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.

Elon Musk’s Disastrous Week

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

Elon Musk just canceled a spacecraft launch, settled a lawsuit over paying ex-twitter employees for what must have been at minimum hundreds of millions of dollars and federal judges in California and Maryland certified separate class action lawsuits against the carmaker and its CEO personally.

(An illustration from Dante descent into the nine planes of hell. It seems appropriate. JP)

But there is more, much more.

One of the reasons people buy particular models of car is the resale value. The idea that you might get back a high proportion of your purchase prize is a compelling one.

The resale price of a Tesla is collapsing, at least, according to Mike Taylor, writing for the Cool Down. He suggests the collapse might be do to the many controversies, some of them political, surrounding the controversial figure.

Mike Taylor writing for The Cool Down in article entitled: New report reveals stunning trend in used Tesla vehicle prices: ‘Quite exceptional’ reports that the value of used Teslas is collapsing.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/report-reveals-stunning-trend-used-004500645.html

The cost of a used Cybertruck has dropped the most over the last year: 30.4% to $83,963. The Model S is down 22.6% to $26,534, the Model X is down 16.8% to $37,747, and the Model Y is down 12% to $29,216. The most affordable offering is the Model 3, which is down 8% to $23,318.

“The fact that its average used car sale price would dip below the industry average, which includes inexpensive mass-market vehicles, is quite exceptional,” Electrek reported, noting used Tesla prices are down 4.6% year over year, while the market is up 1.2%.

Why is this important?

“It’s proof that the Tesla brand has taken a massive reputational hit and there’s no clear recovery in sight,” Electrek stated. (My emphasis. jp)

The other day I was reading an article in which Elon Musk claimed that if you want to be amazingly rich, all you have to do is work 120 hour weeks. I immediately discarded the nonsense classifying it as one of those ridiculous screeds where wealthy people attempt to appear virtuous against all actual evidence. (I will not link to it – if that kind of braggadocio is your cup of tea, you can look it up.)

However, we do have an insight into how he makes money from an investigation by CNN and discussed in an article from The Cool Down.

Cody Januszko writing for The Cool Down has an article entitled: Small businesses forced into bankruptcy after multimillion-dollar deal with Tesla: ‘It’s been horrible’

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/small-businesses-forced-bankruptcy-multimillion-004500053.html

CNN’s recent investigation sheds new light on Tesla’s business practices. Many of the small businesses that Tesla contracted were not paid for their labor or products, forcing at least two of them into bankruptcy.

“It’s been horrible. If I didn’t have my family, I don’t think I would have made it,” Jennifer Meissner, one of the business owners who went bankrupt, said.

Unpaid contractors have filed liens against Musk’s companies. Liens are legal claims against property that allow a creditor to take the property if the debt isn’t paid.

CNN’s financial analysis shows that more than $110 million in liens have been filed against Tesla over the past five years, with a potential $24 million still owed.

It would appear to me that if you don’t pay your bills, you can accumulate a lot of money. These small businesses, at least the ones still surviving, are making legal claims against Tesla, so something about payments that is very bad is happening. Let us see what develops.

In international news surrounding the fellow, Elon Musk, we have this burst of disaster journalism. Musk’s AI, Grok, has been superseded in China by the local’s AI system. What do you think? Several hundred million in losses? That is just a guess. I would think providing an AI system for cars produced in China would be in the tens of billions of dollars but I might be mistaken.

Joe Wilkins writing for Futurism has an article entitled: Elon Musk Just Suffered a Humiliating Defeat in China

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-just-suffered-humiliating-134518373.html

So far, 2025 hasn’t exactly been a year of resounding success for centibillionaire Elon Musk’s AI efforts.

The richest man on earth has struggled to get xAI’s Grok off the ground, with setbacks taking the form of privacy scandals, misinformation controversies, not to mention a highly-public white supremacy episode.

And now, more than a month after Musk promised to roll Grok out to Teslas “next week,” it turns out a Chinese AI model will be taking the chatbot’s place.

According to Bloomberg, Tesla’s Chinese division is planning to introduce in-car voice assistance via DeepSeek and Bytedance’s AI models at some point in the near future.

It would seem that the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are falling with intensity upon Musk and his empire. Of course, there are many critics who might find the barrage just and fair. Well, there are a lot of points of view out there.

What are the business ethics issues here? Corporate citizenship would be a good call. Tesla does not seem interested in paying taxes or benefiting the nation to whom it owes so much.

Of course, we could do Stakeholder analysis. The government, it could be argued always seems to come up on the short end of the stick on these deals with Elon Musk, — cars, spacecraft and DOGE all seem a bit problematic. What about the American People? Elon Musk seems to me more of a well paid parasite than any kind of benefit. But we could do the full shareholder analysis. How would we classify Elon Musk with his enormous wealth and powerful connections purchased for many millions of dollars? Would we call him a Super Stakeholder? His needs seem at times to outweigh citizens, nations and economic systems. All these appear as little more than pawns to our class of oligarchs.

Sometimes, it seems like we are reading a new and cruel version of the Iliad and the Odyssey where the gods of Greek mythology walk the earth and interfere with the destinies of men. These billionaires seem every bit as capricious as Hera and Zeus, and their depredations are equally cruel.

We cannot escape reading about these people, however godlike they think they are. The news will continue to roll in.

Let us see what happens to him and his empire next week. I’m sure it will be interesting.

James Alan Pilant

A One Billion Dollar Fine!

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism, Economic Justice

Environmental destruction is a world wide problem. Some nations are taking the problem seriously. I don’t live in one of those. I live in the United States where environmental rules and regulations are on the chopping block, victims of dark money, ruthless corporate officials and the right wing media machine.

But other nations have not given up the struggle and one of them is Sri Lanka.

I want you to know that fines as in this case are a good way of punishing miscreants who do severe harm. Money is useful in repairing environment damage and making victims whole.

But a message that resonates requires imprisonment and other directly personal penalties. It is one thing to require a corporation to pay a billion dollars but another to make the CEO pay money out of his own pocket, suffer travel restrictions and and an inability to do financial transactions or serve on corporate boards. Those kinds of penalties will get corporate officials’ attention. Corporations have a lot of money. What they don’t have are officials willing to suffer.

We can also destroy corporations who sin against the nation’s collective interest. The corporate death penalty where the corporation’s legal existence is ended and its assets sold as a penalty would also serve to get the attention of the wrong doers.

Corporations are creations of the state. Their charters can be revoked and they can be ended. It is a choice we should have. Corporate incompetence and villainy have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, billions upon billions of dollars in damages and massive destruction eco-systems. If we “killl” a few, they might do less harm. We might at least get the idea across that we take their destruction of the planet seriously.

We have a responsibility as patriots to protect our nation. That includes the land, the water and the air. It is a profoundly moral duty. For those of us who believe in Christianity, we also have a responsibility to act as stewards of God’s creation. That also calls us to action.

Let us go forth armed with righteousness and a willingness to confront and defeat evil.

James Pilant

(Probably the proper attitude for hauling a dangerous cargo and chemicals and microplastics.)

In an article written for The Cool Down, Alexis McDonell, writes in an article entitled:

Shipping giant hit with $1 billion fine after causing one of worst marine disasters in history: ‘Unprecedented devastation’

The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka found a shipping company liable for a billion.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/shipping-giant-hit-1-billion-194500541.html

In June 2021, the MV X-Press Pearl caught fire and sank off the coast of Colombo while carrying a cargo of chemicals.

The Supreme Court described the result as “unprecedented devastation to the marine environment of Sri Lanka,” citing the deaths of 417 turtles, 48 dolphins, eight whales, and countless fish that washed ashore. Debris from the ship, including several tons of plastic pellets used to manufacture bags, spread across beaches and into the ocean.

“This marine environmental disaster … resulted in the widespread release of toxic and hazardous substances into the marine environment, poisoning ocean waters, killing marine species, and destructing phytoplankton,” the judgment stated.

Do CEO’s Understand AI: I don’t think so.

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism, Corpoorate Social Responsibility

There is a big sell off in AI related stocks at the moment. But don’t worry. After reading several dozen articles in the business press once again asserting that AI is the future of, well, everything and more, the investors will be back.

So, far AI has produced a vast wasteland of crappy video’s on You Tube and countless poorly written novels, essays, short stories, editorials, love notes and much else. This doesn’t give you a lot of faith in the thing.

It has enabled talentless and vapid people everywhere the ability to write at a modicum level which is scary. But that isn’t the real scary part. The part that worries me is the sheer volume. A ten year old with an AI writing program can write tens of thousands of articles, the same is true in regard to fake images and much else.

And it is happening now. AI is producing countless short films, an infinity of pictures and articles without count. These all consuming devices are devouring the internet and all of social media as I write this (without I might add a shred of AI – I don’t use it – I won’t use it.).

It is my business, Business Ethics, that keeps me reading article after article about the coming “revolution.” Some of it sounds scaremongering. I hope that it is just hype but after watching the flood of material the thing is already producing, it is hard not to have some worries.

Even if AI operates at the level of a functional moron, businesses in the hope of replacing their human workers and making enormous profits are plugging it into all kinds of uses. It is the magic wand that will fix business problems and propel us into a sort of corporate nirvana, at least, according to the hype. I have serious doubts.

When it is late at night and I want something intelligent to listen to while I am drifting off to sleep and search the internet and find wall to wall AI content which is usually just exaggerations, lies and fantasies with a tiny amount of actual data, when I do that, I worry about our future and those that think our future is going to be based on this stuff.

(Trying to understand AI and failing.)

From Fortune Magazine below is a link to an article called – An MIT report that 95% of AI pilots fail spooked investors. But it’s the reason why those pilots failed that should make the C-suite anxious

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mit-report-95-ai-pilots-165754716.html

Ok, now let’s look at what the report actually says. It interviewed 150 executives, surveyed 350 employees, and looked at 300 individual AI projects. It found that 95% of AI pilot projects failed to deliver any discernible financial savings or uplift in profits. These findings are not actually all that different from what a lot of previous surveys have found—and those surveys had no negative impact on the stock market. Consulting firm Capgemini found in 2023 that 88% of AI pilots failed to reach production. (S&P Global found earlier this year that 42% of generative AI pilots were abandoned—which is still not great).

…

But where it gets interesting is what the NANDA study said about the apparent reasons for these failures. The biggest problem, the report found, was not that the AI models weren’t capable enough (although execs tended to think that was the problem.) Instead, the researchers discovered a “learning gap”—people and organizations simply did not understand how to use the AI tools properly or how to design workflows that could capture the benefits of AI while minimizing downside risks. (My emphasis.)

A LEARNING GAP! These people are spending millions of dollars and incorporating AI technology into everything humanly and inhumanly imaginable and they don’t “understand how to use AI tools properly.” I don’t even want to discuss “workflows.” I am depressed enough.

Here, let’s discuss the sell off we are at the moment observing.

From Futurism an article entitled – Meta Freezes AI Hiring as Fear Spreads, linked to below.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meta-freezes-ai-hiring-fear-191830507.html

The AI industry as a whole is facing a critical juncture, with mounting concerns contributing to a massive tech selloff roiling the stock market this week. Shares of AI tech stalwarts, including Nvidia and Palantir, have plummeted — raising concerns that the hype had driven their valuations too high for the shaky realities of their current tech.

What is the above paragraph saying? Well, unlike virtually any element or aspect of AI, the paragraph above is straightforward. It is very simple. Nobody know what this stuff is worth. You can say things like the future of all technology and all of American business will rely on Artificial Intelligence and you can say it over and over again but what does it mean in dollars and cents? If all American businesses will become dependent on AI, how much will it cost to implement, to operate on a regular basis and are there going to be any profits? Not to mention its effect on investment and return itself. Will it replace buying and selling by humans and if so will business, industry and investment all become one united AI operation like one of those science fiction movies,(The Forbin Project)?

And then there are the little side issues, like a massive unemployment across multiple fields that will leave the economy as empty and useless as an old paper sack or the other little issue of destroying all life on earth should there bit a little misstep in the application of the thing in one small industry or maybe even one small laboratory.

Now if none of this concerns you and you find me alarmist, try reading this little tid bit below!

Joe Wilkins writing for Futurism has an article: OpenAI Chairman Says AI Is Destroying His Sense of Who He Is.

https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/articles/openai-chairman-says-ai-destroying-132644783.html

For being poised to become the richest startup in history, OpenAI’s architects seem strikingly ambivalent about its work.

The company’s CEO is constantly afraid of the technology he’s unleashing on the world, a longstanding investor has been driven to what his peers say are signs of psychosis, and even its chairman is panicking about losing his identity to the machine.

Speaking on the podcast “Acquired” earlier this week, the chair of OpenAI’s board, Bret Taylor, expressed his anxiety that AI chatbots like ChatGPT are redefining his relationship to technology, destroying — or at least making unrecognizable — the world of programming in which he built his career.

So, you think I’m alarmist. I think Bret Taylor is more scared than I am and since he has more knowledge, I find that worrying.

(I seem to recall the minister from “Plan 9 from Outer Space” saying that we should all be concerned about the future because that is we will be spending our time.)

To sum up. This AI stuff is dangerous, has already had deleterious effects and nobody anywhere seems to really understand what it can do or what is going to happen.

James Alan Pilant

What Comes After Trump?

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism, Economic Justice

(The Great Seal of the United States is a public domain image.)

Several articles have been written about what comes after the current regime ends. One recommended that we create a “truth and reconciliation commission” in the manner of South Africa to restore civility and union. I deeply appreciate the sentiment but I do not believe that is possible in the United States, not any more. Another one I read called for mass prosecutions and prison sentences for the massive fraud, self-dealing, and law breaking that is a daily part of our news perpetrated by this administration and its sympathizers. That is very likely to happen and I expect it will happen.

Before I write any further, I want to make it clear that I do not believe that victory over these neofascists and their dim-witted followers is in any way guaranteed. I have to admit there are days when I think they just can’t be stopped. The lies, the impudence, the confidence and their unrelenting attitude of righteousness would cause all the saints of history to lose their composure. Some days it certainly ruins mine.

But let us assume for a few moments of optimism that we, the good guys, prevail over this scum. We know that we must act whenever and wherever possible to protest and throw barriers in the way of this regime. But let us talk just now of what comes after victory, after Trump is done, perhaps condemned and imprisoned.

I have been reading a book pictured below, a picture which I have borrowed from the internet. I believe this is okay under a fair use exception and since I am mentioning both that I read it and recommend that others buy it and read it, that I may perhaps be forgiven for using it.

This book by Daniel Todman is a very detailed history of Britain at war before the entry of the United States.

Why mention it here? Because just after the British had stopped the Germans from gaining air superiority over England, a number of people from the labor party as well as a group of the intelligentsia began to agitate for and develop a plan for after victory.

And that plan was very largely enacted and put in place when victory was won.

Can you imagine?

Great Britain stands alone. They are being bombed nightly by the Luftwaffe. Hitler has not yet invaded the Soviet Union and the United States seems to see no urgency in joining the conflict. And yet they assumed eventual victory. They had faith. I wish I had that kind of faith now. I wish we all did.

But in any case, what their example shows is that planning for after the struggle is vital and every bit as important as the struggle itself. There must not only be a cause worth fighting for but a set of goals to be achieved, a further set of purposes beyond simply prevailing.

I have some simple suggestions. But I want you to know that I am going to research and think about what is possible and what can achieved, so I may very well return to the topic on multiple occasions.

But here goes –

  1. Fix the mess at the Supreme Court. Add six justices, impose term limits and a code of ethics – it has to be fixed.
  2. Raise the minimum wage.
  3. Universal Health Care, it’s time.
  4. The end of the Imperial Presidency, a comprehensive set of laws and perhaps a couple of constitutional amendments to prevent this kind of power grab from ever happening again.
  5. A complete overhaul of campaign law and among many other things no dark money ever again.
  6. A National Guaranteed enforceable right to vote. No more of this gerrymandering nonsense.
  7. A graduated income tax
  8. Free college education
  9. Free vocational training
  10. And as 8. and 9. imply, a national never ending focus on the development of human capital in American.
  11. We should be building a society devoted to the development of each individual so they they can live a full life of achievement.

At least, that is my poor opinion about what is necessary.

I am going to write about this more at length.

You may share your thought if you wish, but I have approval on all comments so post accordigly.

James Pilant

Should New York have City Run Grocery Stores? Yes, let’s give it a try!

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

The struggle between Progressives and Corporate Democrats currently rages.

We live in what is often described as a free enterprise system, loftily described as free market. However, any examination reveals that we don’t do much free marketing in this country. There are many barriers to economic entry, a host of monopolistic segments of the economy, a horde of anti-capitalist non compete agreements and the list goes on an on. And then, of course, we could talk about a litany of economic villains evading the free market using government subsidies, tax breaks and regulatory capture besides the constant illegal dumping of pollutants, tax evasion and direct law breaking.

It is a wonder that you can look around at the American Business landscape and wonder how any intelligent human being could describe it as a free market.

But they do.

And now we come to the idea of a government, in this case, a city run grocery store. Shouldn’t we depend of the free market for groceries and much else?

Yeah, that would seem to be the general rule.

But what if capitalism, the free market, isn’t functioning correctly? One of the tenets of the free market is that when there is a need, the free market will adroitly jump in and fill it. Many people especially economists who are very often paid to maintain a fierce defense of free market principles. That is, they get paid to write free market propaganda and they often owe their jobs to the contributions and influence of the corporate elites and our corrupt and incompetent ruling class.

The truth of the matter, the facts of the matter, is that the free market fails on a regular bases in many areas of need and of necessity and generally speaking the powers that be don’t care.

Many parts of New York are “food deserts.” Large areas with no access within a reasonable distance to buy nourishing food.

Zohran Mamdani wants to change that. He wants to create number of stores where residents of the city can buy good food and a wide variety of food for themselves and their families. He wants to step in act on behalf of his constituents, the people of New York. He wants to help protect them from malnutrition and make sure they have a healthy diet. He wants the people of his city and their children to live long and fruitful lives.

Working for the people that elected you instead of your corporate donors is a very radical idea in the Democratic Party. And Mamdani has attracted the ire of what are very kindly called Corporate Democrats. I prefer other descriptive terms.

Is it a good idea? I think it probably is but as a man of some experience a lot depends on how the program is done, and the quality of the people creating and running it.

When I was a young man, I often wondered why a great program worked at the original site but no one could duplicate it. And then I understood. One visionary leader with capability and confidence can take what in hindsight is a not very good idea and make a roaring success of it. I’ve seen it done. Leadership and energy determine many things in this nation.

This sounds like a good idea. And when you have an innovative idea and young and energetic people willing to run it, it stands a good chance of success.

For a more in-depth view of this city run grocery idea, here is an essay linked to below.

In an article entitled: Here is everything you need to know about New York experimenting with city-run grocery stores, author Katalin Nagy discusses the Mayoral candidates idea for city run grocery stores.

https://creators.yahoo.com/lifestyle/story/here-is-everything-you-need-to-know-about-new-york-experimenting-with-city-run-grocery-stores-095135273.html

In a recent interview with News 12 New York, Mamdani outlined the vision for a pilot program that would include launching one store in each of the city’s five boroughs. He also mentions that the plan would potentially be supported by $60 million in public funding.

These stores would be strategically placed in areas known as “food deserts.” These are neighborhoods where access to affordable, fresh groceries is scarce. The stores would primarily sell essential items at wholesale prices to help counter rising food costs.

Mamdani’s proposal is designed as a public option for groceries that would frame access to healthy food as a basic right. In campaign videos and public comments, Mamdani has stated that these stores would operate like a civic institution, similar to a fire station or public library, and would ideally eliminate middlemen to lower grocery prices.

Zohran Mamdani might be one of those leaders we so desperately need to replace the old tired face of the Democrats and to lead a better America where the wants and needs of the people come first.

James Pilant

In Missouri, Corporations Can FIX Democracy

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism

Corporations find democracy at the very least inconvenient but in Missouri, the will of the people is not a problem. Pesky voters with weird ideas that would cost corporations money can be brought to heel with astonishing ease.

(We, the American people, suffer from unfettered corporate power. May vengeance live amongst us and justice return.)

In Missouri, corporate power clearly seen to undo and reverse democracy. Before I get into the details, let us discuss the right and wrong of it.

Why am I discussing this in a business ethics blog? Because it is wrong for corporations to run the government be it city, county, state or federal. “We the People of the United States,” in the preamble of the United States Constitution enshrines in law the power of the citizens, not corporate or monopoly power or even worse, our newly minted oligarchs.

The people of Missouri voted for paid time off for illness or illness in the family like that of a child. It wasn’t a narrow win, it was a big margin. The people had spoken.

But the legislature and the governor nullified the will of the people. Can you think of a sadder sentence? The men elected to do the will of the people, at the very least, the very least protect them. And they failed. They directly defied the expressed will of the people of their state.

It was evil and wrong of the legislature and the governor to do this. In a democracy the people rule. But not in Missouri.

The corporations and businesses that defeated the people’s will are in the wrong and they should suffer fro what they did. But the Republican super majority in the legislature protect them from the repercussions of their pitifully evil acts.

But there are currents in the lives of men, and the haughty attitude of the bought (should I say “rental”) men in the Republican Party will get their comeuppance in time.

Are there good people in Missouri who will not stand idly by and take this injustice? Where are the heroes who would reverse this evil act? Time will tell if they appear.

Here is the story from my friends at the Progressive Magazine authored by Eleanor J. Bader.

https://progressive.org/latest/a-dark-moment-for-sick-leave-rights-bader-20250812/

When 58 percent of Missouri voters approved Proposition A in November 2024, they assumed that the ballot measure’s passage would finally grant private sector workers the ability to take paid time off when they were sick or needed to care for an ailing family member. But they were wrong.

Although the paid sick leave policy took effect on May 1, 2025, allowing workers in companies with fifteen or more employees to earn one hour of paid leave for every thirty hours worked, the state’s Republican-dominated legislature opted to override the popular vote and overturn key parts of the measure just two weeks later. Governor Mike Kehoe signed the repeal into law on July 10. 

Smoking Sensor Abuse!

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism

Hotels are charging customer a five hundred dollar fee if a smoking sensor determines that you have smoked in your room. But do smoking sensors actually work and work reliably? They might. Maybe? I must once again confess that when a juicy $500 fine can be gotten for a false positive — I can’t help but feel there are going to be lots and lots of false positives. It gets taken directly off the credit card. Five hundred free bucks and you didn’t even have to use a gun.

The article says you should use Google reviews and see if they have a lot of customer complaints for smoking fines and then don’t stay there if you see them.

I have a better idea. How about our wimpy, unenergetic, corporate owned news media do investigations, find out if these sensors work, and expose hotels who steal from their customers?

That is what is supposed to happen? Why isn’t it happening? Could it be all the advertisements bought by hotels? Could it be the sympathy from another capitalist operation, you know, a sort of honor among thieves code??

I suppose for many of the powers that be and our pitifully corrupt ruling class, stealing an extra five hundred from a customer is just another yawn. Just another common man or women giving up some more money to their betters. They’d have probably bought beer or high sugar food — or any of those other justifications the wealthy have for sneering at the rest of us.

I don’t think so. Taking people’s money under false pretences is wrong. And no amount of babble about the reliability of the technology when it isn’t proven is going to make it right.

It’s a crime. It’s theft and it should be investigated and prosecuted.

If they have evidence these sensors actually work, why don’t they show it? And exactly what costs do they bear to justify this fee?

If you don’t mind me saying so — It all smells.

Please read the article linked to below. It is written by Caleb Harmon-Marshall. He is apparently quite the up and coming young author.

https://creators.yahoo.com/lifestyle/story/new-smoking-sensors-are-triggering-500-fees-for-non-smoking-hotel-guests-210033335.html

Imagine checking out of your hotel room, confident that everything went smoothly, only to find a $500 non-smoking fee charged to your credit card. No warning, no evidence, and no actual smoking. That’s the reality for dozens of travelers staying at hotels using air quality monitoring systems from a company called Rest.

Welcome to the latest hospitality tech trend that’s costing travelers hundreds of dollars, and it could happen to you.

In addition, here is a very fine article from Consumer Rescue about the immense difficulties involved in getting a smoking charge reversed. It is by Michelle Couch-Friedman.

https://consumerrescue.org/travel-troubles/how-get-hotel-smoking-fee-refunded/

Getting a surprise hotel smoking fee reversed isn’t easy — even if you’re a non-smoker like Kelsey Russell. Or a determined consumer advocate. But it can be done. Here’s how.

Kelsey’s case is yet another story that illustrates a disturbing trend that seems to be developing in the franchise hotel industry. Increasingly, we’re receiving complaints from guests who say these branded properties have hit them with an array of surprising post-stay charges — no proof included. But, as you’ll see in this case, even when the hotel provides “evidence,”  it might just lead to more questions than answers.

This turned out to be a lengthy piece and a very good story. You should read it. And I have to admit it gave me a very good first impression of “Consumer Rescue.”

Beware of strange charges after spending the night at a hotel or other such venue.

James Alan Pilant

Bugs Bunny and Business Ethics

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism

Bugs Bunny is a cartoon version of an idealized American. He embodies many American virtues. He is not greedy and content with having just enough. Many simple pleasures make him happy. He loves a good meal, meeting new people, travel and a good joke. He is courageous and does not tolerate abuse or injustice. He is the very soul of patriotism, (He is an honorary United States Marine!)

(This is a 1912 picture from a book of stories. Alas, there is no picture of Bugs that is not under copyright protection.)

I used some of his cartoons in my classes to illustrate several different economic concepts. Like most Americans he does not aspire to be rich, he aspires to have “enough.” In the cartoons, his concept of “enough” boils down to a comfortable rabbit hole, food to eat, (many cartoons show him as visiting stores or cultivating food). He is often seen in bed reading what we assume is a good book.

The plot of the story in the cartoons revolves around Bugs’ response to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Various hunters, crooks, con men, grifters, mad scientists, monsters and the occasional vampire show up to steal from him, harm him or just kill him. Bugs defeats his opponents by determination, humor and inventiveness, qualities that Americans with considerable justification believe they have in abundance.

Using him as an economic example generally involved his less meritorious sometimes friend and often enemy, Daffy Duck.

The Economics of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck

In one cartoon I used “Ali Baba Bunny” (1957), Bugs and Daffy find the fabled treasure of Ali Baba, a huge and sprawling treasure similar to a dragon horde, which is promptly claimed in total with no justification whatever by Daffy – with the following line:

“It’s mine, you understand?! Mine! All mine! Get back in there! Down, down, down! Go, go, go! Mine, mine, mine! Mwahahahahahaha!” He dives into the treasure pile with whoops of joy to the tune of the song “We’re in the Money”. “I’m rich! I’m wealthy! Yahoo! I’m comfortably well off.”

While Bugs is content with what he has, Daffy is the “other” American, the grasping “get rich quick” fool who never stops looking for some easy way to make piles of money. If that wasn’t bad enough he is perennially incompetent and constantly goes into situations over his head.

Of course, whenever you encounter treasure there must be a guard. Bugs saves Daffy from certain death at the hands of “Hassan,” although repeatedly the cowardly duck tries to betray him. Daffy’s greed keeps getting him into danger and eventually Bugs leaves him to his dire fate.

Daffy at one point bundles every last coin up for his own use while Bugs simply continues on his journey taking nothing, content with what he has and unwilling to take what isn’t his.

It’s a good lesson and I usually add examples of treasure hunters spending their lives in the fruitless search for immense wealth. You know pirate treasure, the lost Dutchman mine, gold prospecting and the list goes on.

In another cartoon showcasing his immense greed, Daffy captures the Tasmanian Devil. In the 1957 short feature, Ducking the Devil, Daffy a loudly self-proclaimed coward discovers that there is a 5,000 dollar reward for returned the escaped Tasmanian Devil to the zoo.

Wikipedia tells me that in 2022, this five thousands dollar reward would be the equivalent of $45,686.65, not bad if you’re willing to be dismembered by a tornadic homicidal loon.

Daffy after many misadventures lures the creature back into its cage and collects the money. While he is walking away, a single dollar bill is caught by a breeze and carried into the monster’s cage, where upon an outraged Daffy charges in, beats the creature to a pulp and recovers his dollar. (My Chinese exchange students really enjoyed this cartoon.)

I use cartoons, short movie clips, jokes, etc. to lead into discussion of the more intricate points of law, of capitalism, the American Experience — you know – Teaching.

Why use cartoons and all the myriad things I find to interest my students?

It was my transcript.

As you might imagine I am quite capable as a student (317 college hours later). So, I have a large transcript and I happened to be looking at it and I realized there were many classes I had no memory of. I could not picture the instructor, remember the textbook and to my ultimate despair, none of the coeds I flirted with. It made me sad.

And so I decided to teach in an unforgettable manner. I took whatever subject was in hand (I’ve taught 23 different courses and I am qualified to teach quite a few subjects I never got around to teaching.) and divided it into a set of critical lessons. My Business Law course, one of them, boiled down to thirteen critical lessons.

Okay, very good, I knew what to teach. How to get it across? Not hard. Stories! At first I told stories from the law. Stories I’d learned in law school and from my wide reading. Then I added jokes and then I read large story collections and picked out a chosen few. Then I began my use of classic movies and I added discussions of literature, history, sociology and the struggles of Americans toward greater freedom, minorities and women. Every day I combed the Internet, magazines and sometimes just stuff I observed always looking for that hook that would catch their interest.

Years after being in one of my courses, students will remind me of a story I told, or a movie they watched or a class discussion they never forgot.

I think I did okay. I miss teaching.

But I will maintain against all opposition that Bugs Bunny has his place in Business Law and Business Ethics.

James Alan Pilant

Will African Courts “Fix” the Internet?

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism, corruption

(This picture is borrowed from dear friends at Wikipedia (they deserve donations and support!) and they got the picture from NASA which being a government agency places it in the public domain.)

Social media, the internet, broadcasts almost infinite amounts of lies, misinformation and abuse. It causes severe and lasting harm to our society. And yet our political system seems unable to cope in anyway, not even able to curb the international scams that plague the elderly and the young.

The other day I was reading Al Jazeera, probably the best source of information about the war in the Ukraine, (they have daily coverage), and noticed an interesting editorial. Mercy Mutemi is the managing partner at Nzili & Sumbi Advocates, a law firm. She wrote a very fine editorial about efforts in African Courts to rein in the abuses of the Internet.

Here is a link to the editorial:

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/8/16/african-courts-may-pave-the-way-for-holding-social-media-giants-to-account

In April 2025, the Human Rights Court in Kenya issued an unprecedented ruling that it has the jurisdiction to hear a case about harmful content on one of Meta’s platforms. The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by Abraham Meareg, the son of an Ethiopian academic who was murdered after he was doxxed and threatened on Facebook, Fisseha Tekle, an Ethiopian human rights activist, who was also doxxed and threatened on Facebook, and Katiba Institute, a Kenyan non-profit that defends constitutionalism. They maintain that Facebook’s algorithm design and its content moderation decisions made in Kenya resulted in harm done to two of the claimants, fuelled the conflict in Ethiopia and led to widespread human rights violations within and outside Kenya.

Further down in the article she very eloquently explains the significance of the court’s decision thusly:

The ultimate goal of the Bill of Rights, a common feature in African constitutions, is to uphold and protect the inherent dignity of all people. Kenya’s Bill of Rights, for example, has as its sole mission to preserve the dignity of individuals and communities and to promote social justice and the realisation of the potential of all human beings. The supremacy of the Constitution also guarantees that, should there be safe harbour provisions in the laws of that country, they would not be a sufficient liability shield for platforms if their business decisions do not ultimately uphold human rights.

I would have liked to summarize the findings about this case but I unable to approach the level of her eloquence. She states the principle in question very well indeed.

The Internet is a world wide phenomenon and while we here in the United States suffer terribly from its abuses, we are only a small proportion of its victims.

And that means that justice systems all over the world have jurisdiction when their citizens are harmed. The argument here is that a internet provider has immunity provided its business decisions do not result in the diminishment of guaranteed human right.

Our enforcement in the United States has been lacking because of legal complexity and the horrible unsustainable influence of the Tech Bros, our wannabe Oligarchs.

Their time is coming.

We have to rise up as a nation and end this constant stream of bots, foreign influence, etc. It is an open decaying sewer of utter evil and it harms all of us.

We can do better.

James Alan Pilant

Are CEO’s Paid Too Much?

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics, Capitalism

There appears to a be a considerable consensus on various web sites that indeed they are.

(That does look like corporate leadership, a daunting path, indeed!)

Let’s begin with the Guardian in an article by Michael Sainato talks about his pay.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/24/trump-bill-ceo-pay-starbucks

Starbucks’ CEO, Brian Niccol, made 6,666 times more than his average worker last year, according to a report on the growing gap between top executives and their workers.

The inequality gap between CEOs’ pay and that of their median workers rose in 2024 to 285 to 1 from 268 to 1 in 2023, according to a report released this week by the largest federation of labor unions in the US, the AFL-CIO.

I will freely disclose that I find the CEO in question, Brian Niccol, reptilian and repulsive, and that is beside the fact that he is paid way too much.

But there’s more. Here’s an article from 2023 By Nik Popli. He writes about an investor advocacy group that calls out CEO’s who get generous pay packages while their companies suffer losses particularly in shareholder returns. I recommend you read the entire article.

https://time.com/6256076/most-overpaid-ceos-2022/

The typical CEO of a company listed on the S&P 500—a stock market index with 500 large publicly traded corporations—earned $18.8 million last year. That’s up roughly 21% from 2021, even though the S&P 500 index was down 20%. Company boards gave particularly big grants of stock to reward those in charge of navigating their companies through high inflation, continued supply chain problems, and rising wages—as well as meeting performance metrics.

But an investor advocacy group says some of the nation’s most well-known companies overpaid their chief executives. A new report from As You Sow listed 100 “overpaid” CEOs who received high compensation in 2022 despite mixed shareholder returns for their companies.

At the top of the list: Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav, who received $246 million in 2022 even though the company’s stock fell 60% in the same year and roughly 40% of shares voted against his pay package. The second most overpaid CEO was Estée Lauder’s Fabrizio Freda, who earned $66 million in 2022 while the company’s stock fell 33%. Penn National Gaming’s Jay Snowden, who was paid $65.9 million, comes in at no. 3 on the list; his company’s stock fell 42.7%.

And for the year before, we have the magazine Fortune in an article by Chris Morris, Maria Aspan entitled rather directly These are the 10 most overpaid CEOs in the 2022 Fortune 500. Once again, I liked the article and recommend you read it in full.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-most-overpaid-ceos-2022-175248791.html

Overall hourly U.S. wages fell 2.4% on average last year (after adjusting for inflation), but the median total compensation of CEOs Fortune studied as part of this year’s Fortune 500 ranking jumped 30% from a year earlier to $15.9 million.

That made us curious. Did those CEOs deserve the compensation packages they received? Fortune’s Maria Aspan and Scott DeCarlo analyzed the compensation and stock performance of the 280 Fortune 500 CEOs who have held their jobs for at least three years, ranking them on pay vs. performance.

Apparently factual analysis based on the statistics of market performance does not paint an appealing picture of CEO pay. I am not surprised. The media celebrates these figures as fearless leaders and innovative entrepreneurs with little actual examination of the facts. And the way corporate power is structured, an obedient board of directors is just a matter of time for an aggressive CEO.

The Progressive Shopper posts the “Overpaid CEO Score Card.”

Overpaid CEO Score Card

The list identifies the 100 Most Overpaid CEOs from the S&P 500 index, highlighting those CEOs deemed excessively compensated based on their performance. It specifically focuses on CEOs who were addressed at annual meetings held between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023. This year’s findings also incorporate insights from annual voting patterns and regression analysis conducted by HIP Investor.

Mentioned previously was the Shareholder Advocacy Group, “As You Sow.” This is a ten year study they published about CEO compensation entitled 10 Years of Study Shows Overpaid CEOs Underperform.

Listed below the link are its most damning conclusions.

https://www.asyousow.org/press-releases/2023/11/15-ten-year-study-overpaid-ceo-underperform

Key findings: 

  • Companies with the most overpaid CEOs have had lower returns to shareholders than the average S&P 500 company. The typical S&P 500 firm made 8.5% per year annualized from February 2015 to September 2023, the 100 Most Overpaid CEOs’ annual returns lagged at 7.9%, the worst 25 dragged at 6.0%, and the ten worst were behind at 6.5% per year.  As a group, over a decade, overpaid CEOs underperformed.
  • Total pay for the most overpaid CEOs continues to grow. When As You Sow compiled its first overpaid CEO list ten years ago, the average pay of the 10 Most Overpaid was $56 million. This year, the average of the top ten was $88 million, an increase over that time period of 59%. 

There were more articles and many opinion pieces. All these sources saying that CEO’s are over paid — and, yet, they continue to be overpaid!

But it seems likely that AI and an increasingly darkening economic horizon under our current regime’s bizarre decision making may very well diminish these payouts.

We can hope!

James Alan Pilant