Tag: depression

Should Police be Doing Mental Health Calls?

On By southwerkIn Government Failure

(One of Dante’s visions of Hell.)

No. It is a bad idea and has always been a bad idea.

Police are trained to respond to crimes and have resort to various means of restraint and violence. People with mental health problems are seldom criminals and often have no intent to cause a disruption but they lack the ability to discern the effects of their actions.

Police departments are ill equipped to handle mental health emergencies. These aren’t crimes. These are social problems we no longer treat in facilities because state legislatures got rid of the facilities in the half-baked loony idea that serious mental health problems could be handled on an outpatient basis. This was a massive failure and now the mentally ill wander our streets, are often homeless and provided continuous challenges for states, cities and counties. We’ve known this for years. When you are dealing with the mentally ill, untrained responses can result in death and injury.

This is wrong. The mentally ill should be dealt with by people trained and educated to do so.

Here is New York Mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, suggesting that police no longer bear the burden of mental health calls.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/zohran-mamdani-tells-audience-nypd-020500302.html

(Quoted from the article linked to above.) Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani — who has faced heat lately over years-old social media posts critical of the police — came face-to-face with an audience of NYPD officers Tuesday night and told them he would, if elected, spare them the responsibility of responding to most mental health calls.

“We must stop asking them to respond to nearly every single failure of the social safety net,” Mamdani said at Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza as a contingent of cops from the nearby 78th Precinct flanked him for an annual “National Night Out” event. “We must stop making it impossible for them to do their jobs by asking them to do every other job we can think of.” (End quote.)

He’s right and I’ve written about this before. Police should not be doing this. If we are going to throw these people onto the streets we should create an organization with facilities to deal with the problems they make.

What is the ethics here?

How about the idea that when a heavily armed (militarized) police force is asked to deal with mental health calls without training or preparation that people are going to die?

Is that a moral problem? You bet.

Let’s build a better nation by dealing with mental health problems like these intelligently and capably.

James Alan Pilant

Elon Musk, What Alpha Males Believe??

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I apologize for the title. My rationale for it it that it appears that this kind of thought is related to the men’s movement so often seen online. In all truth, I doubt that any humanly developed classification fits for this level of weirdness.

Here’s a link to an article reporting on what he said and a short quote. However, the full post by this corporate honcho is available in the article.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/elon-musk-amplifies-bizarre-claim-202614083.html

This time, Musk amplified a bizarre claim from an anonymous social media account that described women as meek objects “built to be traded to another tribe (or captured).”

“That keeps them safe, even though they are physically weak,” the anonymous account continued, before launching into a longer screed about why women should conform to a culture dictated by white men “because the alternative is not so gentle.”

If the phrase “women should conform to a culture dictated by white men” doesn’t catch your attention, I can’t imagine any words that would. Isn’t this an alarm bell type statement? It does go with the Nazi salute rather well.

As a business ethics subject, let us pretend that you are a corporate manager in a company led by a CEO who reposted approvingly these kinds of remark. Much of your money is tied up in company stock. Are you comfortable with this stance and these words? And what if you are a corporate manage but not a white male? Does the level of offense change and the reasons that the words concern you vary from that of a white male manager?

And aside from stock price effects, do these words have implications for how the company will be run in terms of personnel and promotion. After all if women were meant to be traded and after twenty years of captivity to arise as the tribe’s cultural enforcers (Please forgive me, go read the article – I’m just quoting the reposted statements.) should you be hiring them before their twenty years of captivity are up?

It is hard to write about this. Truly this is a very high level of strangeness. But we must come to grips with the fact that a major corporate figure in the United States, a billionaire not only believes this but is willing to say it publicly.

It is truly frightening.

Any stakeholder as defined in business ethics should be concerned with these statements. Since, Musk has involved himself in American politics, that includes all citizens of the United States as as well as the more usual stakeholders of workers, stockholders and company officials.

We have had business leaders who beliefs led to endless trouble. I would point to Henry Ford and his admiration for fascist doctrines. But in this 21st century, this kind of talk is rare save on some media platforms.

James Alan Pilant

Dangers, Properties, possible Uses and Methods of Purification of radioactively contaminated (drinking) Water (e.g. in Japan) (via CrisisMaven’s Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

CrisisMaven assures me that this is useful information for dealing with contaminated drinking water. So, I pass it on.

James Pilant

Most methods and tools being recommended here on the Internet such as purification by filtration will not lead to your desired result of decontaminating “radioactive water”. a) Radioactive contamination of drinking water in Japan at this point in time can come about in only two ways: 1) The source is actual surface water like lakes or rivers, possibly filtrated through river banks and thus came into contact with e.g. radioactive rain and/or dust. … Read More

via CrisisMaven’s Blog

Americans Believe Recession (Depression) Is Not Over

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business1 Comment

From a CNN story –

Seventy-four percent of Americans believe the economy is still in a recession, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll. Only 25 percent think the downturn is over.

One-third of Americans say the recession is serious, while another 29 percent characterize it as moderate.

Only the elite in the beltway believe the ridiculous idea that we have successfully come through the recession. I don’t understand how the numbers could add up to anything but a continuing crisis.

Unemployment – 9.6 percent – This doesn’t count those who have given up seeking work, so the real number is probably closer to 15.

Financial Markets – All Better? – NO – Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh said on Tuesday that financial markets have not fully recovered after the financial crisis and that economic growth is currently weighted to government expansion.

Hiring – All better? – NO – U.S. chief executive officers’ view of the economy darkened in the third quarter, with top executives saying they were less willing to hire new workers as they fear sales growth will slow.

Consumer Confidence – Optimistic? – NO – When it comes to attitudes about the economy, Americans continue to see the glass as half empty, according to the latest reading on consumer morale. The Consumer Confidence Index fell to 48.5 in September — its lowest level in 7 months — and down from August’s negatively revised level of 53.2, the Conference Board, a New York-based research group that compiles the index, said Tuesday.

How long can I keep going? How long have you got?

The politicians and the commentators feel your pain from a safe distance. You’re just more economic data and an annoying one. If you would only believe, everything would be fine. Everybody is doing well. You just don’t see it because you can’t see the big picture obstructed as it is by your suffering. Don’t be pessimistic. Don’t you know that this is America and a good attitude can solve all your problems?

I get tired. You get up and you hear these criticisms of hard working Americans and the utter lack of comprehension of the beltway elites as to what the world is really like, and the next day it happens again. The cycle never ends. Americans are lazy, self-indulgent, and fat. They need to get tough, get smart and do what we, the real people, the people that count do. Learn from us, they say. These creatures who don’t live in a world of labor and pain, who live by manipulating money, shaping opinion, and other ill defined processes. They know how to fix your lives. Right, and I can build a nuclear weapon with a little barb wire and an old tire.

Well, tomorrow will be another day and the cycle will begin again.

James Pilant

Look At This!

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

I found this on the web last night. It’s a video of American unemployment by county. The film runs month by month and in about a minute you see how unemployment developed in the U.S. over the last two years. It starts in January 2007 and runs until May of 2010. High employment counties have light colors. High unemployment counties are darker. You can watch the whole nation darken in a two year period, it’s very striking.

State of the Nation – It’s About To Get Worse

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Government Failure, Teaching

The statistics coming in are generally aligned one way, they point down. We’ve had a rough ride so far and it’s going to get worse. The governments of the world are just reacting to the crisis and have no real concept of what to do. The United States government led by Barack Obama appears to have a vague idea that an economic stimulus might be a good idea. However, that same government has had no appetite for bold action and is unlikely to develop any.

We float between two eras. The line between the two time periods will be marked at the banking crisis of 2007-2009 (and the continuing economic crisis left in its wake) and the environmental disaster of 2010. There will be a different United States after these two crisis play themselves out.

Currently we are locked in a battle of ideas. I break them into two kinds. One set of ideas say that there are unchanging and permanent solutions to the economic and social problems we face. The other says that solutions differ with time, place and circumstance. I side for the most part with the second group.

I teach business law and business ethics at the college level. I try to explain to my students that there is no glorious past where everyone was good and obeyed the law, etc. The only promised land is the one we build ourselves. Currently the only promise we seem to feel of any importance is the promise of making money.

You see, if there is a glorious past in which everyone goes to church and everyone obeys the law and in which the nation is a “city on a hill,” then it follows that there are a set of beliefs that all we have to do is emulate. We duplicate the virtues and rules of these paragons of virtue and righteousness, and we become great.

One problem, there is no such time. American history is messy. A lot of people die, often for very little reason. A lot of people wind up suffering terrible discrimination for very little reason. And a lot of people are made to lives lives of pain because they believe something other than common beliefs, and very often, those unfashionable beliefs are the exact beliefs held by the majority now.

However, since there is a loud and vocal part in this country who believe virtue resides in a past America, history will just have to be rewritten. I went to Barnes and Noble on Saturday, and there they were, books explaining that the history of the United States was everything you’d want it to be, that is, if you believe in a kind of Disneyland/Hollywood view of the nation’s history. There is good money in “Disneylanding” history. I don’t want any of it myself. Reality is disgustingly painful, but I will do my best to live there.

If you don’t live in a world hoping for a return to an earlier American, you know, “Take America Back” style people, then you have to deal with current circumstances. The way forward is obscure and difficult. You can’t be sure what’s going to happen and what will work. It gives those advocating a return to the promised land an enormous advantage. They have certainty.

We live in a terrible time. It would be nice if things were simple. They are not. It would be nice if things were certain. They are not.

I do believe in ethics, right and wrong. There are definitely some eternal verities in ethical beliefs. However, the great nostrums I hear are seldom based on ethical principle. When “free market” economics takes on the trappings of religion, it is no more ethical an idea than it was before. When you discover that the founding fathers were all evangelicals and thus, America was based on the Christian religion, you aren’t ethical; you’re lying. When you say that killing, torture, stealing and lying are wrong, and that they always will be, you speak based on ethical principles and we are brothers and sisters under the skin.

I don’t know what is going to come. There is a lot of pain ahead. I believe current levels of unemployment, the highest in American history since the Great Depression, will continue through 2014. I do not believe our government is willing to deal with the challenges facing this country and that if they did, that they are not in any way competent to do so.

We are betwixt and between. Societies under these conditions change or shatter.

I think that what this web site is all about is doing the right thing. I firmly believe that if Americans try to do the right thing, not the greedy thing, the power thing or any thing other than just a sheer dogged devotion to acting as if our only end was what kind of world we would want to have after us, then we will get through this and have the kind of society that the righteous deserve. You get to live in the “City on the Hill” when you deserve it, not because you are supposed to have it.

James Pilant