How many times do we have to read this same story? Telling someone that they have to stop paying to access a federal program, encouraging them to believe that they are going to get a loan modification, when your bank has already decided that no one is going to get this kind of deal, and then foreclosing on them when they fall for the bait – is this they way banks are supposed to make money?
James Pilant
I like the current one where there are more women than men. But that, of course, is merely my personal preference, I have no practical rationale.
There is something vaguely funny about radiation causing more male births. I’m sure there are a number of good jokes in there. However, it does demonstrate that our genetic structure gets played with when radiation changes in level.
Read the article. It’s fun.
James Pilant
via Hwaairfan's Blog
If my recollection is correct, roughly seven percent of American taxes (federal) are paid in by corporations. Some twenty years ago, that number was twenty percent. That’s a lot of difference. It hurts a lot of people and makes it difficult for the nation to do many necessary things. America’s infrastructure needs a trillion and a half dollars to restore it to full capability. That’s right, a great deal of our roads, pipelines, dams, etc. are in disrepair and it is not getting better.
James Pilant
The adjunct professor here tells us what happens when he flunks a majority of his students. –
What actually happens is that nothing happens. I feel no pressure from the colleges in either direction. My department chairpersons, on those rare occasions when I see them, are friendly, even warm. They don’t mention all those students who have failed my courses, and I don’t bring them up. There seems, as is often the case in colleges, to be a huge gulf between academia and reality. No one is thinking about the larger implications, let alone the morality, of admitting so many students to classes they cannot possibly pass. The colleges and the students and I are bobbing up and down in a great wave of societal forces—social optimism on a large scale, the sense of college as both a universal right and a need, financial necessity on the part of the colleges and the students alike, the desire to maintain high academic standards while admitting marginal students—that have coalesced into a mini-tsunami of difficulty. No one has drawn up the flowchart and seen that, although more-widespread college admission is a bonanza for the colleges and nice for the students and makes the entire United States of America feel rather pleased with itself, there is one point of irreconcilable conflict in the system, and that is the moment when the adjunct instructor, who by the nature of his job teaches the worst students, must ink the F on that first writing assignment.
I share some of these concerns. My persistent gripes about the “necessity” of policemen and firemen having to master college algebra is probably well known locally. A college education is appropriate in many fields but surely we can find a variety of mechanisms(of which a college education is a major choice but not the only choice) by which policemen and other municipal employees can be promoted.
James Pilant
via uberlearner
Greenpeace in its effort to bring attention to Mattel’s use of rogue paper companies in Sumatra hangs a banner on one of their buildings (they also bring in a barbie look alike). The paper company in Sumatra destroys tiger habitat and is big into deforestation.
Let’s join Greenpeace’s effort to discourage Mattel from using this brand of paper. You don’t have to agree with all of Greenpeace’s philosophy. This is a good fight.
James Pilant
Barbie gets dumped as part of a new campaign by Greenpeace targeting the toy industry for its connections to deforestation in Indonesia.
SHE is more likely to be cruising yards in a pink convertible, plucking an item from her glamorous wardrobe or generally enjoying the lifestyle afforded an international fashion icon.
Up until now Barbie has yet to be seen with a chainsaw, hacking her way through pristine rainforests.
But a Greenpeace campaign is seeking to do exactly that as part of a global campaign to highlight the destruction of rainforests for pulp paper used in the toy’s cardboard packaging.
This is just too much fun but the comedy doesn’t end here. Here is Mattel’s response –
A letter from Mattel’s director of corporate responsibility Kathleen Shaver, which Greenpeace showed to the smh.com.au, said it was “advancing its sustainability strategy” by printing its catalogues on paper with a minimum of 10 per cent of recyclable materials and that its annual report and office paper was printed on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
Mattel has faield to return emails from Farifax but a spokeswoman for APP said met all the legal requirements for logging in Indonesia and called upon Greenpeace to make public its analysis.
“Greenpeace may think citing popular children’s toys is a cute way to get attention for its extreme position. However, we believe it’s irresponsible to play on the emotions of children and their parents to rehash old, discredited allegations in order to attack the industry of a developing nation,” she said.
Wow, looks like Greenpeace hit a nerve. Apparently all that PR training can’t conceal a little arrogance about the “industry of a developing nation.”
James Pilant
This is delicious. This campaign is clever and fun. It shows how corporate PR and the billions spent on advertising and brand recognition can be turned against the company.
As time goes by, this kind of clever anti-marketing is going to become a necessity as corporate power in the government increases. More and more it will be necessary to turn the company’s power against it. It’s very much like judo.
James Pilant
I read some Daphne du Maurier when I was growing up and, in this case, I saw the movie. I had a good time with her novels and can recommend them without condition. Please enjoy the review.
By the way, this is a good web site to subscribe to, if you enjoy reading and books.
James Pilant
You may have become tired of my endlessly repeated statement that the Fukushima crisis is a almost daily event which shows no sign of a cure. Here is another writer with the same point of view. There is also an excellent summary of the current situation at the four nuclear plants.
Here are the two key paragraphs from the article –
Fukushima did not happen. Fukusima IS HAPPENING… still.
Unfortunately, the economic containment by Japanese corporations and policy officials could not have been much worse – exacerbated by their deafening silence and sheer communication vacuum of information. Despite this being initiated by a natural disaster of epic proportions, it does not provide cover for the blatant failings of the officials, management and system as a whole. Japanese utilities, and this TEPCO’s Fukushima power plant in particular, were repeatedly warned that they did not have enough tsunami protection. The tsunami did not just tip the scale for breaching defenses, it completely overwhelmed and destroyed them – it was not a marginal miscalculation. Given the pump design-flaws I highlighted earlier, this bodes for more than just an engineering mistake. It is a structural issue within the industry as a whole. This has not been a moment of shining glory for the Japanese utility companies.
It is hard not to be astonished at the level of incompetence of the Japanese government and TEPCO, the Japanese utility in charge. However, the government of the United States and its massive loan gurantees and indemnification of the nuclear industry is acting in an equally bizarre fashion. This is definitely the time to re examine what mix of elements will be used in the future to generate power in the United States.
James Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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