Talk:RAAM

Untitled
Its use isn't illegal. http://www.rickross.com/reference/tm/tm38.html A law was passed that only US currency can be used to pay taxes or utility bills. Castlan 07:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Inaccurate statement regarding legality of currence
I checked with the mayor of Maharishi Vedic City, and he said that the statement in this article about the Iowa Attorney General ruling that the Raam is illegal is completely untrue. I'm going to delete this. There is no source. Such a ruling has never been reported in the media here in Iowa.

I'm also going to correct the name of Vedic City to Maharishi Vedic City. It was initially incorporated as Vedic City but then officially changed the name to Maharishi Vedic City.TimidGuy 16:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Article Title is misspelled
How do we correct this?-- — Kbob • Talk  • 15:39, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The article title = RAAM
 * The correct spelling = Raam


 * Source? The prospectus uses "RAAM". We can't move it to "Raam" because there are other articles with that name. It'd have to be something like Raam (currency).   Will Beback    talk    01:31, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to combine with Global Country of World Peace article
This article is a subset of GCWP. Why not combine them since they are both small, underdeveloped articles and neither topic has very many references or much media coverage.-- — Kbob • Talk  • 16:04, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * As I wrote on the other talk page, I think this can be expanded. Also, currencies are unique entities, unlike organizations, and so there are some advantages to treating the RAAM separately from the GCWP.   Will Beback    talk    01:32, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Exchangeability
The explanation of exchangeability is a bit muddled. If 1 RAAM can be bought for 10 dollars in MVC and exchanged for 10 euros in Vlodrop, then at current exchange rates it would be possible to engage in profitable arbitrage. Does the yellow sticker on the MVC banknotes prevent redemption in other countries? The prospectus refers to "RAAM EUROPE" and "RAAM NL", but these aren't discussed in the article.  Will Beback   talk    01:39, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * GHood point Will. I do know that the RAAM ERuro is "legal tender", but the US RAAM is not a "valid" currency. --BwB (talk) 11:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

World Peace Bonds
I came across a 1,000-word article on these bonds, and I recall I've seen others too. I don't know if they were ever issued. We could either report them here, or create a section in the "organizations" article about Stichting Maharishi Global Financing Research (SMDFR), the issuer of the bonds and the Raam (which are also bonds of a sort).  Will Beback   talk    22:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Maharishi Global Financing, a Dutch foundation affiliated with the Indian guru who gave spiritual guidance to the Fab Four in the 1960s, is marketing as much as $10 trillion of "World Peace Bonds for Poverty Removal." The three-year bonds, available in either dollars or euros, offer as much as 15 percent a year in interest, depending on how big your investment is.
 * Can the yogi's bonds actually fly? INVESTING MARKETPLACE by Bloomberg; Mark Gilbert. International Herald Tribune. Paris: Jan 18, 2006. pg. 22
 * I found another, "Taking a Yogic Flyer on 'Peace Bonds'", Washington Post (August 29, 2002) Full text reproduced here.. There seems to be a considerable disconnect between how the TM Movement is characterizing how the RAAM bonds and currency is supposed to alleviate poverty in 3rd World contries, and what the real use of the bond proceeds is. The Prospectus for the European RAAM Bonds says that half of the proceeds will go straight into the TM Org treasury as a reserve, and the other half will be used for the programs of the TM Movement.  There is no promise or guarantee that even a dime will go to 3rd World Development.  It appears from a careful read that the actual intended use of the funds is to build Peace Palaces, each one of which is supposed to have its own spas and organic farms, and the profits from that operation is supposed to fund the bonds. One would think that building Peace Palaces, all of which are in the US and Western Europe at this point, with their own organic farms would have exactly opposite the intended effect - creating even more competition for the impoverished 3rd World farmers who might hope to establish their own organic farms. But, that's just my opinion, and I've already expressed some reservations about what use should be made in the article from the Prospectus.  Note - there is one bit of interesting info in the Prospectus: Audited Financial Statements for Maharishi Global Financing. Fladrif (talk) 16:14, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that the article on RAAM be merged into Global Country of World Peace (GCWP). I think that the content in the RAAM article will make more sense in the context of GCWP, since the GCWP appears to be the defacto creator and sole user of the Raam currency. Also, the RAAM article is of a reasonable size such that its merging with GCWP will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. Even so, I think the Raam article is a bit flabby and could easily be cut back.

I notice that years ago the same proposal was made and not acted upon, in large part because one editor felt that that Raam article could be expanded. In the meantime, it does not appear to have expanded much--possibly because there does not appear to have been any media coverage of the Raam in the past five years. EMP (talk) 06:23, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yup, it looks like you read my mind. I've been thinking of this for a while. User:DGG also favors the merger idea and feels there is some fluff that needs to be cleaned up. (see discussion here.) I'm going to look at doing some clean up right now. If there is something you disagree with just revert me and we can discuss here at talk. Best, -- — Keithbob • Talk  • 18:32, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * User DGG's assessment was: "Merge seems a good idea for RAAM, especially because the bulk of the article is unusable promotion." So with this in mind I've reduced the article to include only info supported by secondary sources and summarized some areas. At this point I support the proposed merger but lets wait a few weeks to see if others would like to comment and give their input.-- — Keithbob • Talk  • 19:14, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Nice editing--length of article now more appropriate to the subject's modest level of notability. EMP (talk) 23:07, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Since this discussion has been open for 6 weeks and I see no objections so I am going to proceed with the merge.-- — Keithbob • Talk  • 18:12, 20 February 2014 (UTC)