Category: ethics

Moody’s To Cut U.S. Rating?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Government Failure, President Obama

From MSNBC –

Moody’s warned Monday that it could move a step closer to cutting the U.S. AAA rating if President Obama’s tax and unemployment benefit package becomes law.

The plan agreed to by President Obama and Republican leaders last week could push up debt levels, increasing the likelihood of a negative outlook on the United States rating in the coming two years, the ratings agency said.

A negative outlook, if adopted, would make a rating cut more likely over the following 12-to-18 months.

For the United States, a loss of the top Aaa rating, reduce the appeal of U.S. Treasuries, which currently rank as among the world’s safest investments.

We just spent several months with every commentator screaming out that we can’t afford to spend more money, that social security had to be cut, that things could not go on the way they had been and then –

President Obama made a deal with the Republicans to add trillions to the debt! (and social security will still get cut!)

The bizzarro world of Washington marches on. But there will be pain, there will be payback.

James Pilant

James Burke And The Development Of Modern Medicine

On By southwerkIn ethics

I have been a fan of James Burke for many years now. His book, Connections, is leisure time reading for me. What is particularly fascinating in this selection is the role ascribed to Benjamin Franklin in the development of modern medicine, in particular, the hospital. This is the entire set of five that covers one full hour of television.

James Pilant

Heidegger – Being And Time

On By southwerkIn ethics

I was watching a film on You Tube about King Robert the Bruce, thought about philosophy and wound up listening to this documentary on Heidegger. I am not sure how I got from one to the other but such is my journey of learning.

Warning! This guy is not just a little controversial. To many he is a swine and a cad. To some he’s worse. There are some who believe his actions were justifiable. There do not appear to be many of these.

These are the first two parts. There are four more and are easily found in the viewing options to the right of the screen.

James Pilant


Sterling Hayden On “Career”

On By southwerkIn ethics

These wonderful paragraphs are by Sterling Hayden, a Hollywood actor. He was a man of many talents and I’ll think you’ll like the writing. This is from the Wikipedia entry to which I am indebted. JP

“The sun beats down and you pace, you pace and you pace. Your mind flies free and you see yourself as an actor, condemned to a treadmill wherein men and women conspire to breathe life into a screenplay that allegedly depicts life as it was in the old wild West. You see yourself coming awake any one of a thousand mornings between the spring of 1954, and that of 1958 ‑ alone in a double bed in a big white house deep in suburban Sherman Oaks, not far from Hollywood.

“The windows are open wide, and beyond these is the backyard swimming pool inert and green, within a picket fence. You turn and gaze at a pair of desks not far from the double bed. This is your private office, the place that shelters your fondest hopes: these desks so neat, patiently waiting for the day that never comes, the day you’ll sit down at last and begin to write.

“Why did you never write? Why, instead, did you grovel along, through the endless months and years, as a motion‑picture actor? What held you to it, to something you so vehemently professed to despise? Could it be that you secretly liked it—that the big dough and the big house and the high life meant more than the aura you spun for those around you to see?

“‘Hayden’s wild,’ they said. ‘He’s kind of nuts‑but you’ve got to hand it to him. He doesn’t give a damn about the loot or the stardom or things like that—something to do with his seafaring, or maybe what he went through in the war . . .'”[2]:151

I believe we all tussle with the issue of whether to write or not to write. I have erred on the side of writing. There may be those of you who think it would have been better if I had remained silent. But here I am. I feel very much like he did some of the time. I think many of you do too.

James Pilant

Mark Madoff Dead – Time To Celebrate – NO!

On By southwerkIn ethics

Since I wrote about Mark Madoff’s suicide earlier today, I have visited other web sites and there is a certain celebratory atmosphere. Now, for most the coverage was entirely neutral but that was not the case for a good number.

Mark Madoff is dead. I am unaware of any evidence that he was part of his father’s schemes. I do not believe that the sins of a relative should be visited on another for that reason. Justice is not served by damning people based on their blood lines.

This is a deeply regrettable incident. Celebrate any of those wonderful things in your life from children to good times to the simple pleasure of being part of your religion or nation but please don’t celebrate this.

James Pilant

Benjamin Franklin, Business Ethics And How To Approach An Opponent!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics

An excerpt from The True Benjamin Franklin

Author: Sydney George Fisher

Franklin was by nature a public man; but the beginning of his life as an office-holder may be said to have dated from his appointment as clerk of the Assembly. This took place in 1736, when he had been in business for himself for some years, and his newspaper and “Poor Richard” were well under way. It was a tiresome task to sit for hours listening to buncombe speeches, and drawing magic squares and circles to while away the time. But he valued the appointment because it gave him influence with the members and a hold on the public printing.

The second year his election to the office was opposed; an influential member wanted the place for a friend, and Franklin had a chance to show a philosopher’s skill in practical politics.

“Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of perusing that book, and requesting he would do me the favour of lending it to me for a few days. He sent it immediately, and I return’d it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favour. When we next met, in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends and our friendship continued to his death. This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says ‘He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.’” (Bigelow’s Franklin from his own Writings, vol. i. p. 260.)

Some people have professed to be very much shocked at this disingenuous trick, as they call it, although perhaps capable of far more discreditable ones themselves. It would be well if no worse could be said of modern practical politics.

I confess to have done similar things myself having been a student of Franklin since I was in high school. (It took me an age to figure out what venery was!) 

There was a mail service in the building where I worked. The mail often contained items of some confidentiality so I asked the our version of a postman to give the letters only to me. Well, a few days passed and the office gossip brought in the letters after having gone through them. I was enraged and decided to go out and tell off the guy. Fortunately this thought passed away instantly as I realized that the busybody would have the letters from then on.

So, the next day I went over and told him how much I appreciated his giving the mail to me only, how it helped me with my work and how few people who did his work would have realized its importance and helped me in the matter. The office busybody never got the mail again. (And the postman and I were buddies from then on.)

Needless to say, I don’t consider Franklin’s action a mean trick. I think it is just a good way to get to know someone.

James Pilant

Mark Madoff Commits Suicide

On By southwerkIn ethics

From Yahoo News –

The eldest son of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff hanged himself by a dog leash in his Manhattan apartment on Saturday, the second anniversary of his father’s arrest in a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that swindled thousands of investors of their life savings, law enforcement officials said.

Mark Madoff, 46, was found hanging from a ceiling pipe in the living room of his SoHo loft apartment as his 2-year-old son slept in a nearby bedroom, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.

The law enforcement officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the death.

Madoff, who reported his father to authorities, has never been criminally charged in the biggest investment fraud in U.S. history, that has snared a half-dozen Madoff employees.

This is unfortunate, another casualty of Madoff’s insane delusions of wealth and success.

There is no evidence before us that suggests that Madoff’s son had any role in his father’s crimes. Probably if he had participated, he would already have prepared himself mentally for the challenge of self justification.

The Bible says that a man’s crimes can pass from one generation to another. Let us hope this one stops here. This much damage is quite enough.

I don’t know what kind of life he led, what things he thought about, what expectations he held, but his life was important and that light is gone.

James Pilant

Two More Banks Go Down In Flames To Make The Toll 151 For The Year

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics

From CBS news –

Regulators on Friday shut down small banks in Michigan and Pennsylvania, boosting the number of U.S. banks that have failed this year to 151 as bad loans have mounted and the economy has been slow to heal.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Paramount Bank, based in Farmington Hills, Mich., with $252.7 million in assets and $213.6 million in deposits; and Earthstar Bank, based in Southampton, Pa., with $112.6 million in assets and $104.5 million in deposits.

These occasional sideshow events could cast aspersions on the national media narrative of recovery. Let’s see what reality does over the next few days?

James Pilant

John R. Searle – Conversations With History

On By southwerkIn ethics

As my ethical philosophy develops, I have ventured into some different areas. I found this interview with Professor John R. Searle. It’s wonderful. This is very approachable philosophy.

James Pilant

Obama Staffer Finds New Job – Citibank!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Government Failure, President Obama

From Huffington Post –

Citigroup Inc named U.S. President Barack Obama’s former budget director as a senior global banking adviser on Thursday, strengthening its ties to high-profile former officials the same week the bailed-out bank finished shrugging off U.S. government ownership.

Peter Orszag, currently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is Citigroup’s second hire of a former senior government official this month. Last week the bank hired Carlos Gutierrez, former Commerce Secretary under President George W. Bush, as a vice chairman for its institutional clients group.

Orszag, who had worked as director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama, left the White House in July. He was one of the president’s most prominent advisers and remains well-connected in U.S. political circles.

As a presidential adviser, wouldn’t he have a played an important perhaps critical role in the bailout (TARP)? Would it be likely that he had a role in making sure there has been no prosecution of the crimes committed by the banking sector during the past two years? Wouldn’t etc., etc?

Is this pathetic or what? How long has this deal been in place? Did he always know there was a warm place for him at Citibank? Or was it just part of the expectations of the job? What’s he going to get, 5 mil, 7 mil, not counting stock options, the company car and the other goodies?

What is this? What is this place where the people who are supposed to be protecting us are the employees of banks, apparently on some kind of rest cure in the oval office until returned to duty?

Wasn’t this supposed to be a different kind of Presidency, you know not run by lobbyist? Well, they keep the lobbyists at a comfortable distance – inside the White House.

James Pilant