This documentary is chilling look at the Chernobyl disaster with all the benefits of hindsight. I was familiar with the original coverage – this is way beyond this. Fron just a serious nuclear incident in the popular press, this documentary shows you a cataclysm that Gorbachav explains was one of the causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Please watch it!
James Pilant
You can get this video at –
This is a very good summary of the situation as of today. This is, however, a “gotcha” video where they veer off into obscenity laden rants. There is no problem – just click out a little after three minutes into the video.
James Pilant
I am utterly astonished. I can’t figure this one out. The government is in the industry’s pocket. The American press really isn’t interested. The American public is opposed but if you have lived here any length of time, you know how little public opinion means. So, a utility is giving up builing a plant with loan guarantees from the federal government and indemnification if there were a crisis or future meltdown? I don’t get it.
Did some official in the company decided to exercise some judgment? Did somebody grow a backbone? Or did someone take out a calculator and figure out how much the building costs would increase if all the cures for the safety problems at the Fukushima plant were incorporated into the new plant’s design?
James Pilant
Generally, I try to write a few paragraphs and explain what I think about the situations. This one, this post, is difficult to write about.
First, it’s long and quite detailed. I like that. In fact, that the author was able to describe and explain so much without losing me was strong reason to reblog the post.
Second, it’s about India, not just about the country but about the nation’s future, hopes and dreams. That’s a dangerous area to comment on. I have noticed that even mild criticism of India can generate strong responses. That’s okay. I’m getting used to it. When the United States was becoming a great power back in the early 20th century, there was a lot of thin skin there too.
India is a great nation with a difficult future, and it’s not just a little complex. From the middle of the United States, it’s hard to get a good, solid view, but I’m going to try. I need to write about this. In my country, on one of the major news networks, Hazare merited a short single article. We don’t think about India. We don’t read about India. We probably get more information about India from Rajesh Koothrappali than we do from the news.
So, I’m passing on to you a long, detailed and, in my mind, well written and informative post. Please read it!
James Pilant
via Cinesigns Blog
Great quote!
via acwords
I find the S&P rating panic to be bizarre. They have decided to throw their weight into politics after a decade of incompetent performance such as giving high ratings to the toxic assets that almost destroyed our economy. This will certainly enhance their reputation for neutrality and judgment. After a decade of predictions, often frightening in their irrationality, why not jump into a new arena of prediction?
These guys shouldn’t be making prognostications. The ones who helped create the current economic mess should be winnowed out between the merely incompetent and those that have committed fraud.
I get tired of these highly paid experts. I have freshmen and sophomores in starting business classes that would never even have considered making this kind of decision.
Perhaps, I should have them send in some resumes.
I guess the air up that at the top of the financial industry is so intoxicating, that these people could think they were so influential that the government itself will bow to their legislative demands. This isn’t Greece or Ireland. This is the United States and if some half-assed twerp thinks this economy rises or falls on his judgment, he needs to be put in his place.
James Pilant
Please read James Fallows’ post on this matter.
I agree with Clive Crook’s puzzlement about the S&P downgrade “bombshell” today:
“S&P adduces no new information that I can see. Competent ratings of opaque instruments such as, oh, mortgage-backed securities would be very useful to investors (not that ratings agencies troubled to provide competent ratings in that case, obviously). But why should anybody need that kind of help in judging the soundness of US government bonds? S&P knows nothing about them that you or I don’t know.”
And I like James K. Galbraith’s derisive guffaw, For More…
This is fascinating. Essentially William K. Black is modifying out concepts of White Collar Crime (The Lord knows it needs it!).
Here Black explains what he means by the concept –
Here’s a fuller treatment by the author.
When Fragile becomes Friable: Endemic Control Fraud as a Cause of Economic Stagnation and Collapse
Individual “control frauds” cause greater losses than all other forms of property crime combined. They are financial super-predators. Control frauds are crimes led by the head of state or CEO that use the nation or company as a fraud vehicle. Waves of “control fraud” can cause economic collapses, damage and discredit key institutions vital to good political governance, and erode trust. The defining element of fraud is deceit – the criminal creates and then betrays trust. Fraud, therefore, is the strongest acid to eat away at trust. Endemic control fraud causes institutions and trust to become friable – to crumble – and produce economic stagnation.
I don’t know if Terry Jones is insane or not. I don’t know if he should be committed for a long period of time. However, I do know that his conduct merits temporary custody and a mental exam by a professional. There certainly seems to me enough evidence of deviate behavior to merit such custody.
Even if he were found sane, the fact that he was examined would convey to the Muslim world how strange we find his behavior.
People in other nations find our willingness to allow virtually anyone to have their own church to be bizarre and a good number believe Christianity is a top-down organization with some kind of control. Churches in the United States cover the spectrum from the sublime to the bizarre. People in nations with more unified religions do not get this.
I’ve never been anywhere but the United States and sometimes, I find it bizarre. “That’s a church!,” I’ll think to myself while watching people handle snakes or preach that the bible is a self help handbook on how to get rich. How much more do the adherents of Islam find behavior here odd?
Let’s do something about Terry Jones.
James Pilant
Please read the post from Off the Top o’ My Head. He is more eloquent than I.
As usual, we find that TEPCO is not being fully informative about what’s happening. However, there is a lot here to make one feel better about the current situation. However, what’s going on is still basically a holding action. I would have hoped we would be further along now.
James Pilant
Human rights are always on the front burner of the culture wars. I have always been a fan of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and have always wished this nation and its component states would take this as a set of guidelines.
That is unlikely to ever happen but I appreciate the efforts of so many to support these values.
James Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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