Americorps VISTA Appreciation Event for Alabama

Last Tuesday and Wednesday I participated in the annual Alabama Americorps VISTA Appreciation Event from Tuesday May 11th to Wednesday May 12th. The event was held in Birmingham Alabama and was at the United Way of Central Alabama's office. Guest speakers attended about social media and also about the meaning of Americorps VISTA members support at this time in our country. Every Americorps VISTA project throughout the state of Alabama was represented at this event. Each Americorps VISTA project got up and told everyone at the event about their project. There was also ample time to do networking at the event as well. There was a volunteering activity on Wednesday with Habitat for Humanity that unfortunately I did not go to.

Personal Centered Planning Meeting

Last week the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama had a meeting on personal centered planning for the Ability Alliance of West Alabama that I had attended on Wednesday of last week. Personal Centered Planning is a different approach to working with people with intellectual disabilities in regards to care taking and helping them to plan for their futures. Personal Centered Planning is geared around the individual that a case management employee works with regularly and determines the dreams, goals, and aspirations of the client that the client chooses and not the case management employee for the client. The goal of it is to create more interpendence for clients and for them to have the capability of making their own decisions and choices of what kind of job that they want to have, how they choose to spend their money, what kinds of daily activities that they want to participate in, what kinds of foods that they want to eat, and also what friends they want to have. It is all about the client making the choices on a personal level first and then if they request help from their case manager and or staff that works with them then they can indeed have the help that they need.
During this particular meeting on personal centered planning a presenter from Region II Community Services went over what personal centered planning is and how to incorporate within your agency. Another presenter from the Ability Alliance of West Alabama presented on case management changes that are occurring in the state of Alabama and how the AAWA will use the changes to its benefit. Overall the purpose of case management support and personal centered planning is for assistance for clients and also to help clients become active participants in society and even if possible become employed in the workplace and be able to make choices of what kind of work that best suits them.

Al-DAN Conference

Last week I went to the annual Alabama Disability Advocacy Network conference in which speakers talked about what Al-DAN is and what it intends to do. AL-DAN is an advocacy network of individuals with both physical and developmental disabilities who represent themselves before the government in an effort to try to change policies around people with disabilities in the work place and in regards to their activities of daily living. The AL-DAN advocacy network is provided through a grant from the Alabama Council for Developmental Disabilities and is maintained by disability organizations such as the Alabama Centers for Independent Living.
Some of the main objectives that AL-DAN has for the year of 2010 that were discussed at the annual conference that I attended last week were: 1. having regional meetings/trainings 2. statewide summit 3. gubernatorial forum 4. provide information on voting rights, voting registration deadlines and legislative updates concerning people with disabilities 5. to have at least 500 AL-DAN members, at least 10 grassroots disability advocacy organizations with vested interest in disability issues. One of the major issues and an example of effective advocacy presented was a bill about placing $50 fines on vehicles for parking in handicap places and an advocacy group by the name of Disabilities Unlimited was handing out stickers about this advocacy effort that they are working on currently. Disabilities Unlimited is representing this issue with their advocacy group from Walker County Alabama. The Ability Alliance of West Alabama also had an employee Eloise Woods speak at the conference for the election of board advisors in which three people are selected from each county of Alabama to provide assistance to the Board of Directors for AL-DAN on disability issues and for attaining more memberships within AL-DAN as well.

Offense taken-Film about the "R" word

People with intellectual disabilities have taken offense to the word "retarded" when referring to their disability. They would much rather have their abilities understood first before their disabilities and be accepted in society. I have been working with people with intellectual disabilities and I have had to set aside any old views I have had about people with intellectual disabilities from before and see opportunities with regards to working with the clients we serve. It can be difficult but it is what I need to do to make my experience as an Americorps VISTA worthwhile and meaningful not just for me but for many other people that I work with too. This being said it is unfortunate that society still uses statements like "celebretards" and also in a recent movie called Tropic Thunder starring Ben Stiller he was acting developmentally challenged. Prejudices in our World should be a thing of the past but they still persist due to ignorance of others and of misundertandings of varying ethnic groups, arrogance, and downright meanness. This video below goes over these issues and is 26 minutes long and is called "Offense Taken." Please watch it to become more informed on what has made organizations such as People First and Self Advocates Becoming Empowered into what they have become today.

Hirevue for more effective job interviews

HireVue

Hirevue is an online video interviewing platform in which job candidates can sign up for an account for an affordable price and can interview candidates live. Hirevue is a good way for people to evaluate how they are answering questions and people of intellectual disability can see themselves on this yet their care takers can evaluate them on how they answered questions. Also the interviewees can show their skills on video to a respective job recruiter. Job recruiters can evaluate their performance live and show their support for the candidate and also tell them or show them visually with graphics and images on how to improve. The format is up to the care taker and interviewer and can be negotiated based upon learning style. The cost savings for a hiring manager are substantial as well. Video bridges the gap between the interviewee and the interviewer because you can see the expressions, emotions, and characteristics of who you are hiring without having them have to come to your office for the interview. Regarding the transportation issue with your clients with intellectual disabilities this advantage is a good one.
What is a Virtual Video Interview?
Live Interviews are video interviews that allow you to meet face-to-face with the hiring staff at your potential new employer via online video conference. You will be asked to meet with them one-on-one or with a panel of up to 3 interviewers. Like the virtual interview, your responses will be recorded along with the questions and conversation of the interviewers.
A virtual video interview is an interview where you will be responding to questions entered into the system by the requesting company. For example, imagine the first question being "Tell me about yourself". In a HireVue Recorded Video Interview, you will have 30 seconds to read the question and then up to three minutes to respond. Your response is being recorded, securely, onto HireVue servers. Once you have finished your interview, the hiring managers or recruiters at the requesting company can login to watch your interview. Below is an interview with Hirevue's CEO Ryan Money on a basic overview of the benefit of using his internet interviewing technology.
http://www.hirevue.com/content/for-candidates

• Reduced one hiring manager's interview costs 77%.
• Improved a third-party recruiter's success rate by over 50%.
• Reduced one Internet company's time-to-hire by two weeks.
• Raised one financial services company's new hire retention by 25%

Money As Debt II: Promises Unleashed

This film is Paul Grignon's second in his film series "Money As Debt" which fully explains how bailouts, mortgage failures, easy credit, and derivatives have sabotaged our economy. Grignon does this simply with compelling art work and in a way where it is easy to understand his logic and reasoning and he also proposes his solutions in this film as well to our current economic crisis.

Money As Debt II - Promises Unleashed from Vega Angkor on Vimeo.

Money As Debt

This is a movie made and produced by Canadian animator Paul Grignon about money and how it was first created for a means of accounting for goods and services by trade. Also it explains how money is being created now in our current monetary system. This is a movie for those who are just learning about why our monetary system is so bad and or wanting to learn about our current central banking system of money. It deals with the major problems of fractional reserve banking, creation of money by debt, exponential growth beyond our means, and also the issue of continuous inflation.
Pay close attention to how the banks are involved and how many past presidents, former bankers, politicians, and others alike are quoted about their views on money. Following this film in this blog will be the second "Money As Debt" film called "Promises Unleashed" which is again made and produced by Canadian animator Paul Grignon.

Powerful quotes on Money

"We are absolutely without a permanent money system...
It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon.

It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied very soon."

Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Georgia (1935)
In the foreword to a book by Irving Fisher, entitled 100% Money (1935)

"Each and every time a bank makes a loan (or purchases securities), new bank credit is created — new deposits — brand new money."

Graham F. Towers, Director, Bank of Canada

"The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled."

John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist

"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."

Mayer Amschel Rothschild, International Banker

"I am afraid that the ordinary citizen
will not like to be told that banks
can and do create money
...And they who control
the credit of the nation
direct the policy of Governments
and hold in the hollow of their hands
the destiny of the people"


Reginald McKenna,
past Chairman of the Board, Midlands Bank of England

“Thus, our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess.”

Irving Fisher, economist and author

“That is what our money system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.”


Marriner S. Eccles, Chairman and Governor of the Federal Reserve Board

"Everyone sub-consciously knows banks do not lend money. When you draw on your savings account, the bank doesn't tell you you can't do this because it has lent the money to somebody else."

Mark Mansfield

"If all the bank loans were paid, no one could have a bank deposit, and there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless situation is almost incredible -- but there it is."

Robert Hemphill. Credit Manager, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

“One thing to realize about our fractional reserve banking system is that, like a child’s game of musical chairs, as long as the music is playing, there are no losers.”

Andrew Gause, Monetary Historian

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”

Albert A. Bartlett, physicist

“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”

Kenneth Boulding, economist

“I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money... I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with the Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue.”


Congressman Wright Patman

“Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal, that there is no human relation between master and slave.”

Leo (Lev)Tolstoy

“None are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”

Goethe

“’The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented.

Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough money to buy it back again...

Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit’.”

Sir Josiah Stamp Director, Bank of England 1928-1941
(reputed to be the 2nd richest man in Britain at the time)

Josiah Stamp

"Throughout the ages,the devices of cunning men have turned money to their nefarious purposes.

Money, beginning with private enterprise as a means of escaping the limitation of barter, soon developed the cheat to exploit the honest trader who, in an effort to protect himself, turned to government for protection, only to find that now he had two thieves, the private money changer and the political plunderer working hand in glove against him. By this combination the money changer gained the prestige of political sanction through legislative license and the state secured a deceptive device for laying taxes upon the citizenry (by means of the hidden tax called inflation). It was and remains a vicious alliance."



E.C. Reigel (1879-1953) monetary theorist & consumer advocate

“All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.”

John Adams, Founding Father of the American Constitution

“Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce...and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.”

James A. Garfield, assassinated president of the United States

The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government’s greatest creative opportunity.”

Abraham Lincoln, assassinated president of the United States

"Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nations laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognised as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile."

William Lyon Mackenzie King

"For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions.
Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."

David Rockefeller, international banker Memoirs (2002) pg. 405

"Only puny secrets need protection.
Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity."


Marshall McLuhan, media “guru”

Understanding how the community currency system works

This is a video on how the community currency system works based on how the system of money had originally started out. The following film is an animated film by Canadian animator Paul Grignon which is called "The Essence Of Money, a Medieval Tale." The movie starts off with the standard trading of goods, services, and products and then goes to the bartering system and then to a system of community currency. Grignon does a great job at explaining how the money system worked in basic terminology from the medieval times up until now and how it can be made better in this short animated film. Although the proposed change to our monetary system is an online system for digital coins to be traded by exchanges it is just one of the many solutions available for alternative trading and currencies.

"All goods therefore must be measured by some one thing...
now this unit is in truth, demand, which holds all things together."
-Aristotle 384 B.C.-322 B.C.

Community Exchange System for creation of work

The picture above is a popular community currency called "the Ithaca Hours" which is based on hours of work but uses the national currency to back it. The hours of work are determined by dollars per hour rate. Other states can become involved in the hours system as well. The Ithaca Hours community currency is a prime example of a Community Exchange System.

What is a Community Exchange System?

A community exchange system is a community based local system of trade in which money other than the national currencies is traded for value based on what the buyer or seller of goods and services determines the value to be. This could be based on what they are already earning in the current marketplace operating from national currency such as hourly rates or flat rates. A Community Exchange System operates on an alternative, parallel, local, or community based currency system. A community exchange system is a new money system. Banks can be created out of this system with alternate currencies yet the currencies do not bear interest and are made solely for the benefit of others who use them for productivity in their communities. Popular methods of doing this are money by time or hours of work, money by talent or specialty, and or free banking. Free banking is banking without charging interest and by giving money to those who can give goods or services to the bank in return for money needed.

Money in this kind of system is basically a way of “score keeping” which keeps a record of who did what for whom and also who sold what to whom. So therefore money can never have a shortage because a third party like banks or government does not have to create it outside of the circuit of buyers and sellers which makes the money and credit free, for the buyers and sellers create it at the moment of trade.

Community currencies help to build up a real sense of community by means of creating a network for businesses, individuals, and organizations to prosper with alternative commerce solutions. Community Exchange System money is public domain money meaning that it is not a form of barter because barter means that there is bargaining involved between the goods or services that they wish to exchange.
What makes this function and work efficiently?
A Community Exchange System starts off with the creation of a directory of a community’s local goods and services offered by the traders registered with them as well what the wants and requirements. Once a trader requires what is advertised then the seller is contacted and the trade then takes place. Those in credit can claim goods and services to the value of their credit available to them and those in debit owe the community goods and services to the value of their debit. Updates are accounted for regularly and newsletters are given out and a list of trades is accounted for so the traders can be informed. Information about the trading positions of others is given and a balance is given so that other buyers can not exploit the system. News is updated for a community exchange system group or region regularly to assist in building links and a stronger sense of community as well.