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.

Opinion: Gilded Age America redux (via David Gushee, Associated Baptist Press)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism

From the Associated Baptist Press –

Since the origin of Christian social ethics in the late 19th century as an Anglo-American academic-ecclesial discipline, economic problems have been at the center of our profession’s concerns. Christian ethics was born during the days in which the contrast between the vast prosperity of the industrial barons and the vast suffering of those who worked for them became unbearable. The moral concerns that drove early Christian ethics helped contribute to the regulation of industrialization’s excesses during the Progressive Era. The same social compassion supported the creation of a modest social safety net during the Depression and New Deal era.

As a Christian ethicist, I stand in a tradition that both rejected communism as an alternative to laissez-faire capitalism and recognized very early that the only way capitalism would or should survive was through legal regulation of its worst excesses. I don’t say moral regulation because, as Reinhold Niebuhr taught us in his formative work Moral Man and Immoral Society, huge group entities and social structures do not respond to moral suasion. If you are asking a corporation — or a group of corporations, or an entire economic structure — voluntarily to act in such a way as to limit profit, you will fail. You will have to coerce it to do so under the power of law or some other countervailing power, such as the organization of labor.

First, you should go read the whole essay. Gushee posts only after much thought, and since a Christian perspective on business ethics is much rarer than I would have believed, this is important writing.

Second, he is right that large economic units only react to force. The idea of a self regulating marketplace is only partially a reality at the best of times.

James Pilant

Breaking Down the Economic Death Spiral – and Saving the World Economy (via Realizing A Better World)

On By southwerkIn Capitalism, Economic measurement, Government Failure

Ho-Hyung (“Luke”) Lee writes on economic problems. He begins thusly –

The Western countries, that is, the United States and Great Britain, and including Japan, are among the most innovative countries in the world. They have the best universities; they have the best political systems; they have the best technologies. Unfortunately, they have failed to revive their own economies over the last several years. Japan, for one, has had a stagnant economy for almost two decades now. What’s wrong with them and their economies? Isn’t there anyone who can figure out what the real causes of the current economic crisis are and suggest a clear solution?

He then lays out his conception of a solution. It’s well worth your reading.

James Pilant

Moody’s To Cut U.S. Rating?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Government Failure, President Obama

From MSNBC –

Moody’s warned Monday that it could move a step closer to cutting the U.S. AAA rating if President Obama’s tax and unemployment benefit package becomes law.

The plan agreed to by President Obama and Republican leaders last week could push up debt levels, increasing the likelihood of a negative outlook on the United States rating in the coming two years, the ratings agency said.

A negative outlook, if adopted, would make a rating cut more likely over the following 12-to-18 months.

For the United States, a loss of the top Aaa rating, reduce the appeal of U.S. Treasuries, which currently rank as among the world’s safest investments.

We just spent several months with every commentator screaming out that we can’t afford to spend more money, that social security had to be cut, that things could not go on the way they had been and then –

President Obama made a deal with the Republicans to add trillions to the debt! (and social security will still get cut!)

The bizzarro world of Washington marches on. But there will be pain, there will be payback.

James Pilant

James Burke And The Development Of Modern Medicine

On By southwerkIn ethics

I have been a fan of James Burke for many years now. His book, Connections, is leisure time reading for me. What is particularly fascinating in this selection is the role ascribed to Benjamin Franklin in the development of modern medicine, in particular, the hospital. This is the entire set of five that covers one full hour of television.

James Pilant

World’s Most Ethical Companies (via Something About Business)

On By southwerkIn Corporate Social Responsibility

Something About Business has an interesting post today about the most ethical companies of 2010. It’s interesting and I call your attention to it.

(I recommend you put “Something About Business” on your favorites.)

James Pilant

In my last post, I briefly mentioned some companies that have shown very poor examples of ethics in past business relations. Just today, I came across an Ethisphere Institute report that instead, detailed the acknowledgment of companies who were the most ethical in 2010. The World’s Most Ethical (WME) companies were awarded because they demonstrated real and sustained ethical leadership within their field. There are no set maximum or minimum awar … Read More

via Something About Business

Note – The Ethisphere Institute 2010 Report of the top 100 ethical companies opens with this-

 The World’s Most Ethical Companies designation recognizes companies that truly go beyond making statements about doing business “ethically” and translate those words into action. WME honorees demonstrate real and sustained ethical leadership within their industries, putting into real business practice the Institute’s credo of “Good. Smart. Business. Profit.”

There is no set number of companies that make the list each year. Rather, the World’s Most Ethical Company designation is awarded to those companies that have leading ethics and compliance programs, particularly as compared to their industry peers. This year, there are 100 World’s Most Ethical Companies. Of these companies, 26 are new to the list in 2010 and 24 companies dropped off from the 2009 list. These “drop offs” generally occurred because of litigation and ethics violations, as well as increased competition from within their industry.

For the list itself, please go to the link.

Heidegger – Being And Time

On By southwerkIn ethics

I was watching a film on You Tube about King Robert the Bruce, thought about philosophy and wound up listening to this documentary on Heidegger. I am not sure how I got from one to the other but such is my journey of learning.

Warning! This guy is not just a little controversial. To many he is a swine and a cad. To some he’s worse. There are some who believe his actions were justifiable. There do not appear to be many of these.

These are the first two parts. There are four more and are easily found in the viewing options to the right of the screen.

James Pilant


Grocer A&P Files For Bankruptcy Protection

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

From the San Francisco Chronicle –

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., the 101-year-old U.S. operator of almost 400 supermarkets under names including Waldbaum’s, The Food Emporium and Pathmark, sought bankruptcy protection after failing to successfully compete with wholesale clubs and drugstores.

The retailer, which also runs stores under its own name, Super Fresh and Food Basics, had $8.8 billion in sales for the year ended in February, according to its website. Yesterday, it listed assets of $2.5 billion and debt of $3.2 billion in a Chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, New York. A shift in consumer spending at wholesale clubs, supercenters and drugstores hurt sales in the quarter ended Sept. 11, A&P said in a regulatory filing.

“We have taken this difficult but necessary step to enable A&P to fully implement our comprehensive financial and operational restructuring,” Chief Executive Officer Sam Martin said in a statement yesterday. “We could not complete our turnaround without availing ourselves of Chapter 11.”

The Great Recession claims another victim. The downward pressure of the unemployed as well as the long term declining manufacturing base will continue to claim victims.

James Pilant

Why The Tax Cut Deal Isn’t Cutting It. (via Rortybomb)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Government Failure, President Obama

Rortybomb is great. I wanted to take a paragraph out and quote him but I couldn’t pass up the graph, so, I reblogged.
Give him a read. It’s richly merited.

James Pilant

Why The Tax Cut Deal Isn't Cutting It. I want to be sold on this tax cut deal on the economics, but the more I look at it the less I'm impressed with it. According to Ezra Klein, the White House is circulating this diagram around the Hill.  James Kwak dissects this chart and the narrative that "Obama won" on this deal; I'll do the same.  Let's take the "What We Got" apart. Child Tax Credit From the Republican Pledge To America (pdf): …these looming tax hikes will hurt every family i … Read More

via Rortybomb

Laissez-Faire: The Cure for Corporate Socialism by Steven Durel (via In Libris Libertas)

On By southwerkIn Capitalism3 Comments

Adam Smith
This is one of the more clever articles you are likely to read on the web. The author believes that if the corporations are cut off from their unfair advantages gained by tax policy, subsidies, etc., the nations’ condition will improve dramatically. I cannot disagree. He is quite right.

However, he goes further and argues for laissez-faire. I’m sorry. I’ve had enough of laissez-faire to last several life times. I firmly believe that there must be regulation. However, I believe that a balance between “free enterprise” is the right course, a sort of conditional laissez-faire.

Nevertheless, this is a fine article and well worth your time to read.

James Pilant

One of the biggest problems that we can all see moving into the 21st Century is the amount of political power wielded by the world's corporations—particularly the American and European ones. Corporations, through bribery and lobbying, often steer the large tanker of government policy, both foreign and domestic, in their favor. Whether through trade regulations like NAFTA or by initiating imperialist wars on resource-rich nations, corporations hav … Read More

via In Libris Libertas

Kleptocrats

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism

Paul Krugman –

These days, we’re living in the world of the imperial, very self-interested individual; the man in the gray flannel suit has been replaced by the man in the very expensive Armani suit. Look at the protagonists in the global financial meltdown, and you won’t see faceless corporations subverting individual will; you’ll see avaricious individuals exploiting corporate forms to enrich themselves, often bringing the corporations down in the process. Lehman, AIG, Anglo-Irish, etc. were not cases of immortal hive-minds at work; they were cases of kleptocrats run wild.

I like the word, kleptocrat. It captures the sound of what it is, someone who can’t resist the lure of money, no matter what the cost.

The 21st Century might well be a hundred years devoted to kleptocracy in America. That’s pretty sad.

Do we have choices? Yes, but not the ones most people think of.

There is no return to a simpler moral age. There may be spots in American history where this virtue or another was more predominant than now but I promise you the trade offs are not anything you would want to play with.

What needs to be done is a combination of looking forward and looking backward, a fancy way of saying we should learn from experience but not react identically.

What am I talking about? Well, we’ve had kleptocracy before, roughly 1918 to 1929 maybe as late as 1931. We reacted by changing the balance of power between industry and government, imposing a large regulatory structure so as to never let the disaster happen again. Once that structure was abandoned, we fell into the trap once more. Except this time the force of the financial industry is such that no power moved to the government. We are at a stand still in the same spot where disaster struck in 2007.

There are three things that need to be done.

One – Corporations are creatures of the state, nothing more. They have the same living essence as a can opener if not less. The usurpation of human power by these moble documents is a pathetic farce a child can see through.

Return corporations to organizations under law, not as persons, as contracts. (which is what they are)

Two – Return morality to the law. First enlarge and enforce the duty of fair dealing, honesty and loyalty in business agreements. Those already exist in case law and often in statutory law. Let them be reborn as an integral part of contract law. But more than this, let us also revive the doctrine of unconscionability. The fees and contracts imposed on Americans regularly violate the basic standards of fairness. It is time to rein in those practices. If a practice “shocks the conscience,” a business, a corporation, shouldn’t be doing it.

Three – Give the owners of the corporations some say in what they do. Right now, a CEO and a board of directors are essentially unencumbered by oversight. The actual owners of the corporation have little say in the operation, major decisions and salaries of a company that are supposed to own. Isn’t a basic element of capitalism that the owner of property should be able to exercise rights in it?

That’s a start. Really, we’ve already been through these kinds of crisis before. Generally we know what to do. But there is no willpower, intelligence or wisdom to do it.

James Pilant