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.

Newspaper Business Pages – Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

(A reprint of a previous column)

I search for people talking and writing about ethics and reform. Since we are discussing business ethics, a good place for me to hunt for these kinds of writers is on the business pages of large circulation newspapers. It’s not much fun. Fortunately not all business writers live in a cartoon like version of our world where noble business men are limited by government regulation from making us all rich and happy, where the chief problem with the stock market is pessimism, and where stupid home buyers ruined the economy, but many perhaps most do.

Look, I believe in free enterprise. I think a business man should be able to make a profit. But a lot of what got us into the current mess had more to do with gambling with other people’s money that it did with investing. Further, I have a strong prejudice in favor of actually making stuff and investing in this nation’s future instead of moving money around as if that was “God’s work.” And if you think, that after seeing how derivatives work, watching the colossal failure of the rating agencies, the incredible passivity of the SEC and other government regulators, and the inability of the government, various huge corporations and the business publications to predict, prevent or ameliorate the current crisis, that I am going to blame individual home buyers for this mess, you just aren’t getting me.

If we just remain optimistic the recovery will continue is a regular thought for many business pages.  Jim Gallagher writing in St. Louis Today says that the principal danger from the Greek bail out and the crisis for the Euro is that investors fearing bad things will happen will behave irrationally and damage the market by selling. He provides reams of data to support his thesis. But in spite of all of his data, I have doubts. The European Common Market is a larger economy than the United States and many of their members are more question marks or problems than we like to acknowledge. I think fear is appropriate.

It’s all that home buying that brought us into this mess is an almost constant refrain. I can’t help but notice it was the collapse of a part of the derivatives market (a 600 trillion dollar gambling casino masquerading as an investment) that destroyed much of America’s economy. I also feel obligated to point out that those nasty, demented, foolish home buyers never seem to have figured out they could package their mortgages as securities, get them triple A status from compliant rating agencies, and then sell all over the world as if they were good investments relieving lenders of any responsibility for their decisions.

They say regulation is a bad idea. There is too much now. Golly Gee, looking over the ruins of the world economy and the thirty million American unemployed, you might think somebody did something wrong. But no, if anything bad happened it was not the fault of the huge investment banks (who got into a little trouble requiring trillions of dollars of bailout money), it was the fault of over regulation. Here’s Thomas Oliver from Atlanta Business News.

Well, so much for my pain. I have found in my searches many authors who inform, enlighten and motivate me.That makes it worthwhile.

James Pilant

Morally Right and Just

On By southwerkIn ethics, Government Failure

(A republish of an old column.)

“What is morally just and right – that’s not my job,” he said.

If a rapist, a murderer, an embezzler, any kind of criminal, had said this, we wouldn’t be surprised. If a corporate CEO said it here in the age of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School, I would not be particularly surprised but to hear it from the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court is a tragedy and an abomination.

Every human being and, in particular, every American has a responsibility to do what is right and hold others to moral responsibility. That is even more critical in the field of law where what must be a primary concern is justice.

What is particularly bizarre is that he spoke these words in a speech where he repeatedly praised President Lincoln. He said this:

Like most attorneys of his day, Lincoln didn’t go to law school and learned it by reading and working for other lawyers, Roberts said. He was a generalist who studied many things and was continually learning. He understood human nature and had a strong internal compass that allowed him to excel when he believed he was right.

What did President Lincoln say about morality? This is from the his Second Inauguration.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Let us as Americans, as believers in one religion or another, as believers in any philosophy in which good is considered more important than evil, struggle to make this land a better place. Let us always remember that we have an affirmative duty to fight evil and a responsibility to do what is right and honor justice whether we are the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or a simple citizen of a great nation.

James Pilant

Twitter and Facebook Dangerous for Your Pocketbook

On By southwerkIn business ethics

$430k Love settlement shows tweets can be costly (via Yahoo News)

From Yahoo News –

Courtney Love’s settlement of a case sparked by online attacks on a fashion designer show that while Twitter posts may be short, they can also be costly.

The singer has agreed to pay Dawn Simorangkir $430,000, plus interest, to settle a lawsuit the designer filed in March 2009 over comments Love made on Twitter and her MySpace blog.

Many users assume that because the comments or brief or similar to casual conversation, that a lawsuit for libel is unlikely. No, it’s just as likely as for any other media. It’s hard to think of defamation in terms of a newspaper with a 20,000 circulation being similar to a twitter post, but that twitter post could go viral and be seen by 20,000,000 people.

Here’s more from the article.

“People are getting in trouble for Twitter postings on an almost daily basis,” said First Amendment Attorney Doug Mirell, a partner at Loeb and Loeb who did not handle the case.

“The laws controlling what is and isn’t libelous are the same regardless of the medium in which the statements appear,” he said.

From further down in the article –

“The fact is that this case shows that the forum upon which you communicate makes no difference in terms of potential legal exposure,” Freedman said. “Disparaging someone on Twitter does not excuse one from liability.”

When you communicate with Twitter or Facebook, pretend you are editorializing in a newspaper because legally, it’s very similar.

James Pilant

Four held for burning to death Orissa steel executive (via The Times of India)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

From the Times of India

A group of workers Thursday set ablaze the vehicle of R.S. Ray, deputy general manager of a private steel company Powmex Steels near Titilagarh town, about 400 km from here when he was on his way home for lunch.

The irate workers allegedly first asked the driver and another company employee who were in the same vehicle to come out. When they came out, the workers poured petrol and kerosene on the vehicle and set it on fire with Ray inside.

Employer – employee relations appear to be more contentious in India. I am curious about how collective bargaining is done there and how extreme executive pay fairs as an issue.

I’ll have to look into it.

James Pilant

Prep-Star-Hits-Game-Winning-Shot-for-Perfect-Season, Falls and Dies (via Yahoo Sports)

On By southwerkIn ethics

From Yahoo Sports –

Making matters even more disorienting for Fennville fans were the events that transpired just before (Wes) Leonard’s death. The junior — who was also the quarterback of the school’s football team this fall — not only hit the winning shot in the team’s final regular season game, but by doing so he also ensured that the Blackhawks would finish with a perfect, 20-0 record.

“It’s tough to take in,” Leonard’s teammate Shane Bale, told The Sentinel. “It’s like somebody from your family, you know?”

Opposing coaches and their teams were also still trying to come to grips with the teen’s passing. Bangor (Mich.) coach Rocky Johnson said that he was completely stunned by the death.

“It’s hard to stomach,” Johnson told MLive.com. “We are all hurting now.

This is not my usual turf but I wanted to call attention to the funeral passage in Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans –

“Why hast thou left us, pride of the Wapanachki?” he said, addressing
himself to the dull ears of Uncas, as if the empty clay retained the
faculties of the animated man; “thy time has been like that of the sun
when in the trees; thy glory brighter than his light at noonday. Thou
art gone, youthful warrior, but a hundred Wyandots are clearing the
briers from thy path to the world of the spirits. Who that saw thee in
battle would believe that thou couldst die? Who before thee has ever
shown Uttawa the way into the fight? Thy feet were like the wings of
eagles; thine arm heavier than falling branches from the pine; and
thy voice like the Manitou when He speaks in the clouds. The tongue of
Uttawa is weak,” he added, looking about him with a melancholy gaze,
“and his heart exceeding heavy. Pride of the Wapanachki, why hast thou
left us?”

Maybe that’s appropriate.

James Pilant

The Thin Blue Line – A Bunch of Freeloaders?

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

I teach people who want to be in law enforcement.

From The Fire PIO

According to some of what I have read in the past few days, police officers are all greedy freeloaders, whose call to duty is a fraud while they exercise their narcissistic self interest.

You can look here, here and here.

Now, you might object that the writers and speakers here did not directly attack police but attacked public employee unions.

Seventy-three percent of all sworn police officers are in unions.

No, they are not going to say police or the word, fireman. But that’s what they mean.

These attacks on unions and collective bargaining hit the police just as hard as any other public union.

I’m not going to get into, whether or not unions are good ideas for police. I am more interested in another issue.

Police work is motivated in many cases by the idealism of the young and the status of the job in the eyes of the public. How are we supposed to recruit good people to be police officers with this kind of talk going on? And what if it continues? Month after month, year after year, the words, “Greedy public employees are destroying the nation!” How do you deal with that? What kind of police are we going to get?

Does this hammer idealism until only those who become policemen gravitated to it as kind of a last chance employment?

What in the hell have we become here?

If most Americans don’t have good pensions or good medical benefits, the police shouldn’t have them either?

At two o’clock in the morning, when somebody is trying to jimmy your window, do you want a highly motivated police officer whose idealism and commitment to duty made him want to be a police officer? Or would you rather have someone who couldn’t do anything else?

I wouldn’t worry about it. You see, it takes motivation and guts to confront a robber outside a house, so the unmotivated uncaring policeman will just ignore the call.

Probably a lot of you don’t care one way or the other. Or you won’t until your law enforcement agencies have started taking damage.

I’m not waiting for that to happen.

Law enforcement is not a lucrative job. It’s not always a pleasant or easy job. But my heart is with those people, who do a job that must be done and deserve better than insults.

James Pilant

 

Economic Issues That Should Influence Ethical Multi-National Enterprises (MNE) (via hinaumer)

On By southwerkIn business ethics7 Comments

This is a good article about multi-national corporations and corporate social responsibility. In fact, it’s excellent. I really enjoyed it.

From the web site - Unite the Union

It’s from the web site, hinaumer. I recommend you read it.

James Pilant

Multi-National Enterprises (MNE’s) are huge organisations whose boundaries of influence and philosophy exceed those of the home country they originate. They are a very real and important part of the business world in which we live today. Companies such as IBM, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Nike, Starbucks and Wal-Mart, to name but a few, are huge organisations whose sales and profits often far exceed the Gross National Product (GNP) and Gross National I … Read More

via hinaumer

Ethics Dunce: Texas State Rep. Debbie Riddle (via Ethics Alarms)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

Ethics Alarms is a web site I read regularly. (You should too) This post is excellent. Marshall calls down his wrath on Texas hypocrisy. I am fully in agreement with everything he says. It’s hard for me to believe that people could write legislation like this. But they do.

Put Ethics Alarms in your favorites and read today’s article.

James Pilant

Ethics Dunce: Texas State Rep. Debbie Riddle The “Ethics Dunce” designation was invented for people like Texas Republican state Rep. Debbie Riddle.   She has proposed one of the many anti-illegal immigration bills currently being considered in the Texas state legislature. Her brainchild, and I use that term generously, … Read More

via Ethics Alarms

“Fiscal Conservative” Goes Full Circle (via Ryan Thomas McNeely)

On By southwerkIn ethics1 Comment

Mr. McNeely has a new blog. The good folks at Rortybomb were kind enough to point it out to me. This is good writing and a good grip on issues. A lot of what he has written has been dealing with the deficits at the different levels of government and the different ways the government has reacted.

This is one of those blogs that I recommend you put in your favorites. A subscription would be a good idea.

But above all – Welcome! Ryan Thomas McNeely – to the good fight or at least the Internet part of it.

I’m wish you thousands of hits, hundreds of subscribers and a host of talk show invites!

James Pilant

"Fiscal Conservative" Goes Full Circle A couple weeks back, Greg Sargent had a great post where he essentially argued that the term “fiscal hawk” does not actually mean what progressives think it means (or want it to mean) — namely, someone who wants to aggressively tackle the deficit. Rather, since the media regularly confers the term on people like Paul Ryan, someone who voted for debt-financed Medicare expansion and tax cuts without offsets, the term “fiscal hawk” actually means ” … Read More

via Ryan Thomas McNeely

Jesus Hates Net Neutrality (via Strategic Mac)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Frankly, the New Testament has not given me many distinct policy points that Christ might want to take a position on. I think the author feels about the same way that I do.

I am a devoted to the idea of net neutrality. At the very least, I am devoted to it because I want to keep blogging and if my site is downgraded, everyone down to my relatives will stop looking at it.

The author has strong political views and I am fine with that. Bring on the political views! We need some serious discussions about what we should be doing in this country and what I usually hear was canned for public consumption about 80 years ago.

Read the article. Enjoy. There’s good stuff being said here.

James Pilant

Jesus Hates Net Neutrality Republicans are bound and determined to prove that with regard to Net Neutrality they are complete bone heads. Consider that the new Speaker of the House, speaking in front of the “Send your Money To Jesus” association, said that he will basically go to his grave attempting to make sure that big ISPs own the Internet. He said that if he can’t override t … Read More

via Strategic Mac