Category: Capitalism

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual (human) rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

Wedding Insurance?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism

Forever?
Recently, a woman sued her former fiancee for cancelling the wedding at the last minute. This generated headlines across the nation. Generally, being dumped at the alter is not something most want to publicize but apparently a very large sum of money had been spent.

So, how about you? I teach business law and every year I try to explain the value of prenuptial agreements. It’s a wasted effort. You can look out over the students and see that everyone of them is going to fall in love forever. It’s depressing. No one, it seems, expects to be left at the alter, but it happens.

Thus, wedding insurance exists. You could argue that I am mistaken and since this kind of insurance exists, people do have a genuine and intelligent skepticism about their relationships. It would be great if that were true, but the fact is, wedding insurance is more aimed at the mundane, illness and weather among other things. So, maybe you are planning nuptials and would like to consider the idea of wedding insurance.

Maybe you are absolutely, positively, completely sure you won’t get jilted but you could get the flu.

James Pilant

From CBS Money Watch –

A handful of insurance companies offer wedding insurance policies, including Traveler’s, Aon, and Fireman’s Fund. The Fireman’s wedding insurance policy, offered through the National Alliance of Special Event Planners, includes the “change of heart” coverage. A few caveats on that coverage for the jilted: the policy must be purchased by someone other than the bride and groom, and it must have been purchased at least four months before the planned wedding date. (Each of the three sites linked above have online calculators that will quickly spit out an estimated premium cost based on the particular level of coverage you want.)

Federal Reserve Proposing Mortgage Rule to Eliminate Key Foreclosure Protections (via Rortybomb)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Philosophy of Business

Rortybomb has it right here. The Federal Reserve is rushing into to save the banks from their forclosure fiasco. I have blogged on this. I was expecting Congress to rush to the banks’ aid but apparently the Federal Reserve is going to beat them to it.

The banks, the forclosure industry, they never seem to lack for friends in all the right places. Have you noticed that? Where are the homeonwners’ friends? Where are our friends? Is the only value in this society cold hard cash?

Read this. It’s good writing.

James Pilant

In the early 2000s the subprime lender Household Finance settled the largest consumer fraud settlement in U.S. history. Household Finance paid a whopping $484 million in fines to a joint settlement with a group of attorneys general. One month later Household was acquired by HSBC, the London financial giant, for $16.4 billion, setting off a bidding war on subprime dealers by the highest parts of Wall Street. It's like they were being rewarded, ins … Read More

via Rortybomb

Mark Thoma On Blogging And Economics

On By southwerkIn Capitalism1 Comment

Mark Thoma is a friend on Facebook. I am a regular visitor to his web site. I found this video on You Tube in which he expresses his thoughts on blogging and some other subjects. I think you will be impressed. I was.

James Pilant

Mark Thoma – Government Intervention Dead?

On By southwerkIn Capitalism1 Comment

Professor Thoma believes that the recent Republican election victories may well put an end to any government economic intervention. He argures tha the Obama administration’s bank bailout was badly done and called into question the government’s ability or intelligence to act economically.

Here is Thoma’s summation from the end of the article. Here he calls for intervention on the part of the government as a legitimate and vital choice.

I share that belief.

James Pilant

From The Fiscal Times –

Capitalism is the best system yet discovered for promoting economic growth, but it is also a system that creates large booms and busts along the way. The ability of governments to smooth economic shocks with monetary policy, fiscal policy, automatic stabilizers and social insurance is one of the great innovations of the last 100 years. While we have been far from perfect in the use of these tools, they have done far more good than harm, and it’s scary to contemplate a world where those protections have been substantially eroded away.

People should not be left to fend for themselves when they are hit by large negative economic shocks they had no hand in creating, and let’s hope that somehow, despite the emerging trend toward a more hands-off approach and pressures from rising national debt levels, that outcome can be avoided.

A Property-Owning Democracy (via Understanding Society)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Philosophy of Business

From Understanding Society –

The past thirty years have taken us a great distance away from the social ideal represented by Rawls’s Theory of Justice. The acceleration of inequalities of income and wealth in the US economy is flatly unjust, by Rawls’s standards. The increasing — and now by Supreme Court decision, almost unconstrained — ability of corporations to exert influence within political affairs has severely undermined the fundamental political equality of all citizens. And the extreme forms of inequality of opportunity and outcome that exist in our society — and the widening of these gaps in recent decades — violate the basic principles of justice, requiring the full and fair equality of political lives of all citizens. This suggests that Rawls’s theory provides the basis for a very sweeping critique of existing economic and political institutions. In effect, the liberal theorist offers radical criticism of the existing order.

This post takes John Rawls, quotes his writing in the context of what he considers a just society and then compares that with our current situation. The author is not pleased. Many of the objections that Rawls would have made according to this author are the same or similar objections that I would make myself.

Varieties of Liberalism(s) (via Chasing Fat Tails)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Philosophy of Business

Yesterday, I called attention to a post from Grand Strategy: The View from Oregon about a comparsion between the writings of John Rawls and Aristotle. Today in Chasing Fat Tails, I find further discussions on the importance of Rawls.

James Pilant

Over at Crooked Timber, John Holbo has a good post on Zizek's supposed critique of liberalism. Holbo is see what Zizek has to say about liberalism, qua political philosophy, but he's disappointed to find that Zizek (shock of all shocks!) basically straw-mans liberalism (qua political philosophy) by equating it with neoliberalism: "I’m writing an article on (wait for it!) Zizek on liberalism, and one point I want to make is that when Zizek critiqu … Read More

via Chasing Fat Tails

An Eleven Million Dollar Christmas Tree??

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

From Huffington Post –

United Arab Emirates – An Abu Dhabi luxury hotel that boasted an $11 million Christmas tree decorated with gold and gems admitted Sunday it may have taken the holiday spirit a bit too far.

A statement from the Emirates Palace hotel said it regretted “attempts to overload” the Christmas tree tradition by adorning it with premium bling including gold, rubies, diamonds and other precious stones from a hotel jeweler.

They celebrate Christmas in Abu Dhabi? with an 11 million dollar tree? with real jewels and diamonds?

Thorsten Veblen used to write about conspicuous consumption. It’s a pity he missed this one. I think conspicuous is a weak work in this case.

I think I’ll go with narcissistic aggressive ostentation.

It’s like an insult to all the other middle class trees.

There is supposed to be some kind of symbolism here. I could hypothesize here abut what that symbolism could be but really all that’s going on is a massive case of kitsch.

James Pilant

P.S. If you want to stay there, they have a million dollar package that enables you to stay for a week.

Experimenting with Thought Experiments (via Grand Strategy: The View from Oregon)

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics

This is great, quite a coincidence in fact. I have been reading a lot of philosophy lately and had been reading, I believe, it was Rortybomb who had an interesting discussion of Rawls and the “veil of ignorance.” Before that, I had been watching videos about Aristotle which was then beefed up by a very kind comment by The Ethics Sage, Steven Mintz. So, I go to see what’s cooking at Grand Strategy: The View from Oregon, and it’s an essay quoting Rawls and comparing his writing to Aristotle’s. Of course, it is thoughtful and in depth as all of his work.

I’m just grateful. This is keeping me on the path. Thanks!

James Pilant

Experimenting with Thought Experiments Saturday Yesterday in Risk Management: A Personal View I asked the question, in relation to John Rawls' thought experiment involving choosing a just society from behind a veil of ignorance, "How would Aristotle’s Great Souled Man judge a society from behind a veil of ignorance?" Here is Rawls' original formulation of his thought experiment: "…no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortun … Read More

via Grand Strategy: The View from Oregon

A 12 Cent Credit Card Fee?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, ethics, Philosophy of Business

From the Houston Chronicle –

A proposed cap on the fees that banks charge for debit card transactions would substantially reduce the cost for businesses. But it’s started a death watch for debit card rewards and renewed predictions that free checking is done for.

At issue is who will ultimately benefit from the savings? The Federal Reserve’s proposal to cap these fees, officially known as interchange fees, at 12 cents per transaction would enable retailers to pass on annual savings of $10 billion to $13 billion to consumers. But banks and card networks maintain that retailers will pocket the savings. This would leave consumers to bear the brunt of the new law through higher costs for banking and reduced rewards programs.

In releasing its proposal Thursday, Fed staff members said they found the cost to banks for processing is between 7 cents and 12 cents per transaction. Yet every time a customer swipes a debit card, the average fee is 44 cents.

The banks are making out like bandits and then telling us it’s for our benefit. I always worry when someone says they are doing something for my own good. I can’t help but feel that someone is going to hit me.

Banks love to bill as if some dedicated employee was carefulling examining the transaction, which was undoubtedly true in 1947. The actual current circumstances is a high speed computer instantly calculating the transaction.

We can adjust for the times.

James Pilant

Did You Know My Religion Was Reform Judaism?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics

Did you know that I was a Reform Jew?

Well, you can forget it as quick as you learned it. I am a Methodist, but Reform Jew is what my Facebook Profile says.

I don’t want people who I don’t know anything about to have access to my actual data. Besides Reform Judaism sounds kind of neat.

(I considered Islam, but I didn’t want to wait an extra couple of hours to board a plane.)

Loren Steffy writes about internet privacy and specifically about Facebook privacy in a recent column.
From the Column –

We’ve allowed self-indulgence and technology to override common sense when it comes to what we share with the world.

A birth date and a name can yield a driver’s license number and address in about 30 seconds. From there, it’s relatively easy to get a Social Security number, a list of legal judgments or convictions, information on gun permits, pilot licenses and voter registration, among other things.

You can, of course, just put the month and a day of your birth, but profile photos and school information can make it possible to guess the year.

Either way, it may be enough information to, say, fill out a credit card application in your name. For minors, this is particularly dangerous because identity theft can go undetected until they’re old enough to establish credit, and by then their credit is already ruined.

Facebook, of course, isn’t the culprit. It simply provides the platform from which we feel a need to talk about ourselves. Much of the same information can be found elsewhere with a little effort, of course. Facebook merely wraps it in a tidy package for lazy online scofflaws.

Facebook has added privacy controls, but the typical user doesn’t really know who all their friends are, or how much they value the friendship. Would all your “friends” turn down, say, $50, to let a someone have a look at your profile?