Tag: Rogue Columnist

Depression 2.0 (via Rogue Columnist)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I’ve already called this current economic crisis, The Second Great Depression. Apparently I’m not the only one. Rogue Columnist is as angry as I am. Here’s his take on the Second Great Depression –

We may not be looking at another recession. We may be in a Depression. For many, if not most, Americans, the recovery was chimerical. Their troubles began in the ’00s, with stagnant incomes and the worst record of job creation since the real President Hoover. When the housing bubble crashed and the stock market followed, the were financially ruined. Now 24 million are unemployed or under-employed. And that was all before the federal government embarked on an austerity plan that might please Robert Rubin but otherwise guarantees more recession.

This second depression is likely to be far worse than the first. In the 1930’s, there were people willing to try anything to make the lot of the majority of Americans better. Now, we have a governing class and a beltway media devoted slavishly to serving the financial elites. No illegality or unfairness can spur either government or media to action.

In fact, it’s even worse, for the great opinion makers of the day are devoted to building a society without a functioning government in most senses of the word. It’s as if history, economics and an ability to do math have been ruled out of bounds in political discussion.

Now, you might say that you are aware of many economists who present their views to the government like the dozens who signed a petition demanding spending cuts. I do not find American economists in general to be useful or trustworthy. Most have been corporatized. Their incomes depend on their subservience to a certain kind of economics that clearly does not work.

We cannot turn to academia, the churches or the law for assistance. All have been corrupted by corporate dollars or frightened into silence. It will be years before the people find a voice in political action.

What will happen until then? Probably violence. I do not want anyone to be hurt. As much as I despise some of those who have made incredible fortunes out of manipulating the government or speculating with the people’s money, I do not want them killed.

But there are plenty of guns and a lot of anger right now. Some of that anger will manifest itself in action.

Let us not miss the great truth here – our political and corporate leaders are stupid. Not a little stupid but brain dead stupid. It is only logical to realize that destroying the American infrastructure through neglect, making education expensive, dispensing with social services, encouraging financial speculation while shipping jobs overseas would in the short and long term damage the nation. It is only reasonable to understand that such damage would hurt profits and diminish taxes. It is intelligent to realize you can only squeeze so much out of the middle class before you do long term damage. And yet they are neither logical, or reasonable, or intelligent. They do not realize when enough riches are enough, when enough austerity is enough, when enough evasion of taxes and laws is enough – they just don’t understand the concepts of hubris and balance.

And so what has been done over the last thirty years will continue. Those that have become rich do not realize that manipulation of the government and the media have at long last a limit, and that they stand to lose at some point. I think they’ll play their hand until it comes up aces and eights.

James Pilant

 

Ethics Roundup – July, 28th, 2011 The Heavy Hitters

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

CRISISJONES throws a spotlight on the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. I recommend you have a look at this one.

The invaluable Ethics Sage takes on the definition of reasonable and other aspects of our most lurid recent case. Big News – The Ethics Sage (Steven Mintz) is creating a brand new blog to go with his current. Go to his web site and read about it.

The “Debt Compromise” … Another Pass for the Rich and a Fleecing for Everyone Else. This is from Washington’s Blog.

Rogue Columnist burns up the paper with an acid commentary on American (Chinese) bridges. You should read this. This kind of passion harkens back to another age of American journalism.

Homophilosophicus posts on “Death by Misadventure.” This is some of the best web writing you are likely to see – the man is eloquent. My big complaint is that he has all this talent and I hardly ever see a new post on his blog. When God gives big, you are supposed to share.

 

 

 

What’s Hot on the Web! (as far as I’m concerned)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Debt talks collapse, Republicans walk out over taxes

From CRISISJONES (who I hope considers me a friend)

 

NEXT – From American politics to the sublime world of philosophy – JP

Proving an Argument Is Logically Valid

From the web site Ethical Realism. This post is by James Grey.

 

Dark Side of Chinese Capitalism

Reverse Mergers, Improper Accounting, a Lack of Transparency and Poor Governance Threaten the Recent Success of Capitalism Chinese Style

From my associate, The Ethics Sage.  (You should subscribe!!)

 

Radioactive Dust From Japan Hit North America Days After Disaster … But Governments “Lied” About Meltdowns and Radiation

 I started warning the day after the Japanese earthquake that radiation from Fukushima could reach North America. See this, this and this.

Mainichi Daily reports today:

Radioactive materials spewed out from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant reached North America soon after the meltdown and were carried all the way to Europe, according to a simulation by university researchers.

The computer simulation by researchers at Kyushu University and the University of Tokyo, among other institutions, calculated dispersal of radioactive dust from the Fukushima plant beginning at 9 p.m. on March 14, when radiation levels around the plant spiked.

The team found that radioactive dust was likely caught by the jet stream and carried across the Pacific Ocean, its concentration dropping as it spread. According to the computer model, radioactive materials at a concentration just one-one hundred millionth of that found around the Fukushima plant hit the west coast of North America three days later, and reached the skies over much of Europe about a week later.

According to the research team, updrafts in a low-pressure system passing over the disaster-stricken Tohoku region on March 14-15 carried some of the radioactive dust that had collected about 1.5 kilometers above the plant to an altitude of about 5 kilometers. The jet stream then caught the dust and diffused it over the Pacific Ocean and beyond.
In the article above I am including the first part of a quite long and well written article. As I have written many times the crisis at the Fukushima plants does not stop no matter how little coverage it gets in the media of the United States.  James Pilant

This next article is from a writer who I very much admire. He writes from the web site: Rogue Columnist, A Pen Warmed Up In Hell. I like it. Please read it. James Pilant (P.S. If you are wondering why this is indented like the article above. It just is. WordPress offers me no button to fix it but it will let me indent it some more!)

Rules of engagement

Last night, I finished the late Alan Bullock’s magnificent book, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. It’s a reminder that no matter how much one has studied a topic, he or she can have vast new landscapes opened by the best historians as tour-guides. The book was completed just as the Soviet empire that Stalin built was falling apart, and the moment was marked by the greatest hope. Yet Bullock also reminded us of the bloody paths that contingency can create, particularly when broad social, economic and cultural forces and destabilization (“history from below”) are harnessed by evil genius (“history from above”). The book ends with a deeply moving coda of promise. But that comes after a thousand pages examining the two greatest mass murderers in history; worse, men who could move nations to do their killing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rogue Columnist Asks A Few Pertinent Questions

On By southwerkIn Capitalism, ethics2 Comments

Jon Talton
Rogue Columnist observes the signing of the tax cut bill with contempt for the beltway narrative. He is not overly impressed by the current occupant of the oval office but sees no leadership on the horizon. But the best part of his column is my mind is this paragraph, which I quote below.

From Rogue Columnist –

I’ve been spending time with the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. One harsh fact is that America is a poorer country. Vast swaths of the nation have seen their median family incomes fall from 2000 to 2009. Even the banking center of Charlotte has seen income drop 15 percent. Silicon Valley, off 11 percent. And of course great damage has been done in the areas least able to absorb it, the already lower-income Red States (the exception being counties with fossil fuels or big, subsidized ag). Now, this is a fact. How does one proceed from it? How does one proceed when it is put in the context of stagnant wages for most Americans going back 30 years? Does one change the policies that caused this? Or just keep doing them? Where is the centrist position on union busting? On monopolistic corporations such as Wal-Mart? On the big banks that privatize profits and socialize losses while continuing to have a gun to the world economy? On the loss of so many well-paid American jobs connected to actually making something of value, rather than peddling financial frauds and “the American Dream”?

Do we hear any answers out there? Will we?

James Pilant

Rogue Columnist Recommended Reading!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism

From the Rogue Columnist –

The shelves groan under the number of books written about the financial crisis, its aftermath, causes and needed fixes. My favorites are Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy, by nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz; 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, by Simon Johnson and James Kwak; Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance, by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm, and Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future, by Robert Reich. It’s a soup-to-nuts telling of the bought-off politics, bad policy, deregulation and greed that brought on the crash, to the steps we must take in order to save ourselves. Not that we will.

I recommend these books a well. I particularly recommend Joseph Stiglitz.

Happy Holiday Reading!

James Pilant

The Failure Of The Thanksgiving Opt Out Of Invasive Searches At Airports

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

I was disappointed by the results of the big “opt out.” The administration seemed on the verge of caving. So, did the airlines. They fear the public anger but seldom does that fear produce action and this was no exception.

The next invasion of privacy and dignity will occur with even less difficulty after the success of this one.

Supporters will shout “Why should you object if you haven’t done anything wrong?” That is not an American founding principle.

Power will be abused. That is the nature of power. There are few limitations now. We no longer know what information the government has or seeks. Where will it end? I am not a supporter of “slippery slope” arguments save in very special circumstances. I think this is one of them.

Read Rogue Columnist’s take on the situation.
From Rogue Columnist –

Unlike previous generations of Americans, we are largely an easily commanded people, rather like the Germans or Russians of old. Decades ago, Americans genially agreed to be drug-tested in order to get or keep a job, even though this “guilty until proven innocent” technique is of dubious constitutionality. We submit to hundreds of new national security agencies sucking at the taxpayer trough, not least one with the queasily un-American name of “the Department of Homeland Security.” Nary a peep about this in the land of the free and home of the brave. We meekly wait in lines, not least those at the airport. It’s difficult to imagine the World War II generation submitting to pat-downs, much less those that tamed/stole the frontier. But neither have the swindles of the banksters, widespread economic distress and the rule of the fatcats produced the protests of an older America. No, give us a Kinect or an iPad, a call-center cubicle and an H.R. rulebook, and we’re as happy as a baby with a pacifier.

He’s angry. I am too.

What’s to be done? I don’t know.

James Pilant

Austerity!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, ethics, Government Failure

“Austerity” is just a con to further enrich the nationless capital markets and the super-rich. Nothing more. The very rich have no interest in the history of America from the 1940s through the 1970s, when a rising and secure middle class, and 90-percent tax rates on top earners, still supported fine lifestyles for the wealthy as well as the world’s greatest economy and society. Now we have to lose so they can win yet more. But austerity and tax cuts are the watchword, the intellectual fraud that has taken the day.

Boy, you’d think Rogue Columnist was upset! This is his latest column.

The slogan under his masthead is “A Pen Warmed In Hell.”

Like him, I’m astonished to live in a country where you can’t raise taxes.

Ahh! you say with outrage. I’m a member of the middle class. I have no more to give!

You’re quite right. I’m not interested in you. I know you don’t have any more money. Since the mid-70’s the tax burden has been off loaded on you. The corporations (about 40 percent of which pay no taxes at all) evade their taxes and the wealthy want their taxes reset at 22% about a 1/3 less than now.

This is an incredibly wealthy country. A fair tax system could pay to fix our infrastructure, could pay to have an education system second to none, could pay to reestablish our industrial base, and could pay to invest in research, development and our fellow Americans so we regain our place as number one in standard of living, as number one in upward mobility.

Upward mobility? What’s that? That is where you or your children have the same shot as some gazillionaire’s child at making it. A country, a nation, where you are measured not by who your friends are, who your family was, but by what you can do.

That’s America!

James Pilant

Rogue Columnist!

On By southwerkIn ethics

“My aim has been to achieve the best in hard-hitting newspaper news column writing, a special and dying craft outside of a few places. I often fall short. But at its best this involves trenchant writing, a distinctive and compelling voice, backed by the facts (as Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “you are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts.”), analysis, context and pointed commentary.”

This is from John Talton’s latest column on his blog. This is one I read regularly and I recommend it to you.

I wrote him a short note by e-mail –
I put your latest column on on “Digg.” I am in the middle of writing something positive about it on my blog. When I was reading your piece I noticed that you said that writing a regular blog was grueling. Yes. Absolutely. I write on ethics usually twice a day. It feels like swimming up a waterfall. Increasingly we seem to live in a world devoid of honor. Well, enough of my musings. You probably get tired of hearing this, but I very much enjoy your columns. The only reason I don’t refer to them very often is that most people in NW arkansas (I’m only a few miles from Wal-Mart corporate headquarters.) have no idea what you’re talking about and a lot of your stuff is squarely in-state material.
My best wishes!
James Pilant

Read James’ entries on Pilant’s Business Ethics Blog
https://southwerk.wordpress.com/

You will notice I end my message with a shameless reference to my own blog. I feel bad about having done that but not bad enough to quit doing it.

James Pilant