Preserving The American Political Philosophy

For many centuries China produced ceramics which were inspirational throughout the world. In recent times, "made in China" evokes appropriation, commercialism, worker exploitation, and low costs for consumers in the western world. In response, in contemporary times. there is an emerging " Designed in China " movement,in China, complementing the " Made in America " mission in the USA. The transformation of the China brand typifies the transformation of popular conception of hand crafted products. I recently over heard a young woman tell her friend of the same age that it is so cool that a popular store really does sell crafts made in the third world. I have visited the store not too long ago and was taken aback by the commercial character of the work on display. It felt cold and inauthentic, reflecting the globalized corporate management of the hand craft industry. A comparison of the hand made market presented on the website for the non-profit o

Supporters for the petition for MTI to offer fiscal sponsorship have now grown to 16 as our legacy business in East Boothbay faces foreclosure. Let it be said that MTI matching grants can be as small as 1000.00 but small grants do not go very far. Matching grants favor large established well financed companies, all at taxpayer expense. Fiscal sponsorship does not cost the tax payer since a fiscal sponsor can charge a fee to cover its costs and even a reasonable profit margin. Fiscal sponsorship draws upon volunteer giving. State matching grants mandate giving by the general public to special interests selected by the state. One example of special interests favored by the state is itself, in the Public-Public Relationship of MIT and The Advanced State Manufacturing Center at the University of Maine  In April 2 2013 MaineBiz published two articles. Quote from article 1: MTI grant to help manufacturing R&D “he Maine Technology Institute has given the University of So

TWEET THIS: http://goo.gl/5OHCL2 In the last election on November 4, Year 2014. Mainer's once again approved all of the bonds asked by the state. Five out of six of these bonds will be distributed through Maine State Inc channels with the DECD Corporation being one the primary channels of redistribution of taxpayer money. Recently I launched my own crowdfunding website AndersenDesign.biz  dedicated to capitalizing the mold making project which I have been wanting to accomplish for years- in fact my efforts to capitalize a mold making project for our family ceramic business involves the event that brought me face to face with the overlords of Maine's economy. This was the Juice Conference of 2009 . If I had not attended that event motivated by finding a way to capitalize the mold-making project, this blog would not exist. And so in this post I am going to contrast the governing philosophy of Maine State Inc- as it is found in the statutes that established the he

TWEET THIS  http://goo.gl/If8NuD Part Three -  Continuing the Story:  My Experience at the 2009 Juice Conference Part One  http://goo.gl/hpj63W   Part Two http://goo.gl/xdwZDk Since I did not attend the ballet, I had to ask to find out my status, Once I learned that I had not made it to the semi-finals, I decided to stick around and find out who did.  I looked around the room and noticed a few people wearing badges that said "Art Creates Jobs' Total naivety, I thought, the power elite of Maine is not interested in the small number of jobs that art creates - the Baldacci administration was using artists in service of the gentrification of Maine's towns and cities following social engineer, Richard Florida's "creativity" template.. The cities and towns must present a culturally stimulating face in order to attract the "creative class"- code for the wealthy. In the plans of the corporate state the artists are just the bait used to cat

TWEET THIS http://goo.gl/xdwZDk Continuing with my story from HERE ...(and incorporating a few paragraphs from this earlier but incomplete telling ) Finally, after a year of receiving stimulus fund notices for non-profits only, in the fall of 2009, I received an email from the Maine Arts Commission about a competition for small businesses for what I took to be, a modest grant for the sum of 30000.00 from an "anonymous source". In a moment of hopeful delusions, I imagined that the Maine Arts Commission had come to its senses and realized that they needed to support the private sector. The competition was called an "elevator pitch competition" which means a pitch delivered in five minutes. Even the written answers to questions on the application were required to be answered in a minimal number of words, brevity being stressed as being so important that if your couldn't explain a business idea in five minutes, then one's business idea is simply not

It's Coming soon!   This is the video, created by yours truely for Andersen Studio's upcoming KickStarter Fundraiser. KickStarter is a private sector invention for raising capital for "creative" businesses be they non-profit or private sector. A private sector business offers "rewards" in exchange for a contribution which is paid at the time of the project for which the delivery of the rewards is scheduled at a later date. This is an ideal solution for an under-capitalized micro economy business such as andersen studio , which has a great product with established marketability but does not have the production and order fulfillment capability to meet the instant delivery expectations of eCommerce.  We offset our delivery six months, although we expect to start delivering on a first come first serve basis as soon as the project closes. The six