Category: ethics

No More X-Rated Searches!!@!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics1 Comment

Do you really need to pass through a machine that looks at every square centimeter of your body to make airlines safer? Do you really have to (for all intents and purposes) pose nude for the airline cops? And if you refuse to pose nude, should they be able to grope you like some felon assaulting a schoolgirl on a subway in Japan?

Forbes proposes abolishing the TSA, which is, of course, nonsense. Forbes has never had too many rational thoughts. I consider them finding nude searches to be irrational and demeaning more the accident of them having to ride airplanes than from any actual concern for other human beings. In fact, I am reluctant to quote these doctrinaires but I think you and I will survive this once.

From Forbes –

For fiscal conservatives, it’s hard to come up with a more wasteful agency than the TSA. For privacy advocates, eliminating an organization that requires you to choose between a nude body scan or genital groping in order to board a plane should be a no-brainer.

But won’t that compromise safety? I doubt it. The airlines have enormous sums of money riding on passenger safety, and the notion that a government bureaucracy has better incentives to provide safe travels than airlines with billions of dollars worth of capital and goodwill on the line strains credibility. This might be beside the point: in 2003, William Anderson incisively argued that some of the steps that airlines (and passengers) would have needed to take to prevent the 9/11 disaster probably would have been illegal.

The odds of dying from a terrorist attack are much lower than the odds of dying from doing any of a number of incredibly mundane things we do every day. You are almost certainly more likely to die or be injured driving to the airport than you are to be injured by a terrorist once you’re in the air, even without a TSA. Indeed, once you have successfully made it to the airport, the most dangerous part of your trip is over. Until it’s time to drive home, that is.

Boy, these guys can take a matter of personal dignity and come up with, “Let’s get rid of a public agency! We can find a corporation to come to the rescue! Give us public money now! Now!”

Okay, personal dignity. Do these kinds of searches make us safer? Probably not.

These kinds of searches are more the kind of thing we subject prison inmates to. I fully agree that if all airline passenger are convicted felons, the searches are merited. Are we all one step away from being criminals stopped only by a little humiliation? (Okay, a heaping big helping of humiliation.)

We have given up our internet privacy, our financial privacy, been subjected to camera surveillance all in the name of safety. At what point, are you going to say stop? When they mount camera’s in your home? in your bathroom? implant chips in your children?

Let’s stop them. This has become insane, crazy, just plain loco.

Do we want people around the world to decide that Americans are witless cattle willing to undergo any indignity, any loss of rights because of 20,000 scumbags hiding in caves in North Pakistan?

I think Americans are brave and resourceful. I have never believed that we needed to give up any rights at all in this struggle. These criminals are just a small band of criminals. Those that advocate a war with Islam can’t think and can’t count. There are a billion and a half Muslims. A good number don’t like us, that is not a crime. The organization that attacked us is tiny and we can handle this without this kind of surrender to our worst fears and instincts.

We’re Americans! Did the Kaiser, the Nazis, Tojo’s Japan, or Mussolini scare us into naked searches or genital groping?

No, they didn’t. We have courage. That’s why we have been successful as a nation. When we give up courage, what’s left to fight for?

James Pilant

White Collar Job Are Disappearing

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

India is a jobs creator! So speaketh our President. What are the facts?

From McClatchy –

The good paying, predominantly white-collar jobs that once sustained many American communities are disappearing at an alarming rate, keeping the unemployment rate stubbornly high despite the end of the Great Recession.

More troubling, these jobs in accounting, financial analysis, commercial printing and a broad array of other mostly white-collar occupations are unlikely to come back, experts predict.

There isn’t a single cause to the trend. Some of it is explained by changing technology, some of it is the result of automation. Sending well-paying jobs to low-cost centers abroad is another big part of the story. So is global competition from emerging economies such as China and India.

Well, isn’t this sweet! At what point does any politician from any party address this issue? Don’t worry about the question. They won’t. They want to talk about abortion, family values, that mess in Washington, anything in short to take your attention away from the real game.

What’s the real game, you might ask?

How many American jobs, how much American infrastructure, how much American education, science and technology, can you sacrifice to make money? Actually, you could probably rephrase it to ask, “How much money?”

What can’t you sell? Blue collar jobs? Pretty much sold most of them. Remember when they told you we were going into a post industrial world and that a good education got you a job? Well, sorry, Charlie Brown, we moved the ball again.

And we’re not going to stop moving the ball. As long as you are stupid enough to believe that with enough education, enough grit, enough self reliance, you’re going to have and keep a good job, you’re part of the problem.

You see as long as your jobs are moving overseas, as long as your jobs are rendered useless by destroying the American economy and infrastructure, as long as government policies mitigate against stability and security, you’re just a bullseye waiting for the arrow.

And it’s never going to stop unless we stop it.

The promise of America is earned not given. The promise of America is worth an enormous amount of money and if you intend to have an American dread, you have to stop the people who are willing to sell it.

James Pilant

Austerity!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, ethics, Government Failure

“Austerity” is just a con to further enrich the nationless capital markets and the super-rich. Nothing more. The very rich have no interest in the history of America from the 1940s through the 1970s, when a rising and secure middle class, and 90-percent tax rates on top earners, still supported fine lifestyles for the wealthy as well as the world’s greatest economy and society. Now we have to lose so they can win yet more. But austerity and tax cuts are the watchword, the intellectual fraud that has taken the day.

Boy, you’d think Rogue Columnist was upset! This is his latest column.

The slogan under his masthead is “A Pen Warmed In Hell.”

Like him, I’m astonished to live in a country where you can’t raise taxes.

Ahh! you say with outrage. I’m a member of the middle class. I have no more to give!

You’re quite right. I’m not interested in you. I know you don’t have any more money. Since the mid-70’s the tax burden has been off loaded on you. The corporations (about 40 percent of which pay no taxes at all) evade their taxes and the wealthy want their taxes reset at 22% about a 1/3 less than now.

This is an incredibly wealthy country. A fair tax system could pay to fix our infrastructure, could pay to have an education system second to none, could pay to reestablish our industrial base, and could pay to invest in research, development and our fellow Americans so we regain our place as number one in standard of living, as number one in upward mobility.

Upward mobility? What’s that? That is where you or your children have the same shot as some gazillionaire’s child at making it. A country, a nation, where you are measured not by who your friends are, who your family was, but by what you can do.

That’s America!

James Pilant

Business Ethics – Entryway To The Nations

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics

Larry Ruddell wrote a paper of this title at Houston Baptist University. This is just the first paragraph of the abstract.

It’s a vision of business ethics as a positive force around the world. It’s the idea of business ethics as a weapon against the exploitation of the poor.

I’ll be looking for the whole thing. But in any case read this single paragraph. It has power.

As we think about “Bottom‐up Approaches to Global Poverty” we have to look at solutions in a systematic way. Business, Politics and Culture all play roles in helping or hindering the poor in cultures all over the world. A system has to be created to respect all people and create a just environment for law and business. One way the church can contribute in this endeavor is through business ethics delivered on a global scale but in a culturally sensitive way. Business ethics provides a natural way to discuss beliefs because beliefs form the foundation of one’s ethics. Business people can play an important role in business as mission by clearly understanding faith‐based ethical principles, being able to apply ethical principles, and using this natural business‐based application of principles to impact people inside and outside the organization. We could say that business ethics does not support the mission but it IS the mission. So business ethics can and should have a positive influence on global cultures. The goal is to create a business, political, cultural environment where the poor are not exploited, and are treated with respect, dignity and opportunity. Businesses can help through such efforts as: paying fair wages, giving back to the community, communicating openly and honestly with employees, developing skills of workers, and communicating ethics throughout the organization and in the business processes.

James Pilant

A Plain Blog About Politics

On By southwerkIn Capitalism, ethics

Jonathan Bernstein, a political scientist, writes on politics in his blog, “A Plain Blog About Politics.”

Here’s his latest post –

I’ll suggest two possibilities, both trend lines that may or may not turn out to be meaningful, one good, one bad. The good one is that jobless claims are falling a bit more…the four-week average is now below 450K, and at its lowest level, an AP story I’m looking at says, since before things went really south in September 2008.

The bad one is that after a summer in which year-to-year American and coalition deaths in Afghanistan had flattened out, casualties are back up this month. November is usually the start of a winter lull in casualties, but not this year (at least so far); in fact, this November is already the worst ever for American military deaths.

That’s an intelligent perspective. What I see currently on the web are a great deal of discussion about some athlete’s car that has a fridge in it. The republic will not doubt profit immensely from the intellect posed in that direction. But I’ll hang with Bernstein.

I went through a good number of his posts. He’s cynical. I like that, of course. He’s well read. (We well read people need to hang together!) We don’t agree quite a lot.

Strangely enough, this doesn’t bother me a bit.

So, good luck to him. Give him a read or a comment.

James Pilant

A Principle for Peter in the 21st Century (via The History of the Future)

On By southwerkIn Capitalism, ethics, Government Failure

This writer is more concerned than I am about the Federal Reserve’s buy back of American debt but I am still concerned. He has some interesting points and is literate and intelligent. He’s worth a look.

James Pilant

The world is lining up to not buy our debt so we are buying it ourselves in a move we call by the innocuous acronym QE2, which is short for Quantitative Easing two.  More traditional, or verbally honest, economists are calling this what it is: monetizing our debt.  This is a move which has our creditors heading for the doors and our enemies smiling as poor old Uncle Sugar stands with his pockets turned inside out, a bewildered look on his face as … Read More

via The History of the Future

Chase and Bank of America have foreclosed on hundreds of homeowners…by MISTAKE (part 2) What will happen to a loan after short sale? (via Home Loan Academy)

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

These people are indignant and angry. I like them. We can use some anger.

I recommend the site. It should be read often.

James Pilant

Chase and Bank of America have foreclosed on hundreds of homeowners...by MISTAKE (part 2) What will happen to a loan after short sale? Last week we reported that Bank of America has frozen almost a million foreclosures due to errors they committed in the paperwork. Both B of A and Chase have forced repossessions, short sales, and foreclosures on innocent Americans BY ACCIDENT (so they claim). This week we will take a look at what the country has done to make things better. Let’s start on Capitol Hill The Congress Members have gone through their usual routine of indignant bluster … Read More

via Home Loan Academy

Can You Still Get Ahead In America?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics

Frank Rich is his column discusses what can be done to challenge the super rich. Here’s a quote –

… The president’s argument against extending the cuts for the wealthiest has now been reduced to the dry accounting of what the cost would add to the federal deficit. As he put it to CBS’s Steve Kroft, “the question is — can we afford to borrow $700 billion?”

That’s a good question, all right, but it’s not the question. The bigger issue is whether the country can afford the systemic damage being done by the ever-growing income inequality between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else, whether poor, middle class or even rich. That burden is inflicted not just on the debt but on the very idea of America — our Horatio Alger faith in social mobility over plutocracy, our belief that our brand of can-do capitalism brings about innovation and growth, and our fundamental sense of fairness. Incredibly, the top 1 percent of Americans now have tax rates a third lower than the same top percentile had in 1970.

The question I ask above is one that has troubled me for some time. Always, in my classes, there are students who say with complete confidence that, of course, they can get ahead. They say they will have great futures and advance up the class ladder.

I support them with everything I can. I teach them the tricks to beat most of the scams I see. I teach them to fight for their money. I teach to be kind to the weak, tough with the strong and merciless to the evil. I try to teach them the tricky politics of the upper class.

But I worry about them. It’s not a good time to be out in the job market. My numbers, economic and political, do not say kind things about this country. The numbers say that increasingly it is a cruel place where predatory fees are the new avenue to corporate wealth.

It makes me unhappy.

I get tired of seeing the great mass of Americans villified as too fat, too stupid, too irresponsible. They are constantly lectured by a media focused on the trivial and slavish in their devotion to upper class values. They are constantly lectured about their need to sacrifice by politicians and businessmen who wouldn’t sacrifice a sweet desert to save all the starving in the world.

They deserve better.

James Pilant

On The Beach

On By southwerkIn ethics

On The Beach is a Nevil Shute novel made into a movie twice once with Gregory Peck and again with Armand Assante. The Armand Assante version is just a few years old. It also stars Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown.

It is a meditation upon the ending of a life on earth in the aftermath of a nuclear war.

I was fortunate enough to find it on the web and give you the link as well.

I’m not posting much today, I’m still pretty stiff after wrenching my neck and I promise you, it’s playing hell with my concentration.

James Pilant

I twisted my neck.

On By southwerkIn ethics

I can look about 15 degrees to the right of dead ahead. Everything else hurts. I had a bunch of different things I wanted to write about. I got a few things up but it will have to be tomorrow before I can do some real writing.

James Pilant