Category: Government Failure

Jason Michael McCann/homophilosophicus Comments On My Post – No More X-Rated Searches!!@!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, ethics, Government Failure1 Comment

I met Jason Michael McCann online. He teaches in Ireland. He is a philosopher. Here he is commenting on my blog post – “No More X-Rated Searches!!@!” (He has a wonderful blog, homophilosophicus, and if you don’t read it you are missing out on the works of a learned and thoughtful man.)

As Christians also, Dear James, we have a moral obligation to preserve the dignity of others. Without doubt there is the question of a trade-off between the perceived need for security and human dignity. My fear is that this too may be related to the circle; a refusal on the part of security keepers to acknowledge respect to the human person may fuel the need for security.

Jason Michael

He is absolutely right. There is a Christian duty here. We have a duty to God and man to act with respect and kindness to blameless others. We are failing in this.

These searches are indicative of a wider malaise in our society. Our willingness to accept any means to thwart a possible terrorist attack is turning us into shadows of human beings. We are so frightened we are unable to say stop without being attacked for “strengthening” the terrorists.

These searches are wrong.

These searches are an example of this nation losing its way.

We are better than this.

Tell me, if there is a terrorist attack at a grade school, are we going to pat down every six year old, run them through a magnetic resonance machine? What about at a federal building, the Statehouse, the Governor’s Mansion, County Courthouses? Are we going to get “felt” up everywhere we go? every bank? every factory? Where does the fear end? ever?

Should we start building bunkers in our backyards, stocking up a years supply of canned goods?

Is that where I live? Is that the moral fiber of my fellow citizens? To be led around by the nose like cattle because we’re afraid?

Are we like the cowardly lion, possessed of a half trillion dollar defense, but never feeling safe?

When do we start living with courage?

We don’t have to live like this.

James Pilant

A Comment On My Post – No More X-Rated Searches!!@!

On By southwerkIn ethics, Government Failure2 Comments

This is my friend, who writes under the name, “islammessageofpeace,” obviously, Islam, Message of Piece.

Wonderful writeup.
Frankly speaking, as a general inhabitant of this world and specifically as a Muslim (trying to spread the Message of Peace, Mercy and justice; the true Message of Islam), I really couldn’t buy any of the TSA Security Compliance. Honestly, there should be a balance between Security & Privacy.

In Islam, covering the Awrah (the intimate parts of the body) is to maintain modesty, privacy and morality. It is unlawful to expose oneself’s Awrah and is regarded as sin. For the Men the Awrah is from the Naval to the Knees and for the Women it is whole of the body.

It is mentioned in the Glorious Qur’an (Chapter 33 Al-Ahzab [The Parties]: Verse 59):
“O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks (veils) all over their bodies (i.e. screen themselves). That will be better, that they should be known (as free respectable women) so as not to be annoyed. And Allah is Ever OftForgiving, Most Merciful.”

I respect my friend’s beliefs. I hold to a different standard as a Christian. Nevertheless, I am fully in agreement that there are lines that should not be crossed save for the most dire reasons.

Surely here in the United States, we have some standard beyond which we are unwilling to be humiliated?

Is there no modesty, no dignity, which cannot be easily discarded in the name of security?

The religion of Islam states a clear line. Surely, the citizens can find some standard beyond which the government cannot go?

James Pilant

A Thirty Dollar Fee?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, President Obama, White Collar Crime

Now you, common middle class citizen, you have to pay a thirty dollar fee at a court house in most states for them to record a change in ownership in property. They have to do paperwork and change that little county map that shows who owns what. Now suppose you change the ownership again. You transfer it your spouse, your child, or you’re paying the fee as part of a sales contract. You have to pay a second thirty dollar fee.

Annoying, right? Of course, but has to be done. You have to know who owns what, right?

What if you don’t want to pay the second time? Well, you are out of luck there too. The state is not going to let you out of the fee. Besides without paying the fee, the records won’t show who owns the property, so it’s a good idea to pay it, right?

Everybody has to pay the fees, right??

No, they don’t.

If you are a bank using the MERS system, you don’t have to pay a second fee. (MERS = Mortgage Electronic Registry System)

You see all the transactions are done by computer therefore there is no fee for any transaction after the first one. The banks often transferred these properties dozens of times, but every transfer after the first one was free. Isn’t that great?

Now, you probably would like to say something dumb like, “Isn’t that state law?” Then you might follow it up with, “Doesn’t that mean they don’t own the property?!”

You silly person, don’t you realize this a is a banking institution? They are not like you.

They just decided not to pay.

See, when you want to change a law, you have to lobby and talk to people and ask the legislature to consider a bill changing the law, then it has to go through both houses and then be signed by the governor.

But when you are a bank, you simply decide not to pay the fees. It makes everything simple.

Now, there are those in this country who are bizarre individuals. Those strange people want the banks to cough up the money. So, the banks, their feelings deeply injured, have run to their friends in the United States Congress who are planning a surprise party for you.

At the surprise party a thinly clad financial industry lobbyist will leap out of a cake and tell you that Congress has legalized all that stuff that the banks have been doing for, Oh, about five years now.

Now you might ask another question at this point and it is not “Why aren’t I getting any cake?” Your question is “Doesn’t those payments to the country, those thirty dollars each time, aren’t those part of my county’s taxes?”

Why, yes, they are.

But remember, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he just took your county’s money and gave it to the banks.

What a sad story!

And it’s all true!!

From the Associated Press –

It used to be that every time a bank sold a mortgage, the county land recording office received a fee. It wasn’t much — $30 or so — but then real estate boomed in the 1990s and banks pooled millions of mortgages into securities that investors bought and sold.

One mortgage transaction became a dozen or more, and the tab grew ever larger. So the banks came up with a way around the fees. And now they are fighting to avoid perhaps tens of billions of dollars in penalties that have added up over the years.

From further down in the article –

MERS is “an admitted fee-avoidance scheme,” says Robert Hager, the Nevada lawyer who, along with his partner Treva Hearne, is filing the suits against MERS and its bank owners, including the government-backed mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie and Freddie provide a low-cost flow of funding to the nation’s mortgage markets by buying mortgages from lenders, packaging them into securities and then selling them to investors.

The suits were filed in California, Nevada and Tennessee and 14 undisclosed states where the cases are still under court seal. Hager and Hearne chose the states because their laws allow what are called false claims suits, in which citizens can take legal action against companies that may have cheated the government.

The suits allege that by privatizing public records, MERS enabled banks to circumvent American property law and bypass the counties’ fee and paperwork requirements, costing billions of dollars in lost revenue over more than a decade. MERS says its process is legal, and that the fees are not required under its system.

If only we were all banks!

James Pilant

MERS And Ownership

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, President Obama, White Collar Crime5 Comments

MERS, Mortgage Electronic Registry System, is a system used by the banks to evade paying fees or having to do the traditional paperwork necessary to change the ownership of property.

To quote the Associated Press –

MERS’ owners are all the big mortgage companies, including Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and GMAC. They are all facing a foreclosure-fraud investigation launched by all 50 state attorneys general, and all took government bailout money after the financial meltdown in 2008.

As I mentioned in my last posting, our lame duck Congress is thinking (if you could ever refer to their processing as having thought) of legalizing this system now, years after the major banks began using it with full knowledge of its legal problems. (Being a bank is very much like being in love in the movie, Love Story, you never have to say you are sorry.)

This is from the Washington Post. It explains why MERS is a problem.

I very much appreciate the Washington Post for developing this little picture and trust it was useful to you.

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

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

“Inside Job” The Director Speaks

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, Teaching, White Collar Crime3 Comments

Charles Ferguson directed the documentary “Inside Job.” He writes about his thoughts and conclusions from creating the documentary.

One of the things he found puzzling (as do I), doesn’t doing serious long term damage to the nation’s infrastructure like roads, bridges and education become a concern for the financial elites since over time it damages their American investments?

Here’s the answer.  (from the article) –

The financial services industry and the most successful American multinational firms now obtain rapidly increasing fractions, often already the majority, of their investment, employees, and revenues from (a) other wealthy individuals and corporations and/or (b) outside the United States. Over the last two decades their political interests, contributions, and lobbying have gradually followed these larger trends. As a result, the political duopoly has overseen a massive disinvestment in the future of the United States and the American people, and a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% of the population to the top 1%. Taxes on dividends, high incomes, capital gains, and estates have sharply declined, while tuition at public universities, hours worked per family, household debt, and government deficits have all increased.

They have no interest in the long term future of the nation. This nation is similar to the Wild West idea of Robbers’ Roost.

Robbers’ Roost is a town hidden in the hills where the outlaws go to hang out. There is no law there. They do what they feel like. They are safe from the sheriff and all those people they took stuff from.

The United States is going to be a great big friendly place for people with lots of money and few morals. One law for them. One law for us.

James Pilant

The trailer –

This Is Not A Recovery

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

I wrote this back in August. I haven’t changed my mind one bit. Whenever I read this nonsense about an economic recovery, I’m struck by how far away the commentator is from actual American life and how close he is to Washington.

So says Paul Krugman at the New York Times. And he’ right. This is the New Great Depression, the second in American history. It will always be remembered by future generations as Great Depression II, the second great depression. Just like the first world war failed to solve the problems that would eventually lead to the second world war, the same problems bit us a second time. The humiliating thing is that if we had continued with the protections from the first great depression we could have avoided much of the damage. But the claims and promises of an irresponsible and incompetent economic elite have led America and the rest of the world into disaster, a disaster these same creatures do not believe is happening since it has no effect on them except a persistent worry that their profession is being “demonized.” Demons would have had serious difficulty in doing more damage to more innocent lives.

James Pilant