This is a copy of an entry from another blog of mine.  I posted it on March 15, 2006 and it was the first time I have ever done anything with a blog.  So, you pro's out there, have patience as I learn the in's and out's of the mediums and formats in this "infomacracy" in which we find ourselves.

A while ago as I was reading a highly recommended book, Freakonomics, I got the idea for this website. In a chapter entitled, The Ku Klux Klan and Real-Estate Agents, the authors point out how business people from funeral home directors to heads of sprawling corporations are able to profit from their access to special  information.  Because of this "information asymetry" these insiders have been able to distort and manipulate the perceptions and economic decisions of  us "outsiders".   The authors of Freakonomics describe how the information monopoly is changing, mostly due to the internet.

I'll cut to the chase: democonomics.  We talk about democracy on the political level, one man one vote, and we even force our interpretations of it on each other and on to other countries, "God willing."  What jumped out at me was the fact that the informational democracy, or informocracy that is sweeping over the plaNET at warp speed is knocking down barriers and enabling global economic democracy and parity. 

However, economic inequeties between insiders and outsiders within countries seem to linger, even where information technology surrounds us.  I think this is due in part to the ignorance of  the many and the arrogance of the few.  But for developing countries (LDC'S) with emerging middle classes, the information age is a ticket to the global  economic ball. In the words of  Thomas Friedman, "The World Is Flat."

I'm no prophet, but I think that as long as the internet allows the free flow of information, economic democratization will follow locally as well as regionally. An ever-increasing number of people will network and share information enmasse.  They should be saving time and money as they navigate in this last bastion of democracy on the entire plaNET.  More people are and should be taking more control of their own economic possibilities.  The trend seems irreversible. 

This (the other) blog and the entire SpeakUpAndShop.com website are dedicated to facilitate that trend at its origins, word-of-mouth, and in its most familiar setting, your neighborhood, city and county, with local listings and directories.  I want to move the process right along before political democracy fades too much and while the information democracy (the internet) is flourishing. 

I invite you to open a speak-up form and rate a business, govenrment agency or any other entity that sells anything to anyone, including products, services or information.

Whadya think? Let me know, especially if you think I'm full of digested grass.  Send me weblinks of similar consumer sites and services so I can post them for others to use.

SUAS