Tag: rules

The Same Rules for Everyone!

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

Facebook Rules sometimes don’t apply!  

Here is a quote from the article listed below.  

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg intervened to reinstate a false anti-abortion video to assuage conservative Republican politicians, according to internal company documents Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen provided to Congress that The Financial Times examined. 

The incident was reportedly one of several instances of Facebook senior executives countermanding company policy to allow American politicians and celebrities to post whatever they wanted despite pleas from employees to moderate the content, according to the documents. 

That rules should apply to everyone in the same way is an axiom of conduct. It is a standard of fairness. We deserve at least this minimum from Facebook 

James Alan Pilant  

Links:  

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-anti-abortion-video-politicians_n_617729f1e4b010d93314d129

Postscript – I’ve been gone from this site for about a year. I was tired and maintaining a blog while dealing with long term effects from COVID-19 (I had both varieties and the shots) was more than I could handle at the time. I’m back.  

Jesus Hates Net Neutrality (via Strategic Mac)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Frankly, the New Testament has not given me many distinct policy points that Christ might want to take a position on. I think the author feels about the same way that I do.

I am a devoted to the idea of net neutrality. At the very least, I am devoted to it because I want to keep blogging and if my site is downgraded, everyone down to my relatives will stop looking at it.

The author has strong political views and I am fine with that. Bring on the political views! We need some serious discussions about what we should be doing in this country and what I usually hear was canned for public consumption about 80 years ago.

Read the article. Enjoy. There’s good stuff being said here.

James Pilant

Jesus Hates Net Neutrality Republicans are bound and determined to prove that with regard to Net Neutrality they are complete bone heads. Consider that the new Speaker of the House, speaking in front of the “Send your Money To Jesus” association, said that he will basically go to his grave attempting to make sure that big ISPs own the Internet. He said that if he can’t override t … Read More

via Strategic Mac

The Rules!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure, Philosophy of Business, unconscionable, White Collar Crime

Right now, all over America, there is a single perception. We, the people, live by one set of rules. The financial institutions of this nation live by another.

The one we live by requires that we obey the law and should we fail, there are many penalties which include fines, jail time and public disgrace.

The great investment firms live by laws that are flexible, that bend with circumstance and desire. When they commit crimes, the offenses are considered civil matters. When they are found liable in civil court, the amount of fines compared to their profits are laughably small. When they violate regulations, the violations are either ignored, minimized or papered over. And when finally they commit such acts as endanger the welfare of the nation and it people, even then the law is not applied to them and they receive money and not punishment.

And never, under any circumstances is the flow of their profits and in particular, their bonuses, to endangered at any time under any circumstances.

The nation is bleeding.

It bleeds every day.

It’s bleeding credibility.

It’s bleeding honor, morality and ethics.

To many in this society, these are all jokes, the subject of humor.

To the great financial houses, the flag means the convenient locale with the least regulations. They live here and obey the rules here only when it is convenient. They are Americans of convenience.

We have spawned a series of institutions in this country that exist to its financial and ethical detriment.

They do not build value. They take it.

They do not limit risk. They increase it.

Can this nation long survive with two standards?

I do not believe this nation can long survive, half held to rules and half not.

It will either become all of one or all of the other.

Which one?

James Pilant

A Public Official Does His Job

On By southwerkIn Government Failure

A Public Official Does His Job

Phil Angelides is the Chairman of the Financial Crisis Commission. Yesterday during testimony he said this to Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs.

“I’m just going to be blunt with you,” he told Blankfein. “It sounds to me a little bit like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on the buyer of those cars. It doesn’t seem to me that that’s a practice that inspires confidence in the market.”

(What the company was doing is explained in a McClatchy news article. Most simply it was a set of investments in which the contract created a situation that if the investements prospered, Goldman Sachs made money, but if the investments went sour, Goldman Sachs made even more money. The investor bore all the risk.)

For so much of the time after this unprecedented story of financial incompetence, greed and outright stupidity, public officials have said little but given much to the financial industry. Here is a different voice. Whether in the long term this proves sincere is still a question. But I liked the sound of it. Ethics tends to work well in an environment in which there are penalties for doing wrong. The wrong doers have profited from their actions. This is not the kind of example a country and developing civilization need. It is in fact quite dangerous when a large group of powerful Americans no longer share common interests or abide by the same rules as other Americans.

James Pilant