It is obvious we have some outrage here. It is also obvious that is entirely merited by the utilities and government of Japan.
The author makes good points and as you are probably aware I am a great fan of outrage.
James Pilant
Author: southwerk
I am a 53 year old teacher. I have double major in Speech and Criminal Justice resulting in a Bachelor's degree from Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and a law degree.
#CSR the biggest and most dynamic corporate function of 21st Century (via Jayaribcm’s Blog)
Jayaribcm’s Blog discusses the problems with corruption in India. In this post he discusses the corruption of elections. As I have said before, corruption is not an Indian problem, it a worldwide phenomenon from which the United States is in no way immune. While they fight the fight there, we need to fight our struggle here.
However, there is a particularly disturbing element to the story of election fixing. American officials with the State Department were aware of the purchase of votes in a controversial piece of legislation on a nuclear deal with the United States back in 2008.
Since the United States did not share the information of the bribery and the U.S. benefited from it, there is bound to be suspicion of involvement in the bribery or that there may have been other wrong doing possibly involving the United States.
James Pilant
This is a significant article about election fixing as it is done in India. In the United States we fix elections by removing the poor and minorities from the election rolls on the grounds of non-existent election fraud. It’s the same game and just as evil.
Please take some time and read the whole thing.
Close to the end! (via Redwan’s Almost Daily Blog)
This is a student’s story of the end of the semester, the great amount of time and effort it took to get there and what other students get to do (and he doesn’t).
I have been there and strangely enough, I miss those times. However, I cannot do the old person’s routine of we were tougher, smarter and harder working than kids today. That’s nonsense.
I miss those times because I am in my mid fifties and the time when I was young is appealing in spite of the difficult situations and discouraging mistakes I had to get through.
And I am curious, as a college teacher, sometimes I think it would be good to see it from the other side in this new age of online classes and economic hard times.
I wish our writer all the best, recommend his writing to you, and hope he keeps posting.
James Pilant
Introducing The Siren’s Who’s Who Directory (via The Siren’s Little Red Book of Secrets)
I doubt that I can surprise anyone with the news that the internet is a dangerous place. From time to time I try to put up a warning of a recent scam or scheme to take people’s money. I hope they have a good effect.
In this case, a victim shares his story. This kind of story is more effective in my mind in warning people and in passing on wisdom, wisdom seldom being free.
Nevertheless, it takes considerable courage in this society to admit you are wrong, that you were taken. The author has my admiration for his moral courage and I appreciate his help in stopping these kinds of internet schemes.
James Pilant
Japan raises nuclear alert (via AlJazeera)
I’ve got several newscasts up on this. But this is a different take on the raised level of alert because it features some interviews with local Japanese.
James Pilant
It’s official: Fukushima now a new Chernobyl as radiation rises to max (via RT)
The situation at the Fukushima plant continues to deteriorate. I do not believe that this situation is going to improve in the near future. At first, there were new catastrophes almost daily. Now, they are weekly but no less severe. Most reports of these disasters have disappeared from the newscasts. The 24 hour news cycle demands new material, fresh scandal. Kirstie Alley falls down while dancing. American Idol may have trouble with its voting system. Yet, international catastrophe and the dangers of nuclear meltdown are still important and still a matter of history. These scandals, these one day news stories, these departures from good taste and sound judgment, plague our public discourse and turn our population into thrill seeking drones. This is neither conducive to democracy or to our hopes of a developing civilization.
James Pilant
Japan Raises Nuclear Crisis To Highest Level 7 (via freeharrypotter)
This is one of the saddest videos I have ever seen. There is film here of a community inside the mandatory evacuation zone. Probably no human beings will ever live there again.
Will any arguments of low death tolls and exposures equivalent to chest x-rays prevail against this vision of land deadly to human life.
What is the cost of thousands of square miles of land that can no longer produce – no factories, no farms, no homes, – nothing.
James Pilant
(This clip is originally from CNN)
Tepco may face $23.6bn in claims, JP Morgan says (via BBC)
Would the Japanese government allow TEPCO to face billions in claims? No. The government has in its power the decision as to whether or not this is a natural disaster (no lawsuit) or a human disaster (negligence – lawsuit).
The Japanese government will decide that this was a natural disaster. Count on it. The government despite TEPCO’s incredible record of poor judgment has little choice. Letting the company go bankrupt would put the Japanese government on the hook for billions in cleanup costs. It also would remove a valuable layer of blame.
The government and the utility company were Siamese twins of disaster. Each facilitated the other’s incompetence. This disaster would not have been possible if either one had acted with competence and judgment. But the intertwined nature of industry and government not only made disaster inevitable but had produced serious incidents in the past that should have been a warning.
Stay tuned for more poor judgment on the part of the Japanese government.
James Pilant
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) may face as much as 2 trillion yen ($23.6bn; £14.5bn) in compensation claims, according to JP Morgan.
From further down in the article –
Tepco shares have lost more than 75% of their value since 11 March, in the process hitting all-time lows.
From further down in the article –
Under Japanese law, operators of a nuclear facility can be waived of any liability if the accident is deemed to have been triggered by a natural disaster of an exceptional character.
Whether the current crisis fits that classification will determine the course for Tepco, analysts say.
“A key issue concerning damage compensation is whether the Fukushima nuclear plant accident is considered an unavoidable natural disaster,” said Tomohiro Jikihara of JP Morgan.
Charlie (via Imprints of Light)
A sincere God Bless to Charlie and to Georgie, my wife’s cat who shared the same fate.
James Pilant
THE BATTLE AGAINST CORRUPTION – HOW MANY DIVISIONS DO WE HAVE? (via Musings – Manoje Nath)
The fight against corruption is an American problem, an Indian problem and a worldwide problem. Their fight is our fight, our fight is theirs. Corruption takes different forms in the two countries. In America it is more a matter of corrupting legislators and buying influence, subverting regulators and rewriting the rules behind closed doors. In India, it may in some cases, be more public and related often to the official duties of various officials. However, there have been national scandals on a humongous scale.
We in the United States should pay more attention to developments in India. That nations economic and diplomatic power are on a steep rise and I strongly suspect their long term goals are more peaceful than their neighbor to the East.
James Pilant
Here is my colleague in blogging, Manoje Nath. He is often witty and very often profound. Here is a selection from his latest post –
Democracy attributes good sense and judgment to its citizenry at large and it is supposed to exercise its control over the day to day functioning of the government through public opinion,(as if there is a body of opinion, fully formed, ubiquitous and all knowing, which once alerted to wrongdoing, will come down like a ton of bricks and ensure immediate remedial measures. ) That, alas! is not true. Generally speaking people are ignorant and indifferent, people are resistant to mobilization and sustained activism. Wrapped in their own petty little concerns and anxieties they are easily satisfied with cosmetic changes. As a worst case they get used to everything – just about everything. This is where the charismatic leader comes in.
And from a little further down –
The ambiguity in the public attitude towards ill-gotten money is the result of our peculiar situation. Our economy is half white and half black, half over-ground and half underground. We condemn black money but deal in it, nevertheless. Under our very eyes, criminals and gangsters acquire wealth, then political power, then more wealth and with it acceptability and social esteem. Political banditry as a mode of creation of surplus value has long been accepted as a legitimate vocation. To displace the awareness of these contradictions, we have devised various overt and covert strategies to acknowledge and accommodate the criminality with in our midst. Lawyers, chartered accountants, investment advisors, honestly work for the legitimization of dishonest earnings by politicians, government officials, corporate CEOs, etc. Dirty money courses through our formal and informal financial system in different ways, with different consequences. We do not seek to know hard enough about the offshore funds being routed in our economy for fear of discovering their actual provenance. We are so enamoured, even over awed with power and manipulation that we tend to ignore what David Bell calls “the economic fulcrum underneath”.
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.