The Philosophy of Max Keiser, pt 1: Boycotting Coca-Cola

The famed Max Keiser, spawn of Karmabanque, Hollywood Stock Exchange, The Silver Liberation Army, Crash JP Morgan Buy Silver, and more has demonstrated a clear development in his thinking over the nearly 10 years of his journalism. Silver Vigilante presents a series called “The Philosophy of Max Keiser,” which begins to summarize the episteme of Max Keiser, and how he believes change can be elicited in the casino gulag. This is part 1.

One of the underlying premises of Max Keiser’s boycott activism is that “even those with no money can change the world.” Max understands that movements like the Tea Party & Occupy Wall Street have formed because “corporations run the show” and enslave individuals and pollute the planet, and so on.

The Guardian newspaper, in an item titled “Mad Max”, described Keiser’s Karmabanque hedge fund as a “fantastical scheme” and accused him of trying to exist “beyond the normal forces and controls of society.” I am sure Mr. Keiser does not feel this an actual offense against his character.

Keiser believes that these corporations can be undermined by bringing “cost efficiency to activism.” He claims that activist organizations such as Greenpeace do not bring cost efficiency to activism; that, in his words, they do not want to get their hands dirty. So, people are frustrated and corporations are taking over the world. In a climate of idle protest and chatter in the streets, Keiser brings economic minded strategies to-the-table of changing the world. Keiser has said,

<h3>”What does an activist have to work with, economically speaking. The only thing the activists have used, that touches on economics, is the boycott. They might not see it as such, but nevertheless, when you boycott something, you are removing sales and revenue of that thing. And it’s very effective. Obviously Ghandi’s boycott of salt was the centerpiece of a very successful campaign in India. Martin Luther King boycott, Montgomery Bus Boycott – very successful. To update this idea of a boycott, look at the economics a little more closely. In other words, you can attack one hundred different companies. But understand that for every dollar you don’t spend at each of these companies, it effects these companies differently…”</h3>

Author and environmentalist Derrick Jensen, in his book “Endgame: The Problem of Civilization,” suggests that, in order to bring down the artificial construct of civilization and then begin to live freely, the fulcrum of the ruling classes’ power structure must be targeted. It is my belief that it is common-sense that money is a major obstacle in restoring peace and freedom to the men and women of the world.

So, if money is the fulcrum of civilization, and clearly civilization is not working, then attacks against the global financial system are in order, according to writers and journalist Derrick Jensen (assuming he agrees with the common assertion made by everyday people that money the root of evil) and Max Keiser. And so, Keiser premises his Karmabanque program on using withdrawal of the operating capital of criminal corporations. And although his torch was never picked up by the activist community in a meaningful way (Keiser has reported on protests in France encompassing teenagers eating McDonalds), it remains a meme in the subconscious of the true freedom movement – not those acting for Democracy, but those acting for sound money and free markets.

Keiser’s philosophy sees leverage as a weapon that can be used against the over-leveraged corporations he sights as among the most hated corporations on the planet. He believes that manipulation in the markets begins with hedge funds, and that they can be found at the center of most major crashes and spikes. According to Keiser’s view, these hedge funds popularly adopted to work towards the activist-consumer’s ends.

In designing his Karmabanque platform, Keiser scanned the various corporations listed on the New York Stock Exchange for particularly vulnerable companies, which he has termed “hedge fund bait.” He conceives that Coca-Cola is vulnerable, in particular, because it is an easy company to boycott; that is, by simply not purchasing Coca-Cola products, one is actively boycotting the company. This is a much easier task than boycotting British Petroleum or Exxon. Coca-Cola is not like oil, and we can easily live (indeed, live healthier) without it, and its products are clearly branded as belonging to Coca-Cola.

Keiser’s economic view of the world puts game theory as the explanation of men behave. A boycott would see a vector formed by these events: a) people boycott b) coca-cola reports decrease in earnings c) some hedge funds begin to short Coca-Cola’s stock d)more hedge funds follow suit.

In this vision, the hedge funds, it could be argued, are doing the work for the activists.

Keiser picked which companies to boycott based off the vulnerability index which is made up of two numbers. One number is how hated a company is. Some examples of hated companies are ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, Microsoft, Starbucks, McDonalds and the aforementioned Coca-Cola. The other number is the current stock price and current market capitalization of the company. This aides in figuring out how much each boycott-dollar hurts the company. The algorithm of which company is easiest to boycott and vulnerable economically informs the Karmabanque community what to attack next.

Keiser has offered an update of the idea of the boycott. His platform, whilst effective when focusing on a single corporation, can be applied to one’s daily life, encompassing boycott of Fortune 500 companies, illuminist banks, and GMO foods.