GRIEFER U!

An amazing performance, from someone who was willing to string up Ginko on the lamp posts over his belief that people who didn’t read the card, or forgot the card, saying their money was at risk and may not be returned, could somehow have a case that they were defrauded.

Yes or no, Benjamin, do you, or do you not believe that this person whom you lauded as one of the “good bankers” who returned money could have “walked away with people’s money” as claimed in this article?!

What an irresponsible nit! In fact, he would like to have it both ways, with his nasty little comment here — nail people to the wall he dislikes, like Nicholas, and put people on a pedestal that he likes, like this SL banker, and say nothing or remain silent about people who share his class and profession, like Bragg.

I find it HILARIOUS that Duranske could say “it doesn’t matter because it’s gone now,” when the whole point of claiming these operations were pyramid schemes should have been (if it were decent and sincere) about trying to get people’s money back or at least start some honest lawsuit. But that’s not what Duranske is interested in, obviously.

Let me take this opportunity to point out that the Wall Street Journal, and the ridiculous NPR broadcast that piggy-backed off it, featuring Robert Bloomfield, were both completely off the wall, claiming there was a “recession” in SL and claiming there was some huge loss of money. There wasn’t.

Mainstream narrative non-fiction articles frequently do what was done here — provide an example without identifying details in order to make a larger point. The article serves as a good summary of the generic problems with banking, and I feel it only suffers a bit for its lack of identification.

The institution here could only have been one of three or four operations anyway, and in any case, it’s gone, so it doesn’t really matter which one it was now.

I also don’t see any conflict between this article and the interview with Teufel Hauptmann of “SL Bank” that I ran at Virtually Blind, or, for that matter, the Wall Street Journal article that discussed SL Bank in a similar context. I’ll link the interview at VB below if anybody wants to check it out.

http://virtuallyblind.com/2008/01/16/sl-banks-teufel-hauptmann

As many readers know, I agree with this article’s writer that a lot — probably most — of the self-styled “banks” in Second Life were insolvent from their inception. But, as the article I linked above points out, at least one was not.

I’ve profiled both the good and the bad approach “banking” in the virtual world at different times, in different contexts. This article simply focuses on one of the bad ones. It does not deny the existence of one or two responsible operations, rather it says that “virtually all … were ineptly run [or] ponzi schemes.” SL Bank (and likely one or two others that I haven’t heard about) are the exceptions that make it “virtually all,” rather than “all.”

Wow, and that commment comes from somebody that runs not only one but two blogs to pump up *his* ego… Talk about pompous indeed.

You are quite misguided and the information you provide is Kindergarten knowledge. Your statements are childish. You don’t have a clue who I am or what I’m worth. My financial position would most likely make you envious. I’ve most certainly never spoken to a person named “Fake is as Fake Does”.

For another:

This person that continually insists that a name of some sort is needed to validate what one states. That somehow “credibility” is given when one uses and Avatar name. However, this same person that is known by her avatar name, real life name, etc.. has few sites she can access these days due to being banned. She is disregarded as an idiot no matter where she writes or posts.

I would just have to say that not only does it not quantify or qualify ones statements by using either your full name or avatar name, but that the person that continually brings up this notion has such little respect that it would most likely have done her good to never use her name.

–rjs