COMMUNE21 - MANIFESTO

About The Commune21

(This will be developed into a business plan - Contact me if you would like to invest with me.)

The Commune21 is a real estate franchise based on a revitalization of 150,000 - 200,000 sq ft, old warehouse/factory buildings located within major urban inner-city neighborhoods.

The warehouses are renovated with the latest advances in sustainable and ecological architecture and civil engineering. It houses residential units as well as commercial studio spaces for artists and creative businesses, organic co-op, light manufacturing, restaurant/cafe, event space, dojo/yoga center, holistic health medical office, Japanese/Russian style bathhouse, senior/assisted living center, homeless shelter, orphanage, daycare, charter school with a focus on the arts and music, volunteer corps, playground, shared bio-diesel/hybrid vehicles, and permaculture (organic food producing gardens). The innovative factor in all of this is how the community, by proximity, interact with each other for the benefit of the entire community. For example, the seniors get to take care of the kids.. The homeless get to earn a living by light manufacturing and gardening... The orphans will have the whole village raising them...The charter school kids get work experiences in the building...

The Commune revitalizes an entire blighted neighborhood, and is a lucrative system that can be duplicated by developers and civil engineers all over the world.

FIFTH LINE Group, LLC Website Renewal

I would like to announce the renewal launch of the FIFTH LINE Group, LLC website.

Please visit:
http://www.fifthlinegroup.com

We do:
Logos
Websites
Video
Collaterals
Ads

'Tis the Season To Donate to 501(c)3's

We have five more days to donate our money to worthy causes so that

1) You feel good.
2) Your money is tax deductible.
3) Take your money back from Uncle Sam (and Uncle George) who will blow it on Iraq, and instead, put your money where you care about the most.

Here are two that I donate regularly and I recommend highly.
You can donate online to both of these organizations, thanks to Network for Good and Paypal.

Mahayogi Yoga Mission
www.mahayogiyogamission.org
(Click on "Contribution" link at the top)

New York de Volunteer
www.nydevolunteer.org

Happy Holidays!

Investools -- Tools to check if the good karma from the SRI stock list is really worth it

Attended a free seminar by Investools and signed up for a free one-week trial of their website stock analysis tools.

It was a relief to hear that there is a whole host of tools from Investools that can take the emotion out of investing, so that one can analyze things rationally. Althogh SRI can be a bit on the 'emotional' side, I can analyze all the SRI stocks and see if they're really worth the good karma.

Either way, the access to all their web tools costs $2000 plus $50/mo after 6 months. So now is not really the time to sign up...but now IS the time to do all the research I can, with as minimal cost or no cost as possible. (Also see propertyshark.com for free, good real estate market information in NY.)

Going back to my earlier post on Oct 21, "My IRA is now SRI - Socially Responsible Investing", I decided to check all the stocks that was listed as "socially responsible". See the charts here, although this is just the tip of the iceburg on what Investools can offer.

Doesn't look like DF is going to make it. SEC is doing an 'informal' investigation, and Investools is showing "red (sell)" indicators all over the place. I'm also not too sure about investing in their 'non-organic' part of the business.

Whole Foods, on the other hand, just went down and hit the 52 week low. I think now, I will buy it, and hold, although "buy and hold" is not the recommended choice by Investools. Their tools let people take advantage of the volatility of the market and the speed that individual investors have compared to institutional investors.

The problem with Roth IRA is that the money has to stay there for 5 yrs...
Meanwhile, covered calls are allowed, from what I've heard today.
Sharebuilder has now made Options available as well.
I suppose it never hurts to learn about as many 'options' out there as possible.

To be continued...

Buy Back Nukes So They Can Be Dismantled

There is a way to buy back the nuclear weapons that our tax dollars helped make.
We can now pay to get them dismantled.

On Friday, I attended the screening of "Full Circle", directed by Matt Taylor, founder of Global Nuclear Disarmament Fund.

The movie documents the journey of zen monks returning the flame of burning embers from Hiroshima, to the Trinity Site in New Mexico, 60 years after the very first detonation of an atomic bomb. They carried the flame back, walking the entire way, from San Francisco to New Mexico. The movie is very profound and I hope that the movie is seen by as many people as possible.

The UN has not been accontable for the weapons that were supposed to have been dismantled 30 years ago. Through the Global Nuclear Disarmament Fund, the citizens can now be accountable for the dismantlement, rather than be in denial or be disempowered around the elimination of nuclear weapons.

The non-radioactive scrap metal from the weapons will be re-made into bracelets and various accessories to be marketed towards the younger generation. The proceeds will go to dismantle even more nuclear weapons.

Everyone I've spoken to about this, is ecstatic to hear this.
It gives them a ray of hope. It's given me a sense of hope, at the same time, a sense of urgency and purpose.

It only costs $100k to dismantle one nuclear weapon.
Now, there is a finite number to a problem that previously seemed infinite and scary.

When I lived in Japan, my elementary school had special trips and programs to introduce us to the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After these programs, I used to have recurring nightmares. Eventually, I learned to control my dreams so that on the brink of a "nightmare nuclear disaster", I would be able to reverse it through my will power.

Now, there are concrete actions that we can take, rather than having to 'will it away'. It's all a dream anyways, but let's make it a good one...

日本語サイトはこちら↓
http://www.gndfund.org/japanese/index.html

Make Mine a Million NY Event

Attended the NY "Make Mine a Million" event for Female Entrepreneurs intending to surpass the $1M mark in revenue.

Sen. Hillary Clinton gave a pep-talk for women's economic empowerment, and Suze Orman's biographical account was so amazing and inspiring.

The award candidates (30 of them) came from all over the US, and they gave a 3 minute "Elavator Pitch" to the audience. We got to vote on them like American Idol. It was great to hear from them.

Very inspired.
Wrote the first section of the Business Plan, due next Monday...

My IRA is now SRI - Socially Responsible Investing, with little money upfront

I never had a retirement account before.

Whenever I was offerred a 401k in the past, I was never impressed with the mutual funds that they offered, both from the SRI perspective (i.e., socially responsible investment / value investing) and performance perspective.

I finally have a Roth IRA, with just $200 to begin with.

I just created one at sharebuilder.com, and I could pick my own ecologically and socially "responsible" stocks. Continental Airlines offered 2000 miles to create an accout at sharebuilder.com, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I put $100 in SOEN (Solar EnerTech) and $100 in EBOF (Earth BioFuels).

I'm impressed.
ShareBuilder has these advantages:

1) No need to have minimum amount to invest

2) Automatic trades for $4 (schedule in advance to occur on any Tuesday - not ideal for immediate daytrade type of transactions, but useful for longterm investments. They also have real-time investing, and monthly-fee based automatic investments, but for now, I opted for the free account. I don't have a large up-front capital, and $4 ought to be totally recoverable over the 5 years when I plan to take the money out.)

3) Dollar based investing (no need to have $450+ to invest in Google, just invest whatever amount you want for any stock)

So my plan now is to begin buying at least $200 worth of SRI stocks every month, with a goal to produce at least 25% gain over 5 years.

Over the years, I've been looking into SRI's and kept track of some of the stocks I'd like to invest in when I get the money to do so.

The stocks that I'm planning to invest in include:

Organic Agriculture and Products

-- DF (Dean Foods, which bought White Wave - Silk Soymilk, and Horizon Dairy)
-- WMFI (Whole Foods)
-- GAIA (Gaiam and Real Goods)
-- GMCR (Green Mountain Coffee Roasters)
-- HAIN (Hain Celestial Grouup)
-- OATS (Wild Oats)
-- UNFI (United Natural Foods)

Alternative Fuel and Power (Solar, Wind, fuel-cell, bio-diesel)

-- DESC (Distributed Energy Sys)
-- EBOF (Earth BioFuels)
-- ENER (Energy Conversion Devices)
-- EPG (Environmental Power Corp)
-- ESLR (Evergreen Solar)
-- FCEL (Fuelcell Energy)
-- GPRE (Green Plains Renewable Energy)
-- QTWW (Quantum Fuel Sys Tech Worldwide)
-- SOEN (Solar EnerTech)
-- SPWR (Sun Power Corp)
-- STP (Suntech Pwer Holdings)

Unfortunaely, Sharebuilder does not give users access to some of the more "Eco-Aware" markets like Germany and Scandinavia. They also do not have SRI Exchange Traded Funds or Mutual Funds such as Calvert, Domini, and Ariel.

Yes, yes, I hear the experts and the skeptics say that we could all get "slaughtered like pigs" in the market, but my investment philosophy is that no matter what, we must invest AWAY from OIL, AWAY from the military-industrial complex, and AWAY from toxic pesticide based farming, or else, we will get slaughtered by wars and environmental disasters.

So it's not really the bottom line or the profits that I'm investing in.
I'm investing in the future survival of the planet, really. Little at a time.
I'm counting on getting bigger returns not just in money, but in having saved the planet.

Fanatic?
Maybe.

Visionary?
I think so.

Since I'm new at this, any information on SRI is welcome.
If you have any recommendations or strong advisories (like something is going to tank), please feel free to comment.