Overview

man looking at stock marketOnline marketplaces are potent. They create economic activity, identify opportunities and bring new resources to market. But their benefits are concentrated at the top levels of the economy.  We need a new generation of e-markets built around what people at the bottom have to sell.

 

Modern Markets for All

Screen montage: National E-MarketsWant to understand what a truly modern e-market can do? Don’t look towards listings sites for consumers such as eBay, Craigslist or Monster.com. Focus on an area like high finance. The frenetic trading that sucked cash out of Main Street into the rarefied world of Big Finance was enabled by online efficiencies for traders.

Now come down to the bottom of the economy. Think of opportunities like local errands, home computer help, babysitting, hiring out a bike, selling overnight stays in your spare room and making micro-loans. Imagine a system of uniquely powerful markets with hundreds of sectors like this. Anyone could trade in any combination of these sectors. (What could you sell?)

This site explains a new philosophy: Modern Markets for All. To maximise economic activity, the time has come for a commitment to Universal Service for state-of-the-art marketplaces. We will show that this requires: (a) new web technologies, only now viable (b) a specific legal framework to create the new markets in each country. 

This legal framework bestows benefits only the State can give to a system of e-markets.

 

In return for those benefits, the framework enforces public service obligations on the private operators who get a cut of each transaction. There's nothing radical about this model: it's how the world got National Lotteries. (A legal framework for NEMs.)

 

What was old is new again

stock market chart with money in front of itA legal framework for NEMs would be comparable to historic legislation that transformed technologies like water supply, telephones or railways. All started life in the service of powerful institutions. Then far-sighted legislation exploded their usage, usefulness and economic impact. (Existing legal frameworks)

The extraordinary potential of NEMs marketplaces may seem improbable at this point. A 1990’s banker would have felt the same about turbo-trading of securitized mortgages, CDO’s and complex derivatives. Advanced e-markets can change everything.

 

 

Overview