Let's say for the moment TGC/Dbourse are legit, clean, great, and paying dividends the like of which have been unknown in history.
heh ..
t's just say it is so, for sake of argument. And the proprietors of TGC/Dbourse are throwing a huge party, the floor collapses and they are dead. Hmmm, what happens to my shares? Where are the records? Who is takes care of the estate? Who will pay the bills (because if nobody pays, Dbourse's server is turned off and there goes my proof)
Free markets and all. Fair dinkum. But what happens in an unregulated environment when the unregulated non-regulators pass away?
When I first read your intersting post I just thought "fair, but TG is big enough it wouldn't be relevant" However, after thinking about it a bit, here's what I thought:
There's a couple of different issues:
(A *) SIZE, SMALL V. LARGE
(B *) ANONYMITY, CONVENTIONAL V. INTERNET-CRYPTONYMOUS-MYSTERY
Classically in business the continuity issue you raise is linked to the SIZE of the entity. If you hire one guy living in a shack in the wilds of Canada to do some programming for 20 grand, and the poor guy dies, yo've just had it. In contrast if you hire ISL (not to mention IBM), ISL has numerous partners, attorneys, professional partners, accountants, factors, and general hangers on - in fact, if say me or one of the lads fell under a bus, it really wopuldn't make any difference. It goes without saying with a very large company like IBM it's very unlikely that you'd suffer catastrophic loss in the case of some sudden deaths or even failures of sub-companies or the like.
{ ... Aside - sometimes you have stlistic and value problems assosiated with a Key Man .. it would be incredible bad for the value of Dreamworks shares if Mr. Speilberg died suddenly, but that's not what you mean, any contracts or whatever you had with Dreamworks would be perfectly fine is S.S. died, would be completely safe even if many principals of Dreamworks died suddenly.}
A second, unrelated issue is the Anonymity of a company, which comes to the fore in this internet, cryptonomicon age (especially when people running around doing insanity like starting gold currencies, offshore rational jurisdictions, bizarer hyper-laissez-faire stock issues, etc) Certainly simply criminal organizations wokr via anonymity (I suppose) and this is unrelated to the internet. For 100 years (again unrelated to the internet) companies and individuals have tried their best to be hidden behind various shelf companies and the like, Sting pretends that someone who coincidentally lives on the Caymans wites half his songs, etc. And indeed now in the internet era anonymity, nymousness and the like tends to be an issue.
I suppose these two issues are actually separate and unrelated - at first one might not think so, but they are. Indeed there's a third issue, "Scammyness".
Again note that somewhat curiosly the three issues are unrelated (hopefully) -- for example! "OSGold", i imagine, was actually a fairly big operation. Bizarrely, OSgold WOULD HAVE passed the test, Robert, of what happened if a key person got killed! (I"m guessing it wasn't just a two bit scam run by one or two busy people, but it was quite big). So bizarrely, you wouldn't have had any worries with the issue you mention, Robert! Even though it was overtly a scam. See what i'm saying?!
Actually it occurs to me there are sort of flavors ..
(*) OSGold ... Scam? Yes. Large or small? Large. Anonymous? Yes.
(*) "Standard Reserve" (God, I love that name) Scam? Yes. Large or small? Large. Anonymous? No.
(*) Some stupid little "hyip" scam: Scam? Yes. Large or small? Small. Anonymous? Yes.
{By "Large or Small" above I mean "large and compelx enough to 'pass' Robert's 'death test'" - makes sense?}
With TGC it's pointless stating whether or not it is a scam (overwhelming evidence of the senses? - dont even mention it. the past suggests the future? get out of the here, the Enlightenment, scientific method, rationalism - pht)
Regarding the question is TGC "Large or Small" (ie, does it pass Robert's death test), the possibilities are either
(a) it is 2 or 3 hyper geniuses who work 200 hour weeks (each!) for 6 years and, all as a blind, control a huge network of attorneys, agents, shelf companies, etc, (and indeed who are very rich to begin with - and now richer!), or,
(b) just like any everyday offshore, on-the-QT, large kind of matrix or nexus of investors, companies, operating units and the like, the TGC mob are indeed a large entity that passes the "Robert's death test" just as say e-gold, xodds, or the like would.
Of coure, my witty light sarcasm suggests that to me it's obvious the latter is true. Mind you, I believe in evidence of the senses. You can look at a shambles like "1mdc.com" and see instantly it's largely one person (me, say!) doing the whole thing. {Aside, fortunately 1mdc passes the "Robert's death test" because of all ISL's attorneys, accountants etc and the extended ISL gang} In contrast, if you look at e-gold (I mean the web site per se and everything surrounding its actions), you will find it very hard to believe that e-gold is just one person making a heroic effort, it's clearly a large complex extended company.
of course - "anything" could be true, how do I "know" that etc. etc. Judgment of reality? Meaningless!
So your question is a good one, in the sort of Cryptonomicon era, looking at A and B up above, given that an entity IS of the "anonymous" type, HOW DO you tell if it's Large or Small on the Robert Death Test?
(Something tells me Jim Davidson will know the answer! :) )
I don't know, but I know that for me I make a judgement by looking at the entity. (ISL say has to deal with anonymous entities all the time, so for me its an evryday, unsurprsing thing. You don't want to deal with small, one man outfits, you prefer to deal with larger more complex organizations (which pas the RDT) so you have t make a judgement.) For me it's an obviosity with TGC {you just sort of CANT HAVE a capital asset of that size without a complex web around it -- even if you're, say, a lone genius author who suddenly hits Tom Clancy money, there just WILL BE a large complex system around you, ever building}, but who knows. To some people it will be obvious, to some it won't be obvious, to some it will be obvious but they'll deny it on principle, etc.
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Just a reminder that I only take a couple of hours bothering to write on this topic for the sole, openly oft-shouted reason that I WANT EVERYONE TO BUY SHARES, purely for the reason that that wil make mine worth more! NO hidden agenda.
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Buy the revolution. Buy TGC shares. You are LIVING IN day 1 of a new era.
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