Accountability, how strange. I have doubts that such a poor performance would always cost the job of an American CEO. We have learned to insulate our governing and corporate classes from the petty pain of suffering for their actions.
Here’s a news story about the resignation.
Here’s another take on the issue, discussing whether or not the company can continue.
One of my friends on Facebook commented on a post. He included a link. I clicked on the link and the malware loaded itself directly into my computer bypassing my defensive systems which cost me a fortune. I’m … unhappy.
I have removed the fellow from my Facebook associates since the “Fool me twice” is something I firmly believe in.
I’m not sure what the damn thing is doing. I’m confronted by the choice of wiping my hard drive to get it or hoping my systems will limit the damage.
Thanks for bearing with my computer problems.
James Pilant
I’ve loved maps since I was a little boy. Unfortunately today’s map is something of a downer, a comparison of the Cesium fallout from the two disasters.
I didn’t say it wasn’t depressing.
James Pilant
From Not all alleged is apparent ….
This sounds like a really interesting book. I’ve heard empathy discussed as a factor in psychopathology but never as an explanation for evil. Perhaps there is an implication that those doing evil are also psychopaths but in a limited or lessor way.
This is interesting stuff and if the author’s ideas are subject to test, we may have new ways of thinking about crime and even the proper role of government.
James Pilant
Special Thanks to Blame the Amygdala.
This sounds like a really interesting book. I’ve heard empathy discussed as a factor in pyschopathology but never as an explanation for evil. Perhaps there is an implication that those doing evil are also psychopaths but in a limited or lessor way.
This is interesting stuff and if the author’s ideas are subject to test, we may have new ways of thinking about crime and even proper role of government.
James Pilant
Special Thanks to Blame the Amygdala.
I suspect that Japan will retreat from nuclear power only temporarily. The influence of TEPCO, a very passive government sympathizing media and an aggressive nuclear industry will work for the necessary years to bring reactors back to the table as a choice.
However, over the next few years while the press, the government and industry struggle for more nuclear power, Japan will have to seek other energy sources. Should these prove workable and successful, history may be changed.
What is ethical here? Those pushing nuclear power argue that it is proven technology with only the most occasional of problems and that these problems are highly overrated. Those opposed point to its enormous cost, regular reports of problems, the vexing conundrum of what to do with spent nuclear fuel and disasters whose full scope won’t be known for centuries.
I believe that the pro-nuclear side has enormous sums of money on its side and that this may be blinding them to any interest but their own. On the other side of the argument, it is very difficult to point to any large number of those opposed to nuclear power and say, “You only oppose nuclear power because if we quit building nuclear power plants, you will become immensely wealthy.”
Ethics gets twisted when there is money and the more money the worse the ethical problems become.
I worry that in the United States today, the only sound heard on many issues is the rustle of the green.
James Pilant
Special thanks to madaboutthenews.
TWO months after the explosions and radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, the prime minister, Naoto Kan, has announced that the country will not build any new reactors.
If Kan really means it, the government will have to abandon the plans for expanding nuclear power it adopted only last year. To make up the energy shortfall, Kan has set the ambitious goal of using renewables.
From further down in the article –
It is questionable morally to use money and influence to diminish or destroy the rights of Americans. It is questionable morality to subvert or buy the media to prevent unfavorable stories or to spread lies and misinformation. And it is questionable morality to buy influence at American universities so that your perverted economic doctrines can become mainstream, to use public institutions as private breeding grounds for followers, to pollute the social science with the continuous contributions of bought academics, not searching for the truth, but in opposition to it.
Shall large Christian denominations dispose of evolutionary biology using the same methods? Shall opponents of gay marriage dispose of social scientists using the same methods? Shall we give up the field of criminology, after high dollar contributors insist that crime is produced by demonic possession?
Think of the possibilities! These independent researchers, these tenured beasts, all brought to heel. Is global warming a problem? Buy enough academics and it disappears. Some damn nosy professor says dumping radioactive material can damage our genetic heritage, that can be fixed. We can buy as many professors as we want. History can become what we want. The very definition of reality can be changed, literature and painting cleansed of subversive influences.
Are public universities in need of money? Let them get money the old-fashioned way. Haven’t people justified their immoral actions by saying they did it because it was part of the job and they had to feed their families? Haven’t people said they had to do it, it was part of the job? Let’s put academics in that same boat. They shall have their jobs only if they give the proper respect to the contributors, only if their search for truth is predetermined, I promise you that every university in this nation will be rolling in money the moment they realize just like Florida State University that selling the “right” kind of education is more profitable than the pursuit of knowledge. Educating the young has never been very profitable.
We can double, triple administrative salaries. We can build new buildings and a first class physical plant. There will be stadiums and first class football teams at the smallest of institutions. No more begging to the state legislatures, the money will never stop. Donors will compete against each other for professors. If one gets five, then the other must have six.
We can price them. The more influential the professor, the more money they will be worth. It’s easy to measure, who’s on television more often. Who testifies before Congress the most. Whether or not they teach or get published is insignificant. Who wants to buy that?
We have sold so much in this country. Let’s follow free market economics to their logical conclusion.
The brave new world of green is out there waiting for us. Let us walk forward bravely, open palm extended, to sell our last possession, our integrity.
James Pilant
via Wake-up Call
I found this an interesting review with many references to morality. Take this quote below –
Everyone agrees that The Pale King enshrines boredom. What has been glossed over, however, is how fiercely and unrepentantly American these pages are. Yes, the book expounds upon the marvels of boredom and the “heroic” nature of doing a quiet but necessary task without audience or recognition, but juxtaposed are endless descriptions of bureaucracies, American culture at its most dysfunctional, and even extended Platonian dialogues about the decline of American society, complete with terms that never fail to surface in today’s news: “liberal individualism,” “corporations,” “conservatives,” “founding fathers,” “consumer capitalism,” etc. “Americans are crazy,” one character remarks to another: “We infantilize ourselves. We don’t think of ourselves as citizens—parts of something larger to which we have profound responsibilities. We think of ourselves as citizens when it comes to our rights but not our responsibilities.” The selfishness described here again harkens back to Wallace’s speech, in which he revealed that our “natural, hardwired default setting” is to be “deeply and literally self-centered.”
If the reference is to our ethical and moral responsibility, I quite agree. However, the “hard wired” setting to be deeply and literally self centered, is ridiculous, we are just as hard wired to be cooperative and self sacrificing. That being deeply and literally self centered is an American doctrine used to justify cruel and immoral policies and actions. If humans are self centered monsters salivating after every last moment of pleasure and every conceivable possession, than we can justify every kind of lie and cruelty in the name of social control.
Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed the review and I would like you to read it.
James Pilant
My thanks to Patrick Nathan
via Patrick Nathan
Once again we see who is important in Washington. Giant highly profitable oil companies get the help they want need while the public pays the full amount at the gas pump.
From the article at CBS News –
“Symbolic votes like this that aim to do nothing but pit people against each other will only frustrate the public even more,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.
“Americans really aren’t interested in scapegoats,” he continued. “They just want to pay less to fill up their cars. That’s why this Democratic bill to tax American energy is an affront to the American people.”
I can think of 2 billion reasons this is not a “symbolic” vote and if by pitting people against each other, you mean calling the multibillion dollar profiting oil companies being called to task for their cynical political machinations, pitting people against each other, you are a very cynical man.
Is it ethical to manipulate Congress for relief from taxes when you run an extremely profitable multi-national corporation? It is ethical to call your opponents Un-American for wanting fair taxation?
You do not have to do a deep analysis of the ethical components here. This is a tragedy for the American people that evades the word, theft, by a razor’s edge.
More significant is that both these oil companies and the congressmen protecting them can be found day after day preaching with complete and apparent total conviction the value and importance of free markets. But we see here the colossal hypocrisy, basically six large corporations dictating to a suppliant congress a vast competitive advantage over any competitors. What about the innovation and low prices that competition brings about? Where’s that?
I have been told I am shrill. Explain to me at a time when there are serious plans to limit or eliminate Medicare and Social Security, why these companies should be able to evade their taxes. Tell me. Apparently this nation deserves no tax money from corporations since we don’t provide laws, roads, education, or a horde of ships, tanks, and planes to defend their property. Yeah, I’m shrill. Isn’t someone supposed to look out for the citizens?
From time to time I explain these things to people and they ask me who they should vote for. I tell them honestly, “There is no one.” The only difference between the two parties is in the level of obedience that lobbyists can command. I believe the welfare of the American people figure at most peripherally in the affairs of our government.
James Pilant
I had the same thought. According the court, if the police attack my home, I am supposed to be cooperative and then complain through proper channels. What if I like my home (and possessions) a lot? Won’t this make the police feel a little too comfortable about hitting the “wrong” house?
This guy doesn’t like the ruling. I don’t like the ruling.
James Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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