this is evergreen

in the current common knowledge stewardship is so closely tied to securities trading that good stewardship and good portfolio management have merged to become one and the same thing

evergreen is separating stewardship from securities trading,

showing society the true identity of pensions and endowments, as stewards of our shared savings set aside for retirement, for education, for philanthropy and for our future, forever,

as financial actors in their own right, with awesome power and tremendous opportunity to become so much more than just consumers of professional portfolio management services

breaking free from the tyranny of the trading tape to become a powerful force for good in finance, where finance is seen as so much more than just trading in securities

a new financial decision-making framework,

a new financial decision-making process and

new financial decision-making places

for new financial decision-making people

pensions and endowments as stewards of society’s shared savings set aside for retirement, for education, for philanthropy and for our future, forever

investing in enterprise cash flows, directly

to generate cash flows to support good stewardship, indefinitely

How can pensions and endowments invest to generate cash flows sufficient to support good stewardship, indefinitely?
civic engagement in evolving community standards of prudent stewardship organized, facilitated and curated within the university as knowledge center, fiduciary space and hub for community outreach and inclusion, on-site and on-line

guiding pensions and endowments as stewards of society’s shared savings set aside for retirement, for education, for philanthropy and for our future, forever,

in using beautifully fit-to-function financial decision-making frameworks, processes and places

purpose-built for writing legal contracts with enterprise that are created by design to fit inside the social contract between enterprise and popular choice,

to generate cash flows that support good stewardship, indefinitely, by investing in the flourish-and-fade of enterprise cash flows, directly

moving towards a happy history of having enough jobs, money and stuff,

where “enough” is provisional, fit to the times, but subject to change when the times change

in an adaptively evolving and expansive network economy of interconnections between people for doing the work of creating and sharing surpluses

a network of work that is continually changing as times change, and people evolve prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes

a bold answer to the BIGGEST challenges of our times

Evergreen Stewardship Of Safe And Secure Retirement

gives us more that is better

Pensions That Work

Yes! The money will be there when you retire.

Evergreen Stewardship Of Peace And Prosperity

gives us more that is better

Having Enough Jobs, Money and Stuff

how society chooses which ideas for making prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes will be evolved through enterprise

Evergreen Stewardship Of A Climate-Safe History

gives us more that is better

Maintaining Balance

between human actions, and natural consequences

Evergreen Stewardship Of Fairness In The Social Order

gives us more that is better

Moving Towards

a future of more that is better, created by design to be beautifully fit to function, and authentically right for its times

Evergreen Stewardship Of Civic Engagement in Finance

give us more that is better

Evolving Community Standards of Prudent Stewardship

keeping wealth – and power – aligned with the future, not the past

Evergreen Choices For Enterprise

give us more that is better

Valuing the Values You Value

choose the Wall St system, to value growth

choose the evergreen system, to include the other values that you also value

Evergreen Choices For Investors

give us more that is better

Custom-Crafted To Fit

evergreen stewards of evergreen savings investing through evergreen contracts with evergreen enterprises in an evergreen prosperity

Evergreen Roles For Universities

gives us more that is better

A Place to Connect

knowledge center, fiduciary space and hub for community outreach, on-site and on-line

Evergreen Career Paths For People

give us more that is better

Evergreen Stewardship

new pathways for finance professionals, students of the Humanities, design/creatives and others

Evergreen Algorithms for Learning

give us more that is better

Inquiry-Led Learning

drill-down on-line to follow paths of inquiry that interest you

a parable that explains evergreen 

In another place, and at another time,

there lived a people who prospered in an economy that was financed in part by evergreen stewards of their evergreen savings, set aside for retirement, for education, for philanthropy and for their future, forever.

These people took this word “evergreen” from their laws and legal drafting, for these people were a people of the law, who governed their dealings between each other through contracts and agreements.  In their law, “evergreen” meant a contract or agreement that is open-ended and endlessly ongoing, automatically self-renewing, from time to time, and over time, until the time when one of the parties decided to make a different arrangement. Then everything changed.

Every moment, from moment to moment, the world about these people presented them with choices. It required that they take action. Through the choices that they made, and the actions that they took, these people created the world in which they lived, and the history of their living in that world.

Through the world that they created and the history that they made, these people also changed the possibilities for the future history that they could make. This change they also saw as evergreen. Open-ended. Ongoing, Automatically self-renewing.  Always there, and always changing.

Change, and evolutionary adaptation to change was one of the most essential and unique things about these people. It was, in many ways, what made them, them.

It was what made them evergreen.

learning

These evergreen people earned. They came together to do work of making the world about them be a way they choose it to be. This work was never done, because always when they did the work of making the world about them to be a way they choose in some way, that work caused changes in the world, that created both the need and the opportunity to figure out new work, and make new changes, always moving towards a future of more that was better, created by design to be beautifully fit to function and authentically right for its times, but always changing over time, as times changed, and the evergreen people evolved prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes.

earning

These evergreen people prospered through learning. They figured things out. They figured out how the world about them worked. Then, they figured out how they could change the way the world worked, to make it work a way they choose. And they figured out that every time they changed the way the world worked in some way that they choose, the world also changed in ways they did not choose, giving them new things to figure out in a process of inquiry, insight and the invention of new knowledge that empowered new work and added new to the choices they could make. For these people, learning was a process of figuring things out that was open-ended, ongoing, automatically self-renewing. Evergreen.

spending

These evergreen people spent. They choose what artifacts of others’ work they wanted to use to make the world about them be more a way they choose. Then they used the artifacts of their own work to trade for the artifacts of the work of others. In this way, all of the evergreen people had more choices, and lived better, than any one of them, acting alone, could ever possibly have realized.

saving

These evergreen people saved. Through their work, they created surpluses. They made more artifacts than they themselves could use, or trade with others in the moment. They saved those surpluses for later.

investing

These evergreen people invested. They figured out that surpluses saved by individuals could be aggregated, and those aggregations could  be given to others, to organize new work that gave new choices to the people, for how they could take the world about them as they found it, and change it to be more a way they choose it to be.

prospering

These evergreen people prospered. Through learning, earning, spending, saving and investing they created two things that were uniquely evergreen. They created their own history. And they created a shared economy through which they made history.

And the history they made was a history of having enough, jobs, money and stuff, through change, and evergreen adaptation to life’s constant changes.

money. enterprise. choice.

One of the most powerful artifacts that the evergreen people made was money.

They made money as a token of value that was not itself valuable.  This money – these tokens of value that were not themselves valuable –  were powerful, because money empowered the evergreen people make exchanges indirectly, store surpluses indefinitely, and  transfer surpluses to others to use for a time, to be returned to them, plus more, in time.

Money made enterprise possible for the evergreen people on a larger scale, and with more diversity of choice.  It gave them more, and gave them the power to keep making more, always moving towards a future of more that was better, created by design to be beautifully fit to function, and authentically right for the times.

For the evergreen people were a people of time, and of changes over time, and for the evergreen people, prosperity was an inflection point in time, a moment when possibilities selected from the future were transformed into a history of prosperous adaptation to life’s constant changes.

If good possibilities were selected, they made a happy history of having enough jobs, money and stuff.

finance

The evergreen people saw  finance as the lens through which they as a society looked into their future, and decided which possibilities for making prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes in the present could, should and would be evolved through enterprise in the moment.

The evergreen people also saw that finance was not for everybody.  The future is an uncertain place. Exciting, and also, for many people, a little bit frightening. Filled with hints and shadows of possibilities, some of which would be fantastic, many of which can never be.  How could they choose? Some choices would make a happy history. Others could become a disaster. How would they know? They saw that it takes special skills, and special training, to navigate through the uncertainties and choose the right possibilities.

They trusted financiers expert in the skills of finance to navigate the possibilities for them.

stewardship

The financiers they trusted most were the evergreen stewards of their society’s evergreen savings, who made evergreen investments in evergreen enterprises. These evergreen stewards invested in enterprise cash flows, directly, to generate cash flows that supported good stewardship, indefinitely. They saw that enterprise flourishes for a time, and then fades over time, through a form of social contract with popular choice that changes over time, as times change and people make new choices to adapt to changing times.  They constructed legal contracts for investment in enterprise that were designed to fit inside the social contract between that enterprise and popular choice.

civic engagement

The evergreen people knew that the future was both uncertain and filled with possibilities. They knew that experts were needed to navigate those uncertainties and possibilities. They knew those experts needed to be accountable to them, the people, for the choices that they made on the people’s behalf.

They used their universities as places to connect evergreen enterprises seeking financing with evergreen stewards seeking enterprises to finance, as knowledge centers and fiduciary spaces that were also hubs for outreach and inclusion of the people in evolving community standards of prudence to guide their stewards in choosing which enterprises to finance, and the terms on which to provide that financing.

This was key to the success of their evergreen framework and process and places for financial decision-making. Each financing was created by design specifically to fit the needs and opportunities of the enterprise being financed, guided and supported by civic engagement in evolving community standards of prudent stewardship.

fiduciary duty

As we have observed, these evergreen people were people of the law. They used the law to enforce adherence of their evergreen stewards to community standards of evergreen prudence. They imposed a fiduciary duty on their evergreen stewards.  This duty bound their steward to loyalty, prudence and competence. Breaches of duty by evergreen stewards were punished under the law.

evergreen prosperity

In this way, these evergreen people kept their economy evergreen, adaptively evolving, always moving towards an evergreen future of more that is better, created by design in an evergreen present to build an evergreen history of always having enough jobs, money and stuff.

And they were happy.

We are taught today

to believe that prosperity looks like this

 

trend-line

What if

a more complete, more accurate and therefor more useful pattern for the economy and prosperity is really something more like this

 

500_f_94390046_3x1rglbo4vzrczlmxcmejwtodjrmvuvp

and we can see that this network that is the economy
is not static, and neither is it chaotic
but changes over time, and from time to time
intellectually and interpersonally
purposefully and pragmatically
evolving and expanding
as times change,
new opportunities are created,
new work is invented,
new enterprises are organized,
new choices are made available to the people,
and existing choices become less popular

enterprise, and the social contracts
that connect enterprise to popular choice
flourish for a time,
stay strong for a time,
and then fade over time

each a single iteration
in a constantly reiterating
process of change and
evolutionary adaptation to change

as people evolve
prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes

If we plot the changes in this networked economy over time, we see that it is evergreen – open-ended, endlessly ongoing, automatically self-regenerating – and also adaptively evolving and expansive. At every time, some new choices are being added, and some existing choices are no longer being supported, while most of the choices in the network just keep being popular.


The unit we map to see this dynamic best is the social contract that connects an enterprise with popular choice. In building this map, we see the enterprise unit as a physical coming together of people to do the work of constructing a surplus of specific artifacts for exchange with others.

personality


Each enterprise will be seen as iterating through a common pattern that reiterates though the network that is the economy, with each enterprise:

  1. beginning in obscurity, with no real social contract to support it at all (this is when investment works its magic in this network);
  2. growing more popular over time, as it establishes a social contract with more and more people
  3. remaining popular over time, as its social contract remains strong, sometimes for a very long time, and
  4. eventually, in the fullness of time, seeing its popularity diminish as times change and people make different choices, and its social contract fades away.


There is no enterprise that does not move through this pattern, although some enterprises will stay strong for very long periods of time, while others pop up and fade away quite rapidly. In some cases, popular choice will be quite enduring. In others, it will be fleeting.

Entertainment, for example, is a domain of human choice and action that is driven strongly by the pursuit of novelty.  Enterprises in the entertainment business can pop up quickly, and fade away just as suddenly.   Lifestyle choices generally exhibit easy acceptance of – and even demand for – change, almost for its own sake, for the novelty of it.  Other choices are more “sticky”.  Considering this brings to top-of-mind the paradoxical relationship that we as people have towards change: at one and the same time, we both love it, are drawn to it and inspired by – and we are afraid of it!

Which domains of human choice and action do you think are most changeable? Which more enduring?

Mapping all the units of enterprise that populate the network that is this economy as different colors will give us a kaleidoscope of movement and change over time, within an adaptively evolving portfolio of enterprises, some of which will be new and growing, most of which will be established and staying strong, some of which will be fading away.

Contemplation of this visual map of the time series of enterprise in an adaptively evolving networked economy brings to top-of-mind the importance of finance, and the essence of good evergreen stewardship, in maintaining the vitality of this adaptively evolving evergreen economy by

  • supporting new enterprises while they grow their popularity and increase the size and scope of their social contract with popular choice,
  • supporting existing enterprises in staying strong within the scope of their existing social contracts,
  • and also supporting those enterprises whose time is passing, and whose social contracts are fading away, so that as those enterprises fade away they do so gracefully, and the people who populate those fading enterprises find their way into new work and new prosperity for themselves and their loved ones.

Who can we trust
to provide this
stewardship
for us?

the evergreen answer is

pensions and endowments
as evergreen stewards of society’s evergreen savings
set aside for retirement, for education, for philanthropy and forever

financing the evolving and expanding network of choices that is the economy

by constructing legal contracts between stewardship and enterprise that fit inside
the social contract between enterprise and popular choice

investing in enterprise cash flows, directly
to generate cash flows that support good stewardship, indefinitely

constructing new contracts with new enterprises,
and letting existing contracts with existing enterprises fade away,
as times change, and people evolve prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes
through inquiry, insight and the invention of new knowledge
that empowers new work that adds new choices to the economy
that are more fit to function, and more right for the times
as times change, and the social contracts
between enterprise and popular choice change with them

creating by design an open-ended, ongoing and adaptively evolving prosperity
of having enough jobs, money and stuff in an evergreen present
that is always moving towards an evergreen future of more that is better,

beautifully fit to function and authentically right for its times

creating by design
an evergreen philosophy
of the flourish and fade
of the social contract
that connects
enterprise to popular choice

seeing the links that connect
art • work • finance • stewardship
as drivers of open-ended, ongoing, adaptively evolving
transformation of human experience

Famous New York-based graphic designer Milton Glaser teaches us that,

“…there is always a purpose in design, (but) art has no purpose,
except the transformation of human experience”

A Conversation With Milton Glaser
http://create.adobe.com/2016/5/4/a_conversation_with_milton_glaser.html

art and work share the same purpose,

their purpose is the transformation of human experience


finance, like work and like art, also has a purpose

it’s purpose is also the transformation of human experience

for good, or for ill


evergreen stewardship finance also has a purpose

its purpose is to use finance to transform human experience

for good

by design

evergreen is creating a new financial decision-making framework, a new financial decision-making process and new financial decision-making places designed to fit the function of good stewardship by our stewards of society’s shared savings and to be right for our times of global economic integration that will transform the human experience of enterprise, of finance and of prosperity, with all that is included within the experience we call “prosperity”

human experience
is now

enterprise as the corporation

human experience
is becoming

enterprise as a social contract

finance as share price/value creation

finance as legal contract

prosperity as growth

prosperity as constantly and continuously moving towards a history of having enough jobs, money and stuff, where “enough” is provisional, suited to the time, but subject to change as time changes, and people evolve prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes

fit to the function of individuals investing their own savings for their own proper purposes participating in enterprise operating at scale

fit to the function of pensions and endowments as stewards of the shared savings of society set aside for retirement, for education, for philanthropy and for our future, forever, investing in enterprise cash flows, directly, to generate cash flows that support good stewardship, indefinitely

right for a time of constant geopolitical expansion into an infinitely receding geophysical horizon

right for a time of great industrial surpluses and global economic integration

when pensions and endowments enter the securities trading markets, they get trapped inside the tyranny of the trading tape, constantly chasing after a constantly changing market-clearing price, driving enterprise growth into corporate gigantism, and a growth economy into trading asset pricing booms that go bust, with increasing frequency and increasingly catastrophic consequence for the economy and for good stewardship

when pensions and endowments negotiate legal contracts with enterprise, directly, that are created by design to fit inside the social contract between enterprise and popular choice, they create for individuals the new investment choice to participate passively in these stewardship contracts, using the trading markets to do what these markets are created by design to do, which is to provide instant liquidity, on demand, to individuals investing their own money, for their own account, in pursuit of their own idiosyncratic purposes, through the mechanism of the market-clearing price

they also give incorporated enterprise the choice to exit the securities trading markets as they approach the top of their “S” curve, before the trading tape become tyrannical, driving them into corporate gigantism

How can
art + work + finance + stewardship
effect this transformation?

whatif

we radically re-think the purpose and powers of pensions and endowments 
to create by design,
a new financial decision-making framework
that is beautifully fit to their stewardship functions
and authentically right for these times in which we now live

creating by design
a new narrative for

pensions &
endowments

pulling out of Wall St
and heading over to Main St
investing in enterprise cash flows, directly
to generate cash flows that support good stewardship, indefinitely

building a new vocabulary

unique artifacts • social contracts • private laws • public accountability

THE REWARD

is a perpetual present of more that is better
created by design to be beautifully
fit for function and authentically
right for its time,
as times change,
and people make
prosperous adaptations
to life’s constant changes

engaging more people in more interesting ways

the university as an evergreen financial decision-making place

some old words will acquire new meaning, as we think and talk about

as a network of interpersonal and intellectual connections between people for doing work and sharing wealth through enterprise and exchange, a network that is constantly evolving and expanding as times change, and people evolve prosperous adaptations to changing times, adding new choices and new connections to new enterprises, while sometimes letting others fade away.

 as essential to full and satisfying participation in technology, society, the economy, finance, politics and life.  Education is how we learn about choices, the rules for choosing well, and how to evolve new choices and new rules when times change, as we must adapt to changing times.

as the physical coming-together of people to do work that creates wealth for themselves by providing a choice to others
as how society chooses which ideas for making prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes can, should and will be evovled through enterprise, aggregating surpluses saved by individuals and deploying those aggregations to support enterprise selected through different financial decision-making fraweworks and different financial decision-making processes, each valuing the values it was designed to value, each the right decision-making framework for financing the right enterprise at the right time, and all potentially the right framework for financing the same enterprise at different times
as regulating the use of physical and financial capital, to keep the economy moving towards a future of more that is better, created by design to be beautifully fit to purpose, and authentically right for its times
as playing an essential role in bridging the transition from Science to Enterprise, by supporting Design through proof of concept and early popularity
as provisional, suited to the moment, but subject to change as time passes and the balance between people and place, and between people and people changes, requiring constant adaptation to life’s constant changes in order to ensure that people always have enough jobs, money and stuff — because without jobs, people cannot earn money, and without money, people cannot buy the stuff they need to take the world about us as we find it and change it to be more a way we choose it to be
as practical knowledge of how the world about us works, and how we can change the way the world works, to make it work more a way we choose

redefining expectations

realigning choice

moving towards
a future of more
that is better
by asking

whatif

in the university
and over Social Media

exploring

the possibilities for sustaining
an evergreen future of more that is better
created by design in an evergreen present
through enterprise financed by stewards of society’s shared savings
set aside for retirement, for education, for philanthropy and forever,
investing in enterprise cash flows, directly
to generate cash flows to good stewardship, indefinitely

discovering

the social contract
between enterprise and popular choice
as the key construct in an economy of change
and evolutionary adaptation to change
that prospers through inquiry,
insight and the invention of new knowledge
that empowers new work
that adds new to the choices
people can make
for how we want to take the world arounds us as we find it
and change it
to be more a way we choose it to be

constructing

legal contracts
between enterprising individuals and
evergreen stewards of society’s evergreen savings
for financing the social contract of popular choice
and prosperous adaptation to life’s constant changes

evergreen
in five easy pieces

one

an evergreen
form of
financier

evergreen stewards of society’s evergreen savings
set aside for retirement,
for education,
for philanthropy,
and for our future,
forever

two

an evergreen
form of
finance

using the evergreen
framework and
the evergreen process
for financial decision-making
in evergreen places

three

two contracts,
one legal

the other social

to construct legal contracts between stewardship and enterprise

for financing social contracts between enterprise and popular choice

four

matching
cash flow needs

to cash flow generation

investing in enterprise cash flows, directly

to generate cash flows that support good stewardship, indefinitely

five

creating a history
of having enough
jobs, money and stuff

riding the flourish and fade of popular choice, as times change, and people evolve prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes

keeping an expansively evolving economy always moving towards a future of more that is better,
created by design to be beautifully fit to function, and authentically right for the times

the promise of evergreen
is constant and continuous prosperity, open-ended and endlessly ongoing
in an adaptively evolving and expanding economy
formed through legal contracts between stewardship and enterprise
financing social contracts between enterprise and popular choice
created by design to always give us enough
jobs, money and stuff

where “enough” is alway provisional
suited to the moment,
and also subject to change
as times change, and
people evolve prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes

a new american “noble experiment”

America’s Founding Fathers “took out a clean sheet of paper” to create by design a new form of governance that was purpose-built to fit their times.

The Founding Fathers created a new form of constitutional government designed to be accountable to the people through new forums for civic engagement in the political process, as how society chooses what laws it will be governed by, as times change, and the law evolves to fit the changing times.

It was called “a Noble Experiment”.

We are taking out our own “clean sheet of paper” to create by design a new form of finance that is purpose-built to fit our times.

Evergreen Core is creating a new form of stewardship finance that is designed to be accountable to the people through new forums for civic engagement in the process of finance, as how society chooses which ideas for creating by design prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes can, should and will be evolved through enterprise.

It is the new American noble experiment.

It is not just an American experiment.

be part of the experiment

on civic engagement in evolving community standards of perpetual prudence in collaboratively co-creating prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes designed by enterprise financed by fiduciary stewards of the shared savings of society set aside for retirement, for education and for philanthropy — that is, for the future — investing in enterprise cash flows, directly, to generate cash flows to stewardship, indefinitely

be engaged, and engaging

What more do YOU want finance to create, for you?

evolving community standards of prudence for stewards investing our shared savings to finance our shared future

whatif

be empowered, and empowering

explore new possibilities for civic engagement in evolving community standards of fiduciary prudence through cash flow waterfall design events like this…

The events will take place in the university and on Social Media, giving new power to the people, by giving new a new financial decision-making framework and a new financial decision-making process to our pension funds, university endowments and endowed philanthropies, as stewards of our shared savings set aside for our shared future!

  • in provocation spaces, enterprising individuals present, using all manner of media to share their narrative, their enterprising ideas as A. their observation of a change in the way things are now and B. their insight into how we can evolve a prosperous adaptation to that change through their enterprise
  • in knowledge theaters, university faculty will share their expert knowledge through talks, lectures and demonstration, to build a proper context for the idea and help people see and appreciate the risks in their own proper context
  • in break-out rooms, students will lead salon-style discussions of the proposed plans and perceived opportunities
  • all of these events will be free and open to the public on-site, and also reinterpreted for sharing with the wider world on-line, over Social Media
  • after each event, evergreen core will track what happens next, and report the news to the people, in the Press and over Social Media

the end result of a successful event is a public consensus around the enterprise as a prudent investment for pensions, endowments and foundation as stewards of perpetual fiduciary funds

on-site


what-happens-where

on-line


beauty-shot-for-wall-st-to-main-st

organized, facilitated and curated

in the university and over social media

by

evergreen core, llc

finding our future created by design at the intersection of finance & fiduciary duty

experts in using the evergreen lens

for examining proposed evolutionary adaptions to changes in the economy, in enterprise, in finance and in prosperity
help us prove the power of this new design

Will you be one of the first penguins in?

for this movement is to become the new normal, we need people to lavish brain power, time and imagination on its underlying complexities

taking the

evergreen

challenge

whatif $30 Trillion in timeless stewardship funds

set aside by society for retirement, for education, for philanthropy and for our future

pulled out of Wall Street, and

headed over to Main Street

investing in enterprise cash flows, directly

to generate cash flows to stewardship, indefinitely

Can they?

If they can, should they?

what would “the reasonable man” say?

Pensions (for retirement) and endowments (for education and for philanthropy) are fiduciaries, bound under the law by fiduciary duties of loyalty, prudence and competence.

The legal standard for fiduciary prudence is the hypothetical “reasonable man”.

the hypothetical reasonable man

is really you

and me, and all of us

what do YOU say?

things are happening

our world is changing

causing people to talk

Asking BIG existential questions

(when) will the climate collapse?

(when) will the financial system fail us, (next) again?

is my retirement safe?

Am I safe?

searching for bold, innovative and practical answers

whatif

the answers to all these questions

share a common link

to a financial system that has lost its way?

whatif

a primary reason that our financial system has lost its way is because pensions and endowments are investing

like this

always chasing after an ever-changing

market-clearing price

when they should be investing

like this

pulling out of Wall St

and heading over to Main St

because they can

riding the flourish and fade of popular choice

as times change and people make 

prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes

by investing in enterprise cash flows, directly

to generate cash flows to support good stewardship, indefinitely

two aha! moments

This is why

the Wall St system cannot fit the stewardship functions of pensions and endowments

Wall St is a consumer product

the corporation is the primary legal contract that connects enterprise to the Wall St trading system and Wall St to investors

it is purpose-built to give us, as individuals, the opportunity to participate in wealth creation through enterprise operating at industrial scale

it is a mass market consumer product…everybody gets the same bundle of rights…everybody gets the same market-clearing price

there is no negotiation, because we, as individuals, cannot negotiate with enterprise at scale

we do not have the size

we do not have the purpose

we do not have the time

PENSIONS AND ENDOWMENTS ARE NOT CONSUMERS.

they have size

they have purpose

they have time

They do not have to speculate. They can negotiate.

they call it Growth, but

it's really just a boom, which is a bust that has not happened yet

Booms and Busts Are Just An Exaggeration of the True Norm of Flourish and Fade

They call the booms Growth.

They call the busts Recession – or Depression, if they are really bad.

They call it a Recovery when the economy returns to Growth, as if Growth is the norm, and Recession is an aberration.

But if Growth really is the norm, why is Growth always followed by Recession?

If Growth is really a boom, then it becomes easy to see why Growth is always followed by Recession, or Depression.

A boom is always followed, sooner or later, by a bust.

A boom is really an exaggeration of the flourish and fade of popular choice, as times change, and people make prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes.

Just as the flourish always fades, a boom always goes bust.

evergreen does not exaggerate this flourish-and-fade

it finances it

when the legal contract between stewardship and enterprise
fits within the social contract between enterprise and popular choice

we get an economy of evergreen prosperity,
always moving towards a future of more that is better
evolving prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes
created by design to be beautifully fit to function
and authentically right for their times
giving the people enough
jobs, money and stuff

when the legal contract between stewardship and enterprise does not fit
within the social contract between enterprise and popular choice
we get

Merger Mania
Corporate Gigantism
Financial System Short-Termism
Social and Environmental Extractionism
an economy that convulses through alternating cycles of

BOOMS THAT GO BUST

a question…

HOW

can we get people to see

the power and the possibilities for

evergreen stewards of society’s evergreen savings 

to evolve finance and investing 

to be properly fit to our function

and right for these times in which we now live?

For many people, finance is confusing. 

It’s not their fault.

The financial system we rely on today has become dysfunctional, and dysfunctioning systems are very hard to understand.  We continue to set our expectations in line with the system’s design, but the system itself is not functioning in line with its own design. The consequence is a cacophony of dissonance and disappointment that leads to confusion, conflict and contentiousness. The economy stops working.  2008.

Our first impulse is to fix the system, but a dysfunctioning system is not broken. It is just not a good fit to the function we are trying to make it serve. Our financial system today is working pretty much exactly the way it is designed to work.  In many ways it has achieved near perfection in its workings. But times have changed, and the current system design no longer fits our changing times.

The most important change is retirement.  Retirement is a new reality in our wonderfully industrialized, urbanized, digitized, monetized and globalized economy. Society has responded by setting aside savings to provide an income through the pension provision. Pensions have joined the ranks of endowments, for education and for philanthropy, as stewards of large, purposeful and timeless aggregations of society’s shared savings set aside for investment in an evergreen present to sustain prosperity into an evergreen future.

Right now, these evergreen stewards of society’s evergreen savings are working diligently to make the current financial system fit the purposes of their stewardship.

Their efforts, for the most part, are not being well rewarded.

whatif

join in our explorations of how the Wall St system is designed to work, why it is not working the way that many feel we need, want and expect that it should and why the future of finance does not belong to those who want to “fix” a system that is not broken, but with those of us who see that fundamental changes have taken place in the structure of our economy and society that are creating the need that is also the opportunity to adaptively evolve a new form of finance, created by design to be properly fit to function.

You will never see Pensions, Wall St, Banking, the Economy, Enterprise or Prosperity the same way again, ever!

Most people think of finance today as Wall Street, a system that works for the people who work that system.

Evergreen Core is leading a movement to put finance back on Main Street, making it once again work for you!

Pensions are the pivot.

Right now, the only way for a pension to invest in an enterprise on Main Street is to go through Wall Street.

Evergreen Core is giving pensions a new choice, the choice to go direct, investing in enterprise cash flows, directly, to generate cash flows to pensions, indefinitely. Because pensions generating cash flows directly is betterfor pensions, for me, for you, and for all of us.

the currently popular Wall St identity

pensions and endowments as

buyers of product

from Wall St

pensions-only-through-wall-st


complex and confusing

expensive and ineffective


pensions aggregate savings from society, and give them to Wall Street, to trade in financialized assets that are derived from the cash flowing through Main Street enterprises, indirectly

 

the soon-to-be popular Main St identity

pensions and endowments as

providers of capital

to Main St

pensions-direct-to-main-st


simple and comforting

affordable and effective


pensions aggregate savings from society, and invest them in cash flowing through Main Street enterprises, directly

Tim MacDonald
evergreen core founder

Tim MacDonald, founder of evergreen core, llc, is a theorist-practitioner in the evolving new field of purposeful investment by stewardship investors. A lawyer by vocation, Tim integrates diverse experiences in finance, investment, and associated commercial transactions and their regulation, across multiple capital formation systems. A student of history, anthropology, and philosophy by avocation, Tim brings a multi-disciplinary, multi-generational, evolutionary worldview to the great challenges of our time presenting at the intersections of enterprise, finance, governance and history.

Tim is a Double Eagle, in law and philosophy, from Boston College, with an additional degree in tax law from Boston University. Over a 30 year career as a tax attorney expert in partnership transactions, deal lawyer, investment designer and builder of amazing financial cash flow models, Tim has seen from the inside how the financial system in its current form actually works, and why it isn’t working the way we need, want and expect that it should.

Tim is working, through evergreen, to help the world evolve a prosperous adaptation to this contemporary change in the fit between finance and a history of having enough jobs, money and stuff.

Tim’s story

I started my legal career in 1980, just as the party was really getting started.

Over the following 30+ years, I lived and worked through the collapse of the Savings & Loan Industry, the collapse of Long Term Capital Management, the Collapse of the dot.com bubble and the euphemistically named Global Financial Crisis of 2008, that almost brought about the collapse of civilization as we know it, together with a long litany of less spectacular financial system failures.

Now, I am living and working through a rapidly accelerating erosion of Defined Benefit pension plans and their surreptitious replacement with Defined Contribution savings accounts, leading towards a collapse of our retirement provision: a proper pension plan – a Defined Benefit plan – provides money to live on for as long as we live; a retirement savings plan – a Defined Contribution plan – only provides money to live on until the savings run out…then, what are we going to do?

It is hard not to live and work through all this collapse and erosion, without developing a nagging feeling that something has gone wrong.  Many others share this belief, and choose to cast blame and find fault, echoing many variations on a common theme of “we have too many bad actors acting too badly, and these bad actors need to be made to stop acting so badly”.

Having worked inside the financial industry, and seen the way this industry actually works, and why it is not working the way we need, want and expect that it should, I find this “moral failings” theory of change unsatisfying.  Instead of casting blame, I think we have to find a better way.

My search for that better way begins with a diagnosis of the present way. In conducting that diagnosis, all roads lead to Wall Street, and the pension industry.

For decades, Wall St. had been trying to convince pensions to put the vast aggregations of other people’s money entrusted to their good judgement into the stock market. For decades, they had been stymied by the law of fiduciary duty, that prevents fiduciaries, like pension funds, from speculating with the other people’s money entrusted to their good judgement. Trading in stocks and bonds is the very definition of speculation. Look it up. It’s in the dictionary.

In 1972, Wall St found a solution to this vexing problem of fiduciary prudence. It is called the Uniform Management of Institutional Funds Act. It declares, overruling centuries of common law and common sense, that trading in securities is not speculation if it is done through a portfolio of properly diversified trading positions constructed on the principles of Modern Portfolio Theory, which asserts that individual share price volatility always reverts to a trend line of constant growth, over time and on average. It is the law of statistics applied to stock prices.

The Uniform Act is something called a Model Law. It was written and published by a self-organized committee of lawyers called the National Commission on Uniform State Laws. It is not a law making body. It’s members are not elected representatives of the people. It is supposed to be a specialized task force assigned to study idionsyncracies in the laws of different states that make it unnecessarily difficult for people to conduct business in different states. No state is required to enact any Model Law. Each state is free to consider and decide on its own.

By 1973, 43 states had enacted the Uniform Management of Institutional Funds Act. Amazing.

It took a little while to get things going, but by the 1980s vast sums of pension money were pouring into the stock market, changing the way those markets work.

What have we learned?

  1. Pensions and other superfiduciaries putting their superfunds into the economy as equity into enterprise is good for the economy, for society and for society’s superfund set asides.
  2. Doing it through securities trading is not.