taxing the value of the services exchanged?
Brandon: The government has already tried to institute policies which would allow them to micro-manage private commerce. The Food Safety Modernization Act s510 is a good example. Its language is so broad that it could even be interpreted to illegalize having a personal garden. The problem is that, for the government, it would be nearly impossible to enforce this legislation. Frankly, I hope they do try to push that kind of control, because it would merely galvanize the populace even more against the globalization process. The most they can hope to do is pick out a few people and charge them with a criminal offense in an attempt to frighten off the participation of the greater movement.
Ilene: Is there a special significance of your "stage" name, Giordano Bruno?
Brandon: Giordano Bruno was a priest and philosopher who lived in the late 1500’s. He spoke out against the vicious nature of the Catholic Inquisition, the limited view of the universe (he was the first European to truly promote the idea of "infinity"), and he stood firmly against the elitist nature of the stifling Aristotelian view dominant in the academic culture of England. Of course, he was burned at the stake for his defiance. Giordano stood firmly by the truth, regardless of the consequences, and this is why I use his name on my articles.
