The System Affects Morals

On By southwerkIn business ethics

The System Affects Morals

Circumstances have an effect on what we do. We can build systems that support and reinforce morality or we build systems that weaken and destroy morality.

Take this example from India. This is from an article entitled: – If no one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why.

Kanhaiya Lal desperately cries for help but motorists swerve straight past him. His young son and the splayed bodies of his wife and infant daughter lie next to the mangled motorbike on which they had all been travelling seconds earlier.

The widely broadcast CCTV footage of this scene – showing the suffering of a family of hit-and-run victims in northern India in 2013 and the apparent indifference of passers-by – troubled many Indians.

Some motorcyclists and police eventually came to the family’s aid but it was too late for Lal’s wife and daughter. Their deaths sparked a nationwide debate over the role of bystanders – the media hailed it as a “new low in public apathy” and worse, “the day humanity died”.

Why do people just walk away and do nothing in the face of such suffering? Are citizens of India evil and oblivious to suffering? Certainly not.

Then what’s going on?

In India if you assist a traffic victim the police assume you must be doing it out of guilt and they will likely arrest you and if they don’t you may wind up as a witness in a legal case. And in India, legal cases can drag for many years.

If that isn’t enough In India if you take someone to the hospital they are very likely to try to make you pay for their medical care.

There are efforts underway to change those rules and they are having an effect. India is re-writing its laws.

There are a lot of differences in our system compared to theirs. No one is likely to arrest you for calling an ambulance in an emergency or assume you caused the accident. If you take someone to the hospital they don’t try to bill you if you don’t know that person.

And the results are clear. When you encourage rescue, people get rescued. When you encourage people to not get involved, people die.

Are there examples where Americans are changing systems to encourage a lack of morality?

Absolutely, corporate and governmental decision making is increasingly divorced from any kind of moral code.

The sole concern of business is to make a profit for shareholders. It doesn’t matter whether or not you make a product, accomplish a goal, do good or even stay in compliance with the law. Money is all.

You can read articles where people discuss the idea that the only function of business is to make money. It’s an amazing experience. They hold the idea up of money (and sometimes greed) as the sole goal as if were a philosophical diamond, shining in the light. They talk about it as if they had found truth like King Arthur’s knights searching for the Holy Grail. As if it were obvious to any thinking human being that every other value was subordinate to money or to say it slightly differently, shareholder value.

What do we get when we train people to think only in terms of profit?

What’s happening now is what we get. Corporations that have no loyalty to anything that doesn’t make money. They evade taxes; refuse any responsibility for the communities and nations that have nurtured them. They have become moral free agents or more correctly amoral free agents. Like the superman of Friedrich Nietzsche, they are beyond the rules and expectations of lesser men.

I subscribe to another view. This is from Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation, EVANGELII GAUDIUM, section 55:

One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.

Corporations were created in nations like the United States to allow investors to come together to create great economic projects that could live beyond their creator lifetimes. They were not designed to be our masters or our destroyers.

Each system to encourage right actions and morality has to be based on an ethical system. If India can change its laws to encourage people to save the injured in car accidents, we can change our focus from simple profit to wider moral concerns that include a respect for law and an abiding loyalty to the United States.

James Pilant

The Strange Truth about Fat

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

The Strange Truth about Fat

One of the key things about ethics is the necessity of truth. There has to be a basic respect for the truth particularly in the form of facts.

One of the most basic human questions is, “what should we eat?” That query has been debated for all time and it is of vital importance. The more you get it right, the more likely you are to live healthier and longer and the more you get it wrong the more likely you are to feel bad and live briefly.

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The Strange Truth about Fat

A classic example would the brief popularity of radium dosed health drinks in the early years of the twentieth century, one particular drink being on the market from 1918 to 1928, with the side effect of radiation poisoning which could rise to a fatal dose. We know now that this was a very bad choice, indeed.

But many of our food choices are not so easily resolved. Take the subject of fat. By conventional wisdom, fat is bad – you eat too much and you gain weight. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. The strange truth about fat is that it sort of depends on the circumstances. Read this from the Guardian section on health –

Fear of fat is misplaced and guidelines that restrict it in our diets are wrong, say the Spanish researchers who have followed more than 7,000 people, some eating 30g of nuts or 50ml of extra virgin olive oil a day while others were put on a standard low-fat diet. Their research, they say, should put healthy fats – from vegetables and fish – back on the menu, changing attitudes and the way we eat.

A couple of years ago, I began eating avocados and was shocked to read how much fat was in them but then my follow up studying on the subject indicated that while they did have a great deal of fat in them, this did not seem to translate into weight gain. This was a big challenge to my “fat bad – protein good” diet ideas of the past.

I’d been taught as a child that weight gain was simple mathematics. If you ate more calories than you burned, you gained weight. But now it appears that all this is conditional based on a number of factors.

I know of one diet where the benefits are concentrated on your abdomen, the Abs Diet. The concept here is that certain kinds of food bring fat to certain parts of the body but not necessarily to others. You eat the right ones and exercise and the fat changes locale.

Now, this is not my field and I don’t know and I don’t expect to know absolute answers to that basic human question, “What should we eat?” But I do know that science moves and that facts can change and that as, a thinking human being, I have to move with the facts.

It’s a vital moral lesson. Unless morality and ethics are discussed and reasoned through using the best and most accurate information possible we will ere and not do what is best.

In a way, the discussion of food is a microcosm of all other vital subjects. Some facts may be in disputer. Other beyond. There is and will be a great deal of controversy. And yet, decisions must be made and they will be imperfect as we lack total information. But we have a duty as moral creatures to act on the best information possible.

Our duty is not to be always right but to try to do right.

James Pilant

My Colleague, Jayaraman Rajah Iyer, Responds to the Ethics Sage

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

My Colleague, Jayaraman Rajah Iyer, Responds to the Ethics Sage

Yesterday, I posted a brief segment from The Ethics Sage’s blog post,  The Ethical Link Between Our Beliefs and Our Actions. Afterwards I received the selection below from Jayarman Rajah Iyer. He tells me it is from one of his books and is copyrighted but gave me permission to post it as a standard blog post, which is what we have now. 

Jayaraman Rajah Iyer
Jayaraman Rajah Iyer

Please read the work of my distinguished colleague. 

James Pilant

Dilemma exists because of the truth. Truth is paradoxical; it contains the opposite values. That’s why Truth is illogical. “Logic” means something, which doesn’t have an opposite, which is straight, which is not paradoxical. Truth is always paradoxical; and so it has opposite values, and therefore there is a moral dilemma.

Equation

When X^2 = 4, what is x?
X = √4, going further
√4 = ?
√4 Ξ ±2.
Ξ, is a symbol with three dashes meaning – identically equal to. Without this symbol Ξ, the equation is not accurate.
In this equation X acquires two values that are not just equal but identically equal to +2 as well -2.

X acquires two opposite “values” and not opposed to each other. They are in the same plane.
±are two aspects of a single movement, like a pendulum. One second it could be sitting in one and the next at the other end. When we stand on the equator and look at North Pole and South Pole they are so far apart. But it is no different from a small coin having two sides head and tail, when North and South Poles are watched from the moon. Poles apart, true but Earth is a single indivisible unit. Genghis Khan and Gandhi are in the same plane but with different values. Both belong to the same species. It is like identifying left hand and right hand but they are part of the single inseparable unit. That’s the truth. Truth always and completely involves opposite values, and then only it can be truth.

Prof. Mintz writes: Q: “What are Donald Trump’s true beliefs? Does he love Mexicans and employ thousands of them as he says even though he will act to build a wall at the border and he disparages a judge with a Mexican heritage? What about Hillary Clinton? She seems to say one thing one day (i.e., supports the Trans-Pacific Pipeline deal) just to change her position on the TPP like a chameleon and pledge to veto it simply because Bernie Sanders adopted a position against it that appeals to the general Democratic electorate.” UQ

Opposite values give a clue. Illustratively: “I used to smoke 40 cigarettes a day, now I don’t”. There is something missing in this statement that could give raise to some doubts. When the person is found smoking a few minutes later one can get a reply: “I used to smoke 40 earlier, now I smoke 45 cigarettes a day”. The statement has a shortfall that none of the other reasoning would be able to dig out the truth. Inference would at the most, confirm that this person doesn’t look like a nonsmoker. If a person wants to make certain to the other person to communicate clearly, then he has to say: “I used to smoke 40 cigarettes a day, now I have given up smoking”. A clarity is clearly evident in the statement without any doubt. In the said statement: “I used to smoke 40 cigarettes a day, a. now I don’t and b. now I have given up smoking”, ‘giving up smoking’ gives the clarity for the opposite value.

Let us view the statement: “The fat Mr.X doesn’t eat during daytime”. Though Mr.X does not eat during daytime, he still remains a fat fellow. How? We guess that he must be eating at night. There is something contradictory about an individual not eating and still not being thin. Our guess that he eats at night does not belong to the category of inference. To make an inference there must be a hint or clue in the original statement itself. There must be a “reference” like smoke from fire, thunder from clouds. Here there is no such reference.

Donald Trump never categorically stated that he hates Mexicans. He only said he would build the wall to protect employment within. Trump said U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel had “an absolute conflict” in presiding over civil fraud proceedings against Trump University because he was “of Mexican heritage.” Does it mean Trump says all Mexicans hate USA?

Jayaraman Rajah Iyer

The Ethics Sage Explains Cognitive Dissonance

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics3 Comments

My friend, Steven Mintz, better known as the Ethics Sage, has a new posting on his web site, entitled: The Ethical Link Between Our Beliefs and Our Actions.

Cognitive dissonance is one of the important concepts in ethics, how so often our actions and ideas are in conflict and how we manage to reconcile what to so many would seem simple hypocrisy. Mintz explains the concept and its significance in a brief and clear essay.

Below are the first two paragraphs from the blog post –

Cognitive Dissonance and Ethical Decision-Making

A highly ethical person knows his or her values, principles and beliefs. Those values, principles and beliefs would then determine one’s actions when faced with an ethical dilemma. A person who does not understand or fully know his or her values, principles and beliefs, might act in an ethical situation without thinking through the consequences to others, known as System 1 thinking, rather than first considering how our actions affect others, or System 2 thinking. Later on, rationalizations may be used to reconcile actions to ethical beliefs and reduce cognitive dissonance, that is, the disconnect between what our belief says we should do and what we actually do.

A person who always justifies or rationalizes his actions has a flexible belief system or is lacking in the moral virtues and consistency in behavior. In effect justifications and rationalizations become the belief system of that person and relativistic’ situational considerations inform decision-making rather than sound ethical principles.

The Ethics Sage
The Ethics Sage Explains Cognitive Dissonance

As always, in the case of this author, I recommend that you visit his web site and read the full article. And maybe stay and look at some of his other work.

James Pilant

Business Ethics Roundup 6 10 2016

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

Business Ethics Roundup 6 10 2016

Item one –

House financial committee chair to propose overhaul of Dodd-Frank law

If you read, overhaul, and instead saw the word, abolish, in your mind, you are reading the article correctly. The House Financial committee lives in a world where the virtuous capitalist bankers who came within a hair of destroying the world economy in 2007 are being victimized by (well, people like me) regulators when in reality, they are the engines of wealth who if liberated will make us all happy and free.

The house would recreate the conditions that produced the disaster. It appears that facts and history have no place in this discussion. The idea that the “free market, “ a myth similar to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, will right all wrongs and make us free has many adherents in the House of Representatives.

 

Item two –

 

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jun/07/as-a-worker-on-the-great-barrier-reef-im-ashamed-to-look-my-children-in-the-eye

This is a very sad article about the degradation of the one of the world’s natural wonders and the Australian government’s role in the ecological disaster. I recommend you read it in full.

 

Item three

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-warren/koch-brothers-charles-blahous_b_10325224.html

 

The Koch Brothers Are Trying To Handpick Government Officials. We Have To Stop Them. – is the title of the article. It explains how the Koch Brothers are using the influence to choose candidates for various government posts. It’s a damning indictment of a government being primed to run for the benefit of billionaires and their lackeys.

 

Item four

 

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/06/06/3785278/dc-pension-divests/

 

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Business Ethics Roundup 6 10 2016

Entitled – Another Giant Pension Fund Divested From Oil, Coal, And Gas Companies, this article talks about the surprising and growing success of the effort to divest funds from fossil fuels. This is a form or opt out shareholder democracy similar in some ways to the South African economic boycott of thirty years ago. Is there a strong moral element in this movement? I think so and it is vital if capitalism is to survive along with societies that use those means of running an economy that a solid conception of right and wrong be returned to decision making.

Twenty Minutes of Action?

On By southwerkIn Opinion

Twenty Minutes of Action?

I was cruising the news and commentary sites looking for a significant business ethics subject to write about today. I wanted to avoid talking about the “Stanford Swimmer Who Raped Unconscious Woman” story.  As the media buzz accumulated I felt that there were plenty of people writing about it and my two cents weren’t needed. But then I read the father of the criminal had called for mercy saying his son had only got “twenty minutes of action.”

At first when I read it this morning, it was annoying like a fly buzzing about my consciousness but by this afternoon, it had morphed into an angry dragon and I knew what I was going to write about.

There is so much wrong here.

First, we have the usual two tiered system of justice which I have written about before. A privileged youth is given a sentence which seems totally out of proportion to the crime. This is definitely one of those cases.

This crime is vicious. He raped an unconscious woman. And yet the judge found that, “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him,” – Yes, I suppose it would. Prison is supposed to do that.  But the judge gave the rapist six months in jail and probation as opposed to the prosecution’s recommendation of six years.

Second, he doesn’t seem to have gotten the message that he did something wrong and far worse, he doesn’t seem to care.

In her 12-page victim impact statement, that has spread on social media, the woman noted that Turner has only admitted to being drunk that night, but has not acknowledged that he assaulted her and has continued to argue that the encounter was consensual.

 

Twenty Minutes of Action
Twenty Minutes of Action

The judge seemed to show some sympathy to Turner’s perspective. “I take him at his word that subjectively that’s his version of his events. … I’m not convinced that his lack of complete acquiescence to the verdict should count against him,” he said.

 

Dauber said she was further shocked to see Persky minimize the significance of the guilty verdicts, which came from a jury of eight men and four women. The judge said at sentencing: “A trial is a search for the truth. It’s an imperfect process.”

The Apple did not Fall Far from the Tree

Third, we have the father’s statement from the probation pre-sentencing report. Many commentators have focused on the “twenty minutes of action” comment but I tend to focus on the first line: “As it stands now, Brock’s life has been deeply altered by the events of Jan 17th and 18th.”

It gives the impression that his son didn’t do anything but was the victim of some natural event like a rainstorm or a stiff breeze. A more honest statement might have read – “My son, Brock has severely damaged his future prospects by raping an unconscious woman.” But no. You can read the entire statement without getting the impression that Brock did anything wrong until you think about the implications of the “twenty minutes of action.” It is possible to perceive that Brock may have chosen to spend that twenty minutes unwisely.

But the father’s statement gets even better if we go down about two thirds of the way. You’ll love this line. I did. “He has no prior criminal history and has never been violent to anyone including his actions on the night of Jan 17th 2015.”

He raped a woman without violence? How does that work? Was it a soft, pleasant assault? I am going to go with  – No, it wasn’t. It was a rape, an act of violence.

There is no responsibility here. As far as I can tell, the family is running with the idea that there are two victims both assaulted by un-indicted evil monster of binge drinking. Drinking does not and will never excuse rape. Not to mention the fact, that Brock was sober enough to run away when caught.

There is only one victim, the woman who was violated. And there is not another victim but a criminal, a criminal who did everything under the circumstances to evade justice. And this criminal and his family have failed to own up to what has been done.

And yet, the father does not feel his son should be imprisoned because Brock “is totally committed to educating other college age students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity.”

That’s right. Brock is now a sort of missionary carrying a vital message to his fellow youth that people should avoid large quantities of alcohol and sex. Except Brock isn’t a victim of alcohol or promiscuity. Brock took advantage of an unconscious woman to perform an act of violation. Brock is a convicted felon, a criminal who did the unthinkable.

No man of decency or with a shred of honor could bring himself to violate a sleeping woman much less a drunk or incapacitated one. A gentleman’s duty when confronted with an unconscious woman is one of protection and help. He must insure her safety and get her assistance.

This criminal failed in his duty and directly harmed a helpless woman. There should be punishment befitting this crime.

What is the lesson we can derive from this sorry mess of a case? Very simple. If you have money, position and power and can make a statement blaming your crime on a climate of binge drinking and promiscuity, you can evade many of the consequences for your actions. That’s wrong.

That is not a lesson I am content with but it is the one we have.

James Pilant

 

Voting and Power!

On By southwerkIn Editorial2 Comments

Voting and Power!

There is a genuine disgust and cynicism about the government and how it functions here in the United States. I share that disgust and like so many find many other institutions in this society lacking.

However, we can vote. It is a slender reed but it may yet prove to be important enough to inaugurate some kind of meaningful change in a system rigged against us.

If you can vote in a primary, please vote. But above all vote in the November election. “They” are always saying that this is the most important election in your lifetime. But this time, it looks like that is the call. We have a history making election that could change all of our lives in so many different ways.

I know that there are those who want to blow up this system. And to you, I say, I understand. I get the pain of feeling that the government has forgotten you, sold your jobs and your future. But there is still time, there is still hope, there are still possibilities.

Vote one more time. This is great nation that has forgotten that all must share in economic benefits not just the wealthy and the well-connected. But that can be just temporary forgetting. The path is still here. The course is still to be found. We can get back on track and have a government that serves the interest of us all.

I ask you to give it another chance and participate in this election.

One of my friends, (from Ireland and Scotland) has written something about voting a power that I like and value. Maybe you’ll like it too.

002-1The excerpt below is from Random Public Journal, the web site of my good friend, Jason Michael McCann, the essay in question being Overthrowing this Kingdom.

Voting? What was that? What sort of silly loon would waste their time casting a vote? Those that did, marked their paper and chucked it down the pan – for all the good it would do in making things any different for them. In our 300 years of London rule the ballots of Scotland had as much use in Westminster politics as toilet paper. Voting on polling day was the ruin of a decent walk. Change only came about when we re-opened our own parliament up in Edinburgh, and then the transformation began. It turns out, after all, that we are genetically programmed to make political decisions and think political thoughts. Somewhere it was written:

Today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.

These were always highfalutin words, best kept I thought for school assemblies, until it dawned on me that they were speaking about us. We’ve only been kept in chains by our own consent; be that as working people under management and ownership or a nation under the heel of an empire. It was we ourselves who put up the red stones on John Finnie Street, and it was our own people who broke the backs of nations to prosper imperialists, and just as surely as we did all that we can rip it all back down and build it again to the prosperity of ourselves. It is us who have been appointed over our nation, to pluck up and pull down a kingdom, to overthrow it and utterly destroy it, and plant and build up a nation for ourselves.

He does have the eloquence, doesn’t he? I’ve told him some day I’ll have to come hear him preach. (That’s the American way of talking – preaching, etc.) I think they minister in Ireland.

But he has the same message as me. This is a good time to participate and make your vote felt.

James Pilant

Donald Trump and Gold Elite

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics4 Comments

Donald Trump and Gold Elite

What’s “Gold Elite?” Gold Elite is apparently the ultimate best educational package offered by Trump University. It ran for three days and cost $34,995, and during that time, “you will learn everything to make a million dollars…”

In a legitimate good faith bargain, value is exchanged for value, for instance, labor is exchanged for money: a lawn mowed for twenty-five dollars. In a scam, the appearance of a good faith bargain is created but the no real value is exchanged.

I would have liked to have looked at these transactions and concluded that it was a matter of opinion as to whether or not this was just a way to separate people from their money. But can an objective observor conclude that this was something beside a scam?

In an article from the Guardian, recent revelations from the ongoing trial are discussed. Here is an excerpt:

In documents released yesterday in a court order from federal judge Gonzalo Curiel, internal Trump University “playbooks” revealed how salespeople were encouraged to sign up prospective students to Gold Elite three-day packages for $34,995 each. In a message from Trump, those who signed up were told: “Only doers get rich. I know that in these three packed days, you will learn everything to make a million dollars within the next 12 months.”

Potential students were subject to high-pressure sales pitches where they were told “Your plan is BROKEN and WE WILL help you fix it” and encouraged to put the cost of Trump courses on their personal credit cards.

And then there is this from Clementine Amidon writing for the Huffington Post:

But — you’ve gotta spend money to make money. And so, according to Schnackenberg, “Trump University speakers told students to raise their credit card limits so that they could be ready to purchase real estate.” Then, speakers pressured those students to use their new sky-high credit to purchase more classes at the institution, like the $35,000 “Elite” program. For such a hefty price, participants could learn about real-estate … from diamond salesmen! That’s right — Schnackenberg said a jewelry maker with no real estate business experience led some Trump seminars.

Schnackenberg said that “not a single customer who paid for a Trump University seminar programs [sic] went on to successfully invest in real estate based upon the techniques that they were taught.” Gosh, that tends to happen when you are using a diamond weight estimator card to figure out a condo’s value.

I think a reasonable person looking at the court documents would conclude that Trump University was not a legitimate educational institution and that this was simply a scheme to make money.

James Pilant

P.S. You can read some of the documents here and decided for yourself:

‘Trump University’ Documents Put On Display Aggressive Sales Techniques : The Two-Way : NPR
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/31/480214102/trump-university-playbooks-released-by-court-advise-being-courteous-to-media

static.politico.com/25/88/783a0dca43a0a898f3973da0086f/trump-university-playbook.pdf
http://static.politico.com/25/88/783a0dca43a0a898f3973da0086f/trump-university-playbook.pdf

Testimony From Ronald Schnackenberg, a Former Employee of Trump University – The New York Times

Income Inequality in Britain

On By southwerkIn Capitalism

Income Inequality in Britain

Below is a selection from my friend, Jason Michael McCann’s, blog, Random Public Journal’s, latest offering, Westminster’s Power is Unjustified. 

Power in the state is justified only by the state’s ability to protect the people over which it asserts that power. British rule over the whole of the United Kingdom has been self-serving to the point of criminal inequality. Its power is no longer justified.

If you want power over me then you had better be ready to prove to me that you deserve that power. The sole justification of the state’s power over the lives of people is its ability to provide for the freedom, security, and the welfare of those people. Britain is currently ranked as the twenty-third wealthiest nation in the world, and yet, staggeringly, it is the six most unequal in the developed world in terms of income. After four decades of unchecked Thatcherite neoliberalism, with money being sucked up to the top of the economy, no less than twenty percent of the population are trapped below the poverty line. Income inequality in Britain is greater today than it was when Charles Dicken wrote Hard Times.

I believe that income inequality here in the United States as well as in Great Britain and Ireland have a moral component. There is something unseeemly in the economic benefits of a society flowing to a handful of its members while much of the population loses ground and becomes more insecure.

If you watch the actors in 1960’s television programs like Gunsmoke, you’ll often seen the stuntmen playing small parts as members of crowds, parties, jurors, etc. In the episodes where there were no stunts to be performed it was customary to make sure they still had some income. And it wasn’t just in Hollywood that this kind of kindness was practiced, there was an expectation that there would be human decency in all walks of life.

But somehow, somewhere, the accountants took over and the world of business began to focus not on human beings, making a product, or even some modicum of service to the nation, but on pure profit. And that profit is realized more and more by turning away from investment and from making products to stock manipulation chiefly by stock buy backs – companies buying their own stock instead of looking toward the future or anywhere else.

Human decency, compassion, and kindness are outmoded models of conduct in the modern business world. In fact, they are often considered gateway “drugs” to the theft of monies from the shareholders. Pensions, disaster relief, scholarships, etc; are all stealing from the worthy investor and giving to the undeserving fellow citizens like our children.

Morality and citizenship are key factors in the success of modern civilizations. What can become of us in a land where greed is the only rationale for every action? We’ll get what’s happening now, a loss of faith in our basic institutions, the perception that every politician, every pundit, every newspaper, every television station are bought and paid for, and that playing by the rules is a game for suckers.

We are seeing the breakdown of this society and quite possibly the end of our civilization.

James Pilant

Bye Paul Krugman

On By southwerkIn Editorial2 Comments

Bye Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman was the first web site I read every morning for years. I didn’t read the column so much as his blog which seemed more personal and in depth.

Many, many times, his clever observations on economics delighted me.

i_286All went well for many years, he wrote – I appreciated. But then Bernie Sanders ran for President.

It seemed to me like just another Democratic primary. I’m for Sanders but to Krugman, it appeared as if a horned helmeted barbarian was stomping in his yard, and he took to his column and blog in outrage.

At first, I thought this was a phase that would pass. Somebody would take him aside and say, “Hey Paul, try not to get too excited about this guy, remember there are a lot of people who side with your economic view who are also supporters of his.” But apparently no one did and the columns became more and more – well, just weird. Try this one – My Unicorn Problem or this one, Sanders Over the Edge. I would have appreciated a little neutrality in the race particularly considering that Hilary Clinton and her former President spouse seem to have precious little use for him or his economic views.

I can’t see being a Democrat and being a Clinton supporter as having to be the same thing. I think I can be a more progressive Democrat and back another candidate for the nomination.

So, bye Paul! Enjoyed the columns.

James Pilant

In case, you think I’m alone in my estimates of the Krugman columns – read below-

Paul Krugman, who has turned his New York Times column into a mouthpiece for Clinton talking points, told us (not for the first time) that Sanders and his supporters were ill-informed about how things worked in the real world, and needed to get off his lawn.

Paul Krugman has been waging a one-man war against Bernie Sanders, lobbing bombs and missiles from his perch at the New York Times, in column after blog post after column. It is interesting that has chosen to repeatedly smear Bernie, ad nauseum, rather than try to promote some positive qualities about Hillary Clinton or her record, about which he has said very little. Perhaps it is because for Krugman, who is neither a moderate Republican nor a conservative Democrat, nor a neoconservative militarist on foreign policy, it’s not so easy for him to promote Hillary.

But to argue, as Krugman does, that the Sanders campaign has “lost its ethical moorings” by going after Clinton’s relationship with fossil fuel lobbyist is wrong-headed and misses the entire point of his campaign. Sure, we can quibble about the specific amount of dollars Clinton has accepted from the industry, and perhaps Sanders has exaggerated on this front, but there’s no question money has indeed been exchanged.

And last, from the web site, Beat the Press:

I have tremendous respect for Paul Krugman. I also consider him a friend. For these reasons I am not eager to pick a fight with him, but there is something about his criticisms of Bernie Sanders that really bothered me.