I have written before about my doubts as to China’s coming status as the number one economic power. These kinds of articles and posting tend to reinforce my beliefs.
My great thanks to “Fair For All.”
via Fair For All
Category: business ethics
Map of Foreclosures Nationwide (via ReReno’s Blog, Reno/Sparks Real Estate)
Here is an interactive map of the foreclosure crisis in the United States. If a picture says a thousands words …
James Pilant
Why Has Google Been Collecting Kids’ Social Security Numbers Under the Guise of an Art Contest (via Huffington Post)
Bob Bowdon has an interesting essay at the Huffington Post.
Here’s the opening –
It turns out that the company sporting the motto “don’t be evil” has been asking parents nationwide to disclose their children’s personal information, including Social Security Numbers, and recruiting schools to help them do it — all under the guise of an art contest. It’s called, “Doodle-4-Google,” a rather catchy, kid-friendly name if I do say so myself. The company is even offering prize money to schools to enlist their help with the promotion. Doesn’t it sound like fun? Don’t you want your kid to enter too?
What could be wrong with filling out a few entry forms?
What’s wrong turns out to be Google wants the last four digits of the child’s Social Security number. It also wants to know the child’s birthplace. With those two pieces of information, working out the whole Social Security number can be done in many cases. Google’s form also contains a waiver that the data can be used as Google sees fit.
Is this ethical?
No. I cannot figure out how having the last four digits of a social security number and a child’s birthplace serves any purpose in a contest. I believe that you can identify with great precision competitors in a contest based on their names, schools and addresses.
Is the purpose here, commercial use of Social Security numbers? I don’t know.
From Bob Bowdon –
In fairness, we have no evidence that Google will use or sell this information for marketing purposes. For that matter, it’s possible they could throw the data away. (Care to guess the odds?) But to be absolutely clear, there’s no evidence Google has done anything with this information at all, nefarious or otherwise.
Exactly. We don’t know. It is possible that this just made sense to the person drawing up the contest. Still, it is a lot of information to ask for and I would’ve thought this thing would have gone through legal before they put it up.
Here’s Bowdon’s closing comments –
So in closing, three simple ideas for you, gentle reader, to take away. (1) City of birth, when coupled with year of birth, can be correlated to social security numbers, so don’t give it out just because a box appears on a form. (2) No public contest should ask for any part of a social security number, especially involving kids. (3) For internet searches, have you tried Yahoo! or Bing lately? You just might find what you’re looking for.
George Carlin Predicts The Demise Of Social Security (Warning- Strong Language)
Here is George Carlin explaining why our society works the way it does.
He was an eloquent man.
James Pilant
Ethics Roundup 2-20-11
The Crane and Matten Blog have a wonderful article up. It’s called Baron-zu-Googleberg. And it’s a morality tale. I’d go read this one just for the sheer fun of it.
From the post –
One of the funnier incidents in cypberspace is the facebook page on this (‘If Guttenberg has a Doctor, I want one too!’) or the new keyboard designed for PhDs a la Guttenberg – with all keys removed except the ‘c’ut and ‘v’-paste ones…
From Ethics Blog, a reflection on leadership –
We are most likely not heads of state, but we are all to some degree leaders. Can we be both feared and loved? I think it is possible. As parents we try to find the delicate balance between authority and love. Such balance can also sometimes be found in the military. We read and hear of stories about commanders who were both feared (court martial is always a possibility if one does not obey orders) and yet loved by their men who sometimes would even risk their lives for their leaders.
There is a new Chuck Gallager blog post and it is fascinating. Apparently, he had a blog post which another person had issues with (I want you to read the post for all the play by plays.). So he published his old post with the new comments entered into the appropriate places. It is a very ethical and intelligent way to handle the subject (and more than a little time consuming). I’m impressed.
David Yamada in his blog, Minding the Workplace has a great deal to say about the ongoing events in Wisconsin –
Governor Walker’s attack on human rights is unlike anything I’ve seen in the U.S. during my adult lifetime. He is using the state’s budget woes as a pretext to justify denying workers the right to bargain over their compensation and benefits. Hard bargaining at the negotiation table in the midst of tough economic times is one thing, but moving to deny workers a collective voice is pure thuggery.
Washington’s Blog has a truly fascinating post – Don’t Let Wisconsin Divide Us … Conservatives and Liberals Agree about the Important Things.
In fact, most Americans – conservatives and liberals – are fed up with both of the mainstream republican and democratic parties, because it has become obvious that both parties serve Wall Street and the military-industrial complex at the expense of most Americans.
Decision Not to File Charges Against Countrywide Excec Mozilo Upsets Blogosphere!
From the New York Times article by Gretchen Morgenson.
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have dropped their criminal investigation into Angelo R. Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation.
The closure of the case after two years of inquiry follows last October’s settlement by Mr. Mozilo of insider trading allegations made by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Regulators had contended that Mr. Mozilo sold $140 million in Countrywide stock between 2006 and 2007 even as he recognized that his company was faltering. Countrywide and Bank of Americapaid $45 million of Mr. Mozilo’s $67.5 million settlement, and he was responsible for the rest.
I was very unhappy about this, finding it difficult to believe there was no criminal conduct on his part.
But I am not the only one upset.
“All of these senior people got huge payouts and left behind the carnage, which has hurt many hundreds of thousands.”
From 4closureFraud.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost by investors while millions of borrowers have lost their homes. Few of the people who ran the institutions that contributed to the disaster have been found liable.
Is it not clear to anyone by now that it is men like this who, even with the penalties levied against them, are still sitting pretty with large bank accounts as American’s are still losing their homes? Tell me it was the American people’s fault for signing into hefty monthly payments….go ahead, I dare you.
Mozilo’s settlement with the S.E.C. was for a bit over 10% of his estimated net worth of $600 million. It was surely a good deal for him if he could avoid admitting guilt and, especially, escape being criminally prosecuted for fraud.
Last week, California’s new AG fined Mozilo roght around $6 million, if I recall, and I opined that were he to have forgotten his checkbook, he could likely pay the amount using change found in his car.
Un-fucking-believable. It looks like the rich and corrupt can get away as long as they pay. Since this comes from the Eric Holder-led DOJ, I wouldn’t be surprised this was done to keep all those Democrats, who received sweet-heart deals, out of court records.
Countrywide Exec walks away with your money and no criminal charges
A Lecture by Richard D. Wolff (Concerning Our Current Economic Crisis)
I found these lectures online and very much enjoyed them. These lectures are given by Richard D Wolff.
This quote comes with the video –
These Tuesday evenings will each begin with an update and analysis of major economic events of the last month and their contexts of longer-term economic trends shaping politics and society here and abroad. We will focus on the evolving global capitalist economic crisis and its consequences. We will examine topics such as the social costs effects of the historic long-term US unemployment, national debt crises and “austerity programs” in Greece, Ireland, Spain, and beyond changes in today’s Chinese economy and their global effects, tax reform and the entire tax issue in the US today, continuing crisis in the US housing and credit markets the economics of immigration.
These are the first four –
In South Carolina, Business Tax Cuts on Unemployment Funding Come Back to Bite!
What happens when a state has paid out huge amounts of money for unemployment that they cannot afford? South Carolina decided to make up the shortfall by having businesses pay back the money used .
This is a wonderful video. The businesses go through their usual song and dance. 1) We are surprised by this tax increase. 2) It’s monstrous. 3) It’s the unemployed’s fault. 4) It’s not our fault. And the utterly inevitable 5) We are going to cut back on hiring and expansion. Surprise, fear, blame shifting, innocence and revenge. They should get a new writer.
How many of these people, these businesses, gave a thought for one moment whether or not unemployment was properly funded? How many of them screamed foul when their taxes to pay unemployment were cut?
By the way, please note the complete lack of balance or even a simple inquiry into the facts of the matter by the “news” station.
They simply aired what is essentially a little pro-business PR piece.
James Pilant
States ignored warnings on unemployment insurance (via Yahoo News)
From Yahoo News –
State officials had plenty of warning. Over the past three decades, two national commissions and a series of government audits sounded alarms about the dwindling amount of money states were setting aside to pay unemployment insurance to laid-off workers.
“Trust Fund Reserves Inadequate,” federal auditors said in a 1988 report.
It’s clear now the warnings were pretty much ignored. Instead, states kept whittling away at the trust funds, mostly by cutting unemployment insurance taxes at the behest of the business community. The low balances hastened insolvency when the recession hit, leading about 30 states to borrow $41.5 billion from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits to their growing population of jobless.
Here is some of the reasoning applied to keeping proper reserves –
“If you look at it from the employers’ standpoint, they’re not going to want reserves to build up excessively high because then there’s an increasing risk that advocates for benefit expansion would point to the high reserves and say, ‘We can afford to increase benefits,'” said Rich Hobbie, executive director of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.
States also diverted the funds to other uses but the main reason for the lack of reserves is tax cuts demanded by business.
Tax cuts do not solve all problems. Sometimes, I think considering the current political philosophy, if the United States were to be invaded, Congress would provide a tax credit for every enemy killed, every home fortified and every gun purchased and then just leave it at that.
What is it about the phrase, safety net, that people just don’t get? Economic catastrophes happen. Volcanoes and hurricanes happen. People become ill. People become incapacitated. Manufacturing plants move to Guatemala. You provide American citizens with economic resources to keep going until the situation can be resolved, until they can get back on their feet.
The unemployment safety net has been funded inadequately for about twenty years.
But I understand the problem.
There isn’t one, not in the minds of the people who matter, those with influence at the state capital.
These people, these unemployed, are not important. It does not matter whether the programs are funded or not. As long as business has more money to invest, as long as profits are protected for the private sector, there is no problem.
There is no problem now, when the situation becomes difficult, you borrow from the feds, cut benefits or cut anything else necessary. It does not matter whether the state has a fiscal crisis. It does not matter as long as the profits are good.
It is more important to have low taxes than to take care of fellow citizens.
Neither the unemployed or fiscal responsibility have a lobby.
Profits are important. It is a more critical value than patriotism, than religion or duty to fulfill one’s obligations.
The unemployed are not important. They have no influence. They have no money.
And their votes are swallowed up on political campaigns dominated by huge campaign contributions.
They have nowhere to go.
James Pilant
The Mortgage Foreclosure Crisis Explained By Senator Whitehouse in a Series of Questions Posed to Secretary of the Treasury Geithner
Watch this exchange and observe how Geithner declines to deal with the issues. He answers questions that were not posed.
Do you see any evidence of concern for the homeowners being victimized in this mess?
James Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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