Category: business ethics

Decision Not to File Charges Against Countrywide Excec Mozilo Upsets Blogosphere!

On By southwerkIn business ethics6 Comments

From the New York Times article by Gretchen Morgenson.

Mozilo (From the LA Times)

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.

Women Born Transsexual

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.

The Tumultuous Times

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.

House of Bread

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.

Foreclosureblues

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.

Scotty Starnes’s Blog

Countrywide Exec walks away with your money and no criminal charges

Your Daddy’s Politics

 

A Lecture by Richard D. Wolff (Concerning Our Current Economic Crisis)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

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!

On By southwerkIn business ethics

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)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

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

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

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

JPMorgan chief gets $17 million pay package (vis U.S. Business on MSNBC)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

From the article –

Jamie Dimon (picture from Business Week)

After posting a $17.4 billion profit for 2010, JPMorgan Chase & Co. awarded Chief Executive Jamie Dimon restricted stock and options that could be worth $17 million.

The award is a large part of overall compensation for Dimon, who runs the second-largest U.S. bank by assets. It includes a grant of about $12 million worth of restricted stock, plus options worth about $5 million based on a commonly used valuation method.

I could comment on this but I found a far more eloquent body of thought on this subject than anything I could say by myself.

I want you to go to the comments.

When I started writing this, there were 272 comments. By the time I had finished there were 292.

There are some vigorous thoughts expressed in that section. I don’t recommend you stay too long. We probably should avoid that level of strong emotion for more than limited periods of time. Many of us have high blood pressure or are simply in need of exercise.

I also recommend that you read some of the comments, save the link and go back tomorrow. I bet there will be more than a thousand by then.

Have a good read!

James Pilant

ChamberLeaks: Plan Solicited By Chamber Lawyers Included Malware Hacking Of Activist Computers (via ThinkProgress)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

The Chamber of Commerce and I do not agree on many issues ranging from outsourcing to taxes to mortgage foreclosures to financial regulations. That would probably make me in the Chamber’s judgment an “activist.” At this time, I am a very small player but that might change. But I am hardly worth a cyber attack at this time. However, I am concerned about this because against this kind of firepower, I’m a duck in a shooting gallery.

What’s more, I have complete and total confidence that federal, state and local law enforcement will have no interest in protecting my rights, my web site or my right to free speech. Those things are so “passe.”

James Pilant

From the article –

HBGary, the parent company of HBGary Federal, specializes in analyzing “malware,” computer viruses that are used to maliciously steal data from computers or networks. In other presentations, Barr makes clear that his expertise in “Information Operations” covers forms of hacking like a “computer network attack,” “custom malware development,” and “persistent software implants.” The presentation shows Barr boasting that he had knowledge of using “zero day” attacks to exploit vulnerabilities in Flash, Java, Windows 2000 and other programs to steal data from a target’s computer.

Indeed, malware hacking appears to be a key service sold by HBGary Federal. Describing a “spear phishing” strategy (an illegal form of hacking), Barr advised his colleague Greg Hoglund that “We should have a capability to do this to our adversaries.” In another e-mail chain, HBGary Federal executives discuss using a fake “patriotic video of our soldiers overseas” to induce military officials to open malicious data extraction viruses. In September, HBGary Federal executives again contemplate their success of a dummy “evite” e-mail used to maliciously hack target computers.

Some of the initial e-mails discussing the Chamber deal with Team Themis stress the fact that HBGary Federal would provide “expertise on ‘digital intellgence collection’ and social media exploitation.’”

Barr also sent another document to the Chamber’s attorney describing in greater detail Team Themis’ hacking abilities (download a copy here). In one section, Team Themis claims that “if/when Hunton & Williams LLP needs or desire,” they can use “direct engagement” to “provide valuable information that cannot be acquired through other means.” This cryptic pledge appears to be in reference to same malware data intrusion techniques proposed in the other Team Themis documents.

(Generally, I pull links out of any quoted material but these are so useful, I decided to leave them in.)

Ethics and Rigging (via Rigging & Fall Protection)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I suppose I must be naive but I had never heard the term, “value engineered.”

I want you to read this blog entry by professionals who know the importance of safety. This is business ethics on the front line of service and selling. I am very much impressed.

James Pilant

Ethics and Rigging Over the past 10 years we have heard a lot of comments made in the shop or on the telephone with clients (or want-t0-be customers) about rigging products and projects.  Sometimes the customer talks to us about getting the job done s … Read More

via Rigging & Fall Protection

Woman Dies at Desk, Found the Next Day (via AOL News)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

From AOL News –

A 51-year-old Los Angeles County worker died at her desk last Friday, and was not found there until the next afternoon, when a Saturday security guard was making the weekend rounds.

Rebecca Wells, who was employed by the L.A. County Department of Internal Services in the risk management division, was last seen alive by co-workers on Friday at about 9AM. “She was always working,” commented one co-worker. The exact time of her death has not been determined.

I am a little disturbed by this, although the facts seem routine enough.

The idea of leaving this life while surrounded by people who didn’t know sounds more like an episode in a novel.

I would prefer these kinds of things to remain fictional.

James Pilant

Corporate Killing?

On By southwerkIn business ethics

For most, my title might suggest that I accuse corporations of killing with vaccines. I mean nothing of the sort.

I am angry. I am angry that this tragedy ever happened. No child needed to die because of vaccine fear.

What I mean by corporate killing is corporate lies. Lies so pervasive, so expected, so routine, that when educated parents were given a choice between people who were little more than cranks and corporate information, they went with the cranks.

Did the parents have a choice of not believing the pharmaceutical companies but then going with the government’s analysis? No. Why not? Because the governmental agencies that are supposed to be protecting us are just as PR soaked and lacking in credibility as the corporations that have usually captured them.

That is pitiful.

As individuals and as a society, the facts we need to make good decisions are tainted. They are tainted by a corporate and governmental philosophy of damage control and psychological manipulation over any concern with the truth.

How do you make good decisions in a world of deception? A world in which these lies are so pervasive that you begin to wonder if the government and corporations sometimes lie out of force of habit.

Lies kill. The truth makes for good decision. Lies make for bad decisions and bad decisions can kill directly or as they accumulate over time.

It’s the corporate culture of deception that kills. And in this case it was effective.

James Pilant

From the Slate article – How Sane Parents Got Paranoid About Vaccines by Anna B. Reisman –

In his engaging, provocative, and angry new book, The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science and Fear, Seth Mnookin traces the history of the myth that vaccines cause developmental disorders like autism. In the process, he profiles a number of mothers with autistic children who followed their gut instinct away from conventional medicine and ended up on the front lines of vaccine paranoia.

From later in the article –

Here is what baffles Mnookin most: How so many caring, well-educated, affluent parents came to buy leaky theories that vaccines cause autism. How 48 states allow parents to exempt their kids from vaccines for religious reasons, and how in 18 states all you need is a philosophical reason. How, in 2010, the journal Pediatrics reported that a staggering 25 percent of parents believed that vaccines can cause developmental disorders in healthy children. How, even after a 2002 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found no link between MMR and autism, the anti-vaccine camp grew stronger.

Here is a video of the author, Seth Mnookin, reading from his book.