In this articles, a British student thinks about the job market and the unemployed. This guy thinks his own way based on the data before him. In my opinion as an instructor, he may not make a lot of money, but he will spend his life in the world of ideas with a mind never subject to boredom because of inaction. He will live a life rich in thought and deed.
Maybe, just maybe, he hears the music of the spheres.
James Pilant
I read Paul Krugman’s columns in the New York Times on a daily basis. In this book, Krugman argues that government policy during the New Deal was responsible for creating a Middle Class society in the 1950’s and 1960’s and that if we so desire we can accomplish this again. He argues and I believe argues successfully that the destruction of American manufacturing, the decline of wages and the stagnation of our job opportunities are neither inevitable or the product of natural forces.
Here’s a nice paragraph –
A Progressive agenda, then, would require major changes in public policy, but it would be anything but radical. Its goal would be to complete the work of the New Deal, including expansion of social insurance to cover avoidable risks that have become vastly more important in recent decades. And as an economic matter, achieving that agenda would be eminently doable. It would amount to giving U.S. citizens no more than the level of protection from financial risk and personal misfortune that citizens of other advanced countries already have.
I am very much enjoying the book. If you want a copy you can go here on Amazon.
James Pilant
Not only are his views on blog success excellent, he is a fan of net neutrality. in my judgment, he is an ally.
Best paragraph – Well-written, original and researched material with relevant, high-quality content that is rich, but not over-saturated, with properly researched keywords and is linked to content-related sites – both yours and others – is the type of copy that works best. Though it requires more effort and time, it is the fastest, longest-lasting and certainly most profitable way to get ranked high on Google and stay there. Some people call it White Hat SEO. I call it honesty.
Good stuff.
James Pilant
Our author here believes that we can draw parallels and lessons from popular literature. So do I. I tell my students that literature tells you how people think, relate and improve themselves. It makes the reader subtle and develops insights.
Read to understand, read for knowledge, read to build judgment. Read so that you live at least a little while in your life in the company of others that you can have real insight into. Because very seldom in our lives do we bother to spend a few minutes understanding another.
Follow the writer’s thinking and see what you think.
James Pilant
Here we have a discourse on authority, a rare and precious gem. Few understand it. Most who believe they have it don’t. Those that understand it seldom explain. Can you tell if the author knows his subject or not?
Here’s a paragraph –
French and Raven identified five bases of power as: legitimate, referent, expert, reward and coercive. Legitimate power is authority. For example, police has legitimate power. Referent power arises from personal authority. It can be someone whom you like and want to follow (e.g your role model). When someone has expert power, that means this person has knowledge which others respect. Reward and Coercive power is the classic definition of carrot and stick. It means the person who holds the power to reward or punish has this type of power.
James Pilant
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I very much enjoyed this paper and hope as many people as possible read it.
James Pilant
The book sounds interesting; I will have to have a look at it.
I can be found here at Amazon. com.
James Pilant
via rumimibofyt
Here we discuss police lying and the legal fictions that figure so much in the language and practice of criminal justice. I like this paragraph –
My own belief is we are scared of transparency, partly because all our cupboards hide skeletons. When the ‘red witch’ placed at the heart of the hacking scandal admitted she knew her organization had paid police officers, this was seen as a blunder and admission of ‘criminality’. This is not the right approach and seems to be putting people we want to tell the truth in the same position as the police officer having to ‘game’ in the legal system.
I agree we do not value the truth so much as we value playing some strange kind of game designed to elude responsibility and honor.
James Pilant
The author has an excellent observation – this scandal, this pain for so many people, would never have happened if those tapped communications could not have been tapped. This is what he says in the key paragraphs of the article –
The point is that this should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. A virtual, mobile firewall or encrypted voice tech with unique access ID should always have been in place – as part of these corporations’ license obligations. And given that they have failed to ensure that this was the case, they too should be the focus of the media and political, regulatory scrum.
This whole sorry saga should be thrown before the courts and the regulators with the telcos in the dock alongside the greedy, opportunist perpetrators of these heinous anti-privacy protagonists. Privacy must be sacrosant under the British constitution, its common law upheld irrespective of who has the most money to bribe police officers to pass on private information.
It was cruel of these companies to have saved money and time and compassion by refusing to secure their networks privacy. I appreciate the author’s perceptiveness.
James Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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