Why?
The Good Karma Exchange is a small forum of CEO's and business-leaders that have been discussing ways to improve and increasingly tilted and unfair corporate world. Originating as a direct result of the financial meltdown of 2008, the founders were looking for ways to reverse a capitalistic system that was out of control and a business culture that was awarding greed over morals, speculation over innovation and artificial value over real profits. It was looking for ways to break a vicious cycle that was pumping new life into rampant consumerism all over the world.
It was also studying ways to incentivize businesses to care as much for their employee's wellbeing as for shareholder approval and monster bonuses.
The forum acknowledged that major stock-exchanges and some investment banks and its brokers, had failed miserably in self-regulating and that greed, vanity and inflated egos, had led particularly the Cities of London and New York down a path of unprecedented abuse of public trust. Insider trading is not the exception - it is the norm, within certain sectors that has become overly incestuous and "club-like".
Excessive executive paychecks and bloated bonuses had made the pay-structure of many companies incredibly tilted and awarded speculation and borderline corruption over talent and hard work.
The forum was studying new ways to regain the general public’s trust in a private banking system and turn the current climate of witch-hunting, into a more proactive search for new solutions to improve a sick culture within certain morally corrupted and drug-infested circles in “The City” and on Wall Street.
Coke-sniffing, Ferrari-driving smart boys with no moral compass, had brought the world to the brink of economic collapse and nothing has really changed since then, that would prevent it from happening again - with the same greedy bunch at the steering wheel. Something has to change. But from where ?
While the forum and TGKX as an organization remains non-religious, most of the founding members believe in a higher authority and that we - as human beings - are accountable for our actions not only to the next generations, but to "a God". We also believe that it is a lack of a true belief in God, that lead some bankers, corporate leaders and politicians to think that they might as well act like one.
Most members of the group believe in Ecumenism and that we are only here to improve the world for the next generations and are obligated by whoever our creator is, to live life in harmony, love and peace with mother nature. We believe that real Karma exist but that it is within the individual priest, CEO, General, movie-star, President, athlete, rapper or dictator that judgment and righteousness is regulated.
Revenge, punishment and bad karma is for a higher power to distribute and the founding members believe that the greatest achievement for any human being is selflessness.
We also believe in the importance of role models and that the current celebrity pop-culture and idolization of fame and flaunting fortunes, is setting a bad example for the next generation.
We believe that Bernie Madoff-like characters and firms over the years developed such a sense of self-importance and FAT EGO, that they were immune from any accountability or moral judgment whatsoever, as they got away with more and more complicated and fancy financial tricks that even the regulators could not figure out.
Why people like Richard Fuld who seriously claims to have been worth the 350 Million dollars he earned from 2000 to 2007, before he crashed Lehman Brothers, are not locked up in either a prison or a mental institution, must be a mystery to the 1000's of hard working people "on the floor" who lost their jobs.
We do believe in private enterprise and applaud R&D, productivity, true profitability and sound management, but we fully believe that the world need more entrepreneurs, innovators and true business leaders, rather than speculators.
However we also believe the importance of ethical capitalism and know how much social and environmental damage out-of-control consumerism is causing. Over the last 30 years we have successfully exported a system that rewards greed and hyper materialism to the developing world - who have now culturally embraced it, with predictable consequences: The breakdown of sound family structures, the explosion of "bad habits" and massive increases in cancer rates, pollution, corruption and social injustice. It is time to break this vicious cycle before it becomes irreversible.
That is the foundation of The Good Karma Exchange. Create a tool and a standard that will enable institutional and private investors to invest with confidence that they are putting their money into companies that work with ethical, social and environmental standards that are as good as their own.
Give consumers a simple labeling tool that enables them to make choices not just based on quality and price, but on the ethical, environmental and social standards of the company that made the product.
Everything TGKX does is rooted in our firm belief that true happiness is non-material and lies in family, friends and a shared sense of community.
We firmly believe that in the current and future business climate, the consumer will gravitate towards buying products from companies that will respect their employee's and promote healthy family living.
One of the founders was behind a brand that went from obscurity to world-wide phenomenon in under three years. and with the team we are putting together, believe that we can do the same with The good karma exchange. Only this time - it is to make a positive impact on a business world that truly needs it.
In Western "democracy" where it takes multi-million dollar campaigns to get elected to national office, we know that most politicians are "indebted" to multi-nationals that are interested in maintaining status quo. But we are rather sure that the general public - from whatever side of the political spectrum, will be happy to vote against greed, corruption and gluttony with the only remaining truly democratic tool:
Their wallets!
