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For the Pacific Northwest
Martin Kagan runs The Capital Asset Exchange Ltd., Beaverton,
Ore., which seeks to be a forum and trading center
for its members. The organization established the Oregon
Trade Expansion Network (OTEN) to act as a clearinghouse
for barter transactions among members. Of course, there’s
a Web site associated with both and I’d like to direct your
attention to a specific page. Head over to www.capex.com to
access the link that takes you to OTEN. Find the link to an
article titled “Trade Economics 101.” Kagan says that it will
help determine whether barter can give you a competitive
advantage in terms of getting new business, selling surplus,
conserving cash or alternative financing. Kagan’s prose is a
bit too abstract for my tastes and the graph that’s supposed
to be on the page is missing, but there’s a message here that
might prove to be of value to your real-world problems.
Funky markets and pricing
Money is a true, indifferent medium of exchange. Going
outside the money economy obscures the value of commodities.
The effect is especially pronounced when extramarket
trading gets regionalized. Fragmented markets make it difficult
to price offerings properly These arguments come from
Gregg Economou, senior systems programmer at Carnegie
Mellon University, who uses the nickname isildur, one of
Tolkien´s characters. The rest of his musings are available for
public inspection at www.vaxpower.org/~isildur, where you
should scroll to the bottom of the page for the link to the
article titled “Towards the new barter economy.”
Worst practices
The Soviet Union disappeared in a puff of smoke because,
among other things, its command-and-control economy
didn’t work very well when the rest of the world was
booming. The profit motive was absent, and greenbacks,
or whatever they call their ruble equivalent, were in short
supply. What’s a good Soviet citizen to do The same thing
that we might be forced to do: Use nonmonetary transactions.
Before you join that game, learn from history to avoid
making the same mistakes as our comrades. To make that
possible, I direct your digital attention to “Explaining rise of
barter in Russia: Virtual Economy vs. Monetary Issues,” an
April 2004, master of science research paper written by Tuvshintulga
Bold at East Carolina University. It examines the
two main schools of thought concerning the collapse of that
economy. It shows how the value applied to something used
for barter can shift an economic burden to one party or the
other. Before you barter, learn how this happens at www.ecu.
edu, where your commissar orders you to enter the author’s
first name in the search box to access the 25-page document.
more resources at www.plantservices.com
TOPic
Online auctions
Entrepreneurialism
Green overview
Industrial recycling
Used equipment
Domestic barter
According to the next Web citation, from the historical
perspective, barter is inefficient because it’s a response
to, and not a remedy for, market adversities and uncertainties.
In her 2003 paper, “U.S. Domestic Barter: An
Empirical Investigation,” Barbara Cresti at the Université
Catholique de Louvain in Belgium explores the the North
American barter industry that came into being during the
1950s. She points out the difference between corporate
and retail barter. You’ll learn how our robust financial
infrastructure explains why barter works here and how its
lack indirectly led to the collapse of the Russian economy.
This scholarly work is at www.uclouvain.be/en-econ.html.
Click “Publications” on the left. Then, click on “Discussion
Papers” and select the “ECON DP 2003” option, also on
the left. Scroll down to select the entry listed as “2003/36”
to read the full report.
Reduce the national deficit
Those who enter the bartering arena can find some deals
that make good economic sense. But you’ll need to keep
track of the details so you can pay taxes on whatever results
when the dust settles on your exchange and, thus, help us
get through this financial downturn. Learn your reporting
obligations by visiting our hired hands working in Washington’s
Internal Revenue Service at www.irs.gov and performing
a search on the word “bartering.” When I searched the
IRS site, I found nearly 300 Web pages that have something
to say about your cashless swap. Maybe you better get your
CFO involved in this matter.
Without comment
www.greatoffers4u.com/articles/3823
www.barter.net
search
“Gatherers versus hunters”
“Don’t quit your day job”
“Growing green plants”
“Second time around”
“More than one kind of green”
For more, search www.PlantServices.com using the
keywords green, exchange and trade.
E-mail Executive Editor Russ Kratowicz, P.E., CMRP, at russk@
putman.net.
www.PLANTSERVICES.com APRIL 2009 43