Tag: corruption

$6.64 Billion Damages Sought over Israeli Government and AIPAC Use of Stolen Classified US Trade Data (via Aletho News)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

What a surprise! A union between commercial interests and the government, the only surprise being in this case it concerns another nation.

This is nasty. The government of Israel stole diplomatic information on trade and commerce and handed it over to their business community giving those businesses an enormous and illicit advantage.

When should the government cooperate with industry? We can argue over where and when it is ethical. But can we really argue with direct illegality? I don’t think so. It was wrong to use privileged information, not just because it was illegal but because it endangers all future international cooperation.

This is not the first time the government of Israel has acted as a rogue government. It will not be the last.

James Pilant

Grant F. Smith | IRmep | May 24, 2011 WASHINGTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today the Section 301 Committee of the US Trade Representative formally received a petition demanding $6.64 billion in compensation for US exporters. In 1984 US exporters were urged to submit business confidential data about their prices, market share, internal costs and market strategy to the International Trade Commission. The USTR guaranteed confidentiality and compiled the dat … Read More

via Aletho News

JOIN NOW! 200,000 SIGNATURE DRIVE FOR ELIZABETH WARREN RECESS APPOINTMENT (via Livinglies’s Weblog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Let’s get in there and put pressure on Obama to get this nomination done. The banks and the special interests have allied to block it. They are trying to kill the agency before any work can be done. Their crimes and unethical behavior will not be brought into the light without the agency.

Please go sign the petition. Elizabeth Warren will make a difference.

James Pilant

JOIN NOW! 200,000 SIGNATURE DRIVE FOR ELIZABETH WARREN RECESS APPOINTMENT GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION ANALYSIS – CLICK HERE EDITOR’S NOTE:  A recess appointment is one in which the President appoints someone during a congressional recess. I’m no expert on the details but I know that recess appointments have been extensively used, particularly by the Bush administration to get around the requirement of getting congressional approval. If Congress is not in session, the President makes the appointment because the p … Read More

via Livinglies’s Weblog

Worker march blocked- Phnom Penh Post (via Mu Sochua: MP & Human Rights Advocate)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Are workers entitled to severance pay when their facility burns down? It is not the custom in the United States. Is it the custom in Cambodia? If it is, should the cultural expectation override the “realities of global competition?”

It took many years for Patriotism, human decency and custom to disappear as issues in the loss of jobs in the United States, how long will it take in Cambodia? Or will it at all? In some countries, is the perception of fairness still a major issue?

James Pilant

Police in Sen Sok district blocked a march planned for yesterday by workers from the June Textile garment factory, who have been demanding severance payments since the facility burned down in March. Roughly 100 workers and activists gathered outside June Textile yesterday, planning to march to the capital’s Freedom Park and to government buildings. Read the full article at the Phnom Penh Post website. trackback urlhttp://www.phnompenhpost.com/ind … Read More

via Mu Sochua: MP & Human Rights Advocate

While You Were Sleeping, They Abolished the Fourth Amendment (via Evil of indifference)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

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

“Two recent Supreme Court cases have served to virtually abolish the Fourth Amendment in the United States of America, with citizens no longer being “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”” “In a precedent described by dissenting justices as “breathtaking” and “unnecessarily broad,” the Indiana Supreme Court ruled last week in a 3-2 vote that doing anything to resist police busting down … Read More

via Evil of indifference

Who will make them pay? (via Livinglies’s Weblog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Let’s saddle up! The Wall Street Banks absorb every kind of benefit from being in this nation including taxpayer dollars. Yet, when it comes to taking any responsibility as citizens, they are notably absent. Is there a kind of vicious hypocrisy in absorbing benefits but paying none of the costs?

Let’s make these people know that we know they have failed to act in accord with basic patriotism.

James Pilant

My thanks to Livinglies’s Weblog.

Who will make them pay? You will. Yesterday, in six cities across Illinois, people stood together and demanded Wall Street banks like JPMorgan Chase pay their fair share to end the revenue crisis, create jobs, and stop illegal foreclosures. In New York City, thousands marched on Wall Street demanding that Millionaires and Big Banks pay their fair share. In North Carolina, community leaders made sure the shareholders of Bank of America faced up to … Read More

via Livinglies’s Weblog

Italy’s Great Nuclear Swindle (via Aletho News)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Seldom has a politician been so up front about his contempt for the masses –

From the essay –

On April 26th, the 25th anniversary of the catastrophic Chernobyl accident, Berlusconi held a press conference with French president Nikolay Sarkozy in Rome. At this press conference Berlusconi made his radioactive intentions clear for all. “We are absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is the future for the whole world,” he said. He went on to detail how recent polls showed that the referendum to block nuclear power for decades to come could pass at this time and that by temporarily suspending Italy’s return to nuclear program the issue would be revisited when the Italian voters had been “calmed down” and returned to the realization that Nuclear Energy was the most viable and safe way to produce electricity. He went on to explain how the “leftists and ecologists” had manipulated the emotions of the Italian voters after Chernobyl and penalized the Italian people who have to pay higher electric rates than France that operates 58 nuclear power plants. Berlusconi explained that the “situation in Japan had scared the Italian voters” and that the “inevitable return to nuclear power in Italy” would not be abandoned nor would the collaborations between Enel and Eletricite de France.

You see voters have no wisdom and judgment. When they err by disagreeing with you, for instance, their failure to realize that nuclear power is “viable and safe,” that can be fixed. If you have the media, you just patiently convince them of your point of view. You don’t worry about their judgment because there is nothing that cannot be fixed by good PR.

It would be difficult to find more open contempt for the democratic process or the facts of the situation. If nuclear power is going to be safe, there is some work that is going to have to be done. If that isn’t obvious based on the last twenty years, where have you been hiding?

James Pilant

The Radioactive Dictatorship of Silvio Berlusconi By MICHAEL LEONARDI – CounterPunch – May 13, 2011 Italy’s democracy is in tatters as Silvio Berlusconi and his ruling right-wing coalition work to block a citizen’s referendum that would repeal the decision of the Berlusconi government to return to nuclear energy production on the peninsula. Italy has not produced nuclear energy since 1990 and recent polls indicate that more than 75 % of Italians … Read More

via Aletho News

Nothing Personal (via The Local Crank)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

Apparently being Un-American is not a matter of disagreeing with an energy company. A major corporation, Conoco Phillips, has discovered what makes an American and what does not.

Their conclusion runs as follows – If you oppose government subsidies for oil companies you are Un-American.

Conoco Phillips under intense questioning before Congress refuses to retract or apologize for this statement which by the way is in one of their press releases.

I would imagine it only makes sense to the company. They apparently consider the well-being of the company, profitability, to be an American value.

I believe that large multinational corporations believe that the United States serves to advance their interests and has no other purpose worth noting. Their adamant refusal to pay taxes, their attacks on public expenditures, their desire to speculate rather than creating value, their contempt and hatred for American workers and their unceasing efforts to turn the government into a subsidiary all point to a certain state of mind.

A bystander might consider a company that preaches free enterprise at every opportunity and yet makes a considerable portion of its profit from government subsidies might be at the least considered hypocritical or at the most, Un- American.

James Pilant

Nothing Personal ConocoPhillips thinks people who criticize their continued consumption of tax subsidies in the face of record profits are “un-American,” but they don’t think you should take it “personally.”  That’s fine, because I happen to think ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva is an ignorant pissant who runs on all fours, lusts after little boys, howls at the moon and pisses in the corner.  But don’t take it personally, Jimbo. … Read More

via The Local Crank

To Hell in a Handbasket (via professional civilian)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

In India, they are having a nation wide discussion, a debate over what can be done about corruption in that country. They have policemen who take bribes apparently as a regular part of their income. They have governmental scandals involving utterly incredible amounts of money.

Here we don’t have much of that kind of corruption. Because of this we think of ourselves as a less corrupt nation. In fact, we think highly of ourselves here in the United States.

But the kind of corruption we see here, it’s the really high quality kind. It’s legal. It’s incredibly profitable. And it conveys with complete accuracy the decay of our society and continuing decline in any level of trust for the government or business. More and more, they look more like a joint conspiracy than any attempt at the common welfare or simple profits.

Talking about business ethics is almost humorous. Almost.

James Pilant

To Hell in a Handbasket I am writing now on a dying medium. I am also using hyperbole but only just. Today Meredith Attwell Baker left her position at the FCC to take a job at NBC Universal. Her new job, strangely, is as the senior vice president of government affairs. Odd, because as one of the FCC’s four members out of five who voted in favor of the Comcast-NBC merger, I would have thought Baker already was a part of NBC’s government affairs board. Stranger still beca … Read More

via professional civilian

Interesting Conversation [1] (via Nai2-tok ! where I ramble..non-stop)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Here is one small example of a worldwide problem but that is how the problem is usually felt, one human being at a time.

James Pilant

I always get my morning newspaper on my way to the office. In Indonesia, there are people who sell newspaper, magazine on the traffic light. So for you foreigners don’t be surprised by this sight. This is very common in Indonesia. And you can get all your media needs from them. Up until 1 year ago, I always buy my newspaper from this 1 person (let’s call him A). But then, in a sudden almost 1 week I coudln’t see him everywhere. I came in to concl … Read More

via Nai2-tok ! where I ramble..non-stop

Civil society do-gooders versus ‘dirty tricks’ department (Comment) (via pennsperry)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Do-gooders is a title of derision and a major criticism in the United States. It implies giving help where none is requested and idealism in a situation where everyone is comfortable.

Here it is used in another sense, political newcomer, neophyte, starry eyed idealist, etc. That is only to be expected. Generally speaking to be effective, a wide ranging movement eventually becomes organized to maintain pressure over long periods of time. In the United States, organizations like C.O.R.E., the Congress of Racial Equality and the N.A.A.C.P., National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, carried on the struggle for civil rights for minorities in the United States. It was recognized that even though the public favored the cause, it required continuous pressure to make change possible.

A large unorganized movement can easily be broken by attacks because it has no mechanism for defense, no central leadership to react to these kinds of assaults. Hazare’s organization is not really organized. It is almost helpless against attacks in the media. Because of its diffuse membership, there can be a dozen different responses to crisis coming from different parties in different places.

I admire Anna Hazare but the next stage of the battle is about to begin. It will take continuous pressure over decades to change the endemic culture of corruption. I’m going to watch. India is no longer a backwater in the field of social change, it is the front line in a worldwide  battle for ethics and morality in public life.

This is a good article, a little more cynical than me, which is saying a lot. My heart and prayers are with the reformers. It is time for a change.

James Pilant

By Amulya Ganguli When Anna Hazare and his warriors launched their anti-corruption crusade in early April, they were acting like starry-eyed idealists ready to take on the world. Their ardour had something of the assurance, full of zest, which every generation felt when they embarked on a mission to usher in a new dawn. Although a few of those in the frontline are young – Hazare himself is a septuagenarian – their youthful fervour of those days w … Read More

via pennsperry