Category: business ethics

The Location of the New Site

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

Pilant’s Business Ethics

James Pilant

It needs a lot of work but the prototype is up.

Be tough and criticize me harshly!! This new blog is supposed to be an improvement in terms of looks and performance to this one, so help me make it work by letting me know what you think.

However, remember it’s not really supposed to be ready until September 1st, and I have not got the categories straightened out yet. So, I am well aware I need to work on that.

Thanks!!

James Pilant

(An official and more elegant announcement will be made on the first of September.)

Joni Green Comments on “Community Improvement District Lets Business Impose Sales Tax”

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

I received a wonderful comment on a previous blog post, Community Improvement District Lets Business Impose Sales Tax for Improvements.

Joni Green sent this comment –

A couple of friends visited a new restaurant located near Central and Oliver. Their ticket reflected an additional “CID” tax of 1%. When they questioned it the server had no explanation. The manager/owner came over and told them is was a “development tax” that helps develop and improve the area, he said the the other restaurants near there were also charging the tax. However, when we checked with them they did not know anything about it. I checked with the State of Kansas Division of Taxation/Revenue and they told me they had not heard of this, but if they were charging an additional tax % it shouldn’t be called out separately, but should be included in their original tax rate. They also told me that we could look up their tax rate by address on the Kansas website. We looked up their address and it said their tax rate was the normal 7.3%. How do we know if a business is legitimately charging a CID tax? And I agree, it’s a weird feeling to pay more tax at one place opposed to another. Doesn’t seem like “good” business to me :/

It would appear as with so many other things, a business can often improve its profits by unethical means. I’m sorry the restaurant treats its customers this way but very pleased that Ms. Green took the time to let me know what had happened.

James Pilant

We’re getting to crunch time on moving the blog!

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I just finished the book, Blogging All in One for Dummies. I got it on Monday and finished it tonight. It answered most of the questions I had about moving the blog. So, I will go ahead. Tomorrow, I will buy the new domain name and once I receive it, I will buy an online service to host my blog for a year in advance.  Once this is done, I will buy the theme I have picked out and I have decided to pay a little extra (thirty dollars) and have them set up the principal elements of the web site for me.

I’d like the prototype up and running by Saturday morning, so I can begin setting it up.

I’m still on schedule for a September 1st start.

James Pilant

Dan Bodine Comments on My Last Post

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

Dan Bodine was kind enough to comment on my travails at moving to a new site. Here’s what he has to say –

Little confused over the “mechanics” of this and why you’re worried so much. Really enjoy you’re content, by the way. But I’m in the early design stage of doing something similar. Only instead of moving my blog, I’m continuing it and starting a new blog. The new blog will be just or political comment, which I feel is inappropriate for my present news and features blog. And of course that means moving some of my old stories and re-posting them in the new blog’s morgue. Is what you’re doing radically different than this? And I’m just an old fogey who still ain’t gotta clue as to how all these website really works?

I’m building a site with at least two sliders, a video feed and about three news feed with probably a half dozen RSS feeds from individual blogs I find important. I’m reading and watching videos from You-Tube on blogging. I’m fifty-five and this stuff does not come as easy as it does to the young.

I’ve been blogging off and on for the past three or four years. This new blog will encapsulate all the lessons I’ve learned in that time.

This is going to be combination of good content, powerful imaging, video content and heavy, heavy search engine optimization.

James Pilant

There Will Be Fewer Posts Until September First.

On By southwerkIn business ethics5 Comments

I will probably post no more than once a day until the day the web site moves to its new site on September 1st. The move requires continuous research and planning. Sometimes, I wonder if I have enough time to get all this done.

James Pilant

Preparing to Move the Blog – Research

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I have been studying themes for the new blog. I was astonished at the versatility of what was available. For less than a hundred dollars, I can buy a theme very similar to that used by Slate, CBS News, or Yahoo!. It was quite a shock. After doing the initial research, it was hard to go back and write on my dinky theme.

Why is it dinky? I have three columns which is as much as you can get with the free WordPress themes but some of the premium ones have more columns and you can go down the page to point you decided and the reset the columns for different topics or pictures.

Sliders!! They have sliders. A slider allows you to create a set of pictures or articles or both and then have a single main article spot and these will then rotate every few seconds, so that someone who is on your blog for more than ten seconds or so see two of your articles – twenty seconds, perhaps three or four, it’s great advertising and it looks classy. One of the ones I looked at, Advanced Newspaper from Gabfire, enables you to put sliders in many locations on the page at the same time. Advanced Newspaper is probably going to be my choice. I think it’s beautiful.

I started my blog in 2009 and one of the things my research has demonstrated to me is that what’s available technology wise changes significantly perhaps dramatically every six months. This means that a good blogger on a small budget had better do continuous self training and a lot of it, if the intent is to stay ahead of the curve.

James Pilant

Corporations are People? The Romney Controversy – Watch the Films.

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There is some controversy over what was said. Here are the videos, one from The Young Turks and another from a different angle than the one we’ve been seeing the most often.

Young Turks

Film from the fair of Romney speaking from a better angle. – 1:16 –

Screw Sam! Reconstruct the Mortgages with their Rightful Owners (via Deadly Clear)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

There is a lot of anger in this article. But I too share disgust with this government’s willingness to help out every kind of financial institution while ignoring the needs of the Middle Class. These people no longer have a defender in the government just a facilitator of the predation

James Pilant

Screw Sam! Reconstruct the Mortgages with their Rightful Owners U.S.Seeks Ideas on Renting Out Foreclosed Property By EDWARD WYATT Published: August 10, 2011 WASHINGTON— Uncle Sam wants you — to rent a house from Uncle Sam. The Obama administration said on Wednesday that it was soliciting ideas on how to turn the federal government’s inventory of foreclosed houses into rental properties that could be managed by private enterprises or sold in bulk. The goal, the administration said, is to stabilize neighborhoo … Read More

via Deadly Clear

A Victory for Home Owners in Massachusetts!

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment
The New Bottom Line reports that –
This is important. The banks are creatures of the law. They are only private business in a sense. Their accounts are protected by law and they have been given fast and favorable legal methods for foreclosure because in previous decades they had acted the role of responsible capitalism. Now that the banks have demonstrated they are unworthy of foreclosure favoritism, it is time to tighten the legal procedures and make them earn their money by legitimate means.
You may be tempted to argue that they have every right to foreclose on someone who has stopped payments on a home. That would be true if that is the only way they have been working it. But all over this nation, they have been using a somewhat different procedure. A home-buyer calls up and says he has trouble with paying this month’s mortgage. The bank kindly says, “Don’t pay it. Don’t make any payments for three months. That will qualify you for the HAMP program, and we can renegotiate the loan.”
The trusting home owner doesn’t pay for three months then resumes payments. He is stacked with penalty fees for late payments. Concerned, the home owner calls the bank. But the bank never seems to find the time to call him back. Eventually a letter is received saying that he has been denied admission to the government program and all payments including penalties are due now to avoid foreclosure. Then when the unfortunate client is unable to come up with the thousands of dollars in fees, they foreclose. I suspect the bank hands out a bonus and maybe a bottle of champagne per kill.
When the banks act in this manner, the legal procedures designed to protect their profits no longer make sense in a civilized society.
James Pilant

Sane ideas from Tufts psychiatry prof: Linking effective leadership and mental illness (via Minding the Workplace)

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This is different. Very different.

Mental illness as an advantage?

I guess. The article is persuasive.

Are mental problems really an adaption to difficulties. If the strategy is successful, maybe its not crazy but a successful adaption.

Maybe, someone smart enough to adapt in so strange a fashion has superior powers of creation and those have application in other fields?

I don’t know.

See what you think?

James Pilant

Sane ideas from Tufts psychiatry prof: Linking effective leadership and mental illness When Nassir Ghaemi, a professor of psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center, studied prominent figures of the American Civil War, he discovered that many of the greatest leaders during the war (e.g., Abraham Lincoln and Union general Ulysses Grant) were mentally abnormal or mentally ill, while many … Read More

via Minding the Workplace