Category Archives: Current Affairs

Governments Don’t Rule the World, Goldman Sachs Rules the World

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I have no idea if the guy in the video below is legit or if he's just a blowhard who happened to score a BBC interview, but his comments raise some interesting questions.  Comments like "The governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world" and "For most traders we don't really care that much how they're going to fix the whole situation. Our job is to make money from it" beg the questions, "How do the Goldman Sachs rule the world without a stable society provided by governments" and "At what point do traders and the rest of the players in the financial market put aside their short term (profit) interests and do what's best for society at large?"  For that last question I'll ask those who are more educated in the ways of the economy – is it possible, or even advisable, to ask financiers to forego short term gains for the greater good or is it always in our best interest for them to always pursue what's in their best interest?

She Makes a Good Point

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I’ve liked Elizabeth Warren since I saw her in a documentary about the credit card industry.  She makes a lot of sense a lot of the time.  If you watch this short clip I think you’ll find what she says to make a lot of sense, but if you’re like me you’ll recognize that in the end she leaves one large question unanswered: “How big a chunk should the successful factory owner pay forward?”  Watch the video and you’ll know what I’m referring to.

Like I said I don’t think anyone, well at least anyone who’s semi-adult and reasonable, will dispute that the successful factory owner didn’t get that way on his own and benefited from the many resources provided by our society and that the factory owner needs to “pay it forward.” I do think, however, that many semi-adult and reasonable people can and will disagree quite vehemently as to HOW MUCH the factory owner should pay forward.

Ethics are important?

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Every class, seminar, training session, etc. I've attended that's had the subject of ethics has seen an almost instant mental "check out" of all the attendees.  It seems to be one of those subjects that everyone acknowledges as important but also as unnecessary to discuss.  You're either ethical or you're not, what's there to discuss?

Well, when you see stories like this you realize there's a whole LOT to discuss:

According to the Post, the groundwork has been laid "for scientific advances that would allow drones to search for a human target and then make an identification based on facial-recognition or other software. Once a match was made, a drone could launch a missile to kill the target."

Of course, at some point a human would have to decide what information the drones would be given — presumably, for instance, the data to be used to identify the individuals it might target.

But as the Post adds, "the prospect of machines able to perceive, reason and act in unscripted environments presents a challenge to the current understanding of international humanitarian law."

Here's a link to the Washington Post story that is referenced in the quote.

The Most Patriotic Thing You Can Do

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Mark Cuban says the most patriotic thing you can do is "Bust your ass and get rich." More:

I’m not against government involvement in times of need. I am for recognizing that  big public companies will  continue to cut jobs in an effort to prop up stock prices, which in turn stimulates the need for more government involvement.  Every cut job by the big companies extracts a cost on the American people in one way or another.

Entrepreneurs are needed to create and grow companies to absorb those people in new jobs. If entrepreneurs don’t create those jobs, the government ends up having to spend more money to help them one way or another…

In these times of “The Great Recession” we shouldn’t be trying to shift the benefits of wealth behind some curtain. We should be celebrating and encouraging people to make as much money as they can. Profits equal tax money. While some people might find it distasteful to pay taxes. I don’t. I find it Patriotic.

I’m not saying that the government’s use of tax money is the most efficient use of our hard-earned capital. It obviously is not. In a perfect world, there would be a better option. We don’t live in a perfect world. We don’t live in a perfect time. We live in a time where the government plays a big role in an effort to help lead us out this Great Recession. That’s reality.

So I will repeat my point. Get out there and make a boatload of money. Enjoy the shit out your money. Pay your taxes.

It’s the most Patriotic thing you can do.

$22.54 Here, $22.54 There, Next Thing You Know You’re Talking Serious Money

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Rick Perry caught a lot of flack for calling Social Security a Ponzi Scheme, which is just a tad dramatic but still provides the helpful service of putting the Social Security issue on the table for discussion. I thought of this as I read the always interesting Now I Know and came across this little tidbit of info:

The first person to receive Social Security benefits was a lady by the name of Ida May Fuller, who retired in 1939 at the age of 65, and received her first check — for $22.54 — on  January 31, 1940.  Fuller had worked for three years under the Social Security system, so she had made some contributions to the overall fund, but only $24.75 worth.  She came out ahead by the time she cashed her second benefits check — the second of very, very many.  Fuller lived to be 100, passing away on January 31, 1975, thirty five years to the day she received that $22.54.  Her total lifetime Social Security benefits?  $22,888.92.

Personally I've always assumed that the baby boomers screwed the rest of us out of our benefits a long time ago, so I'm on my own to figure out how to live to 100 while staying gainfully employed.

Fiddling While Rome Burns

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I've been watching with interest the developing marriage amendment story here in North Carolina:

North Carolina voters will decide in the May 2012 primary whether to add an amendment to the state constitution that bans legal recognition of same-sex marriages, after a 30-16 vote Tuesday in the stateSenate in favor of a referendum.

The state House approved the vote by a 75-42 vote Monday. Votes in both the House and Senate were more than the three-fifths margin required to send the issue to the voters.

Supporters and opponents of the marriage amendment say they expect to be busy trying to persuade people between now and next spring.

I'm personally against the amendment, and in fact I have some pretty strong feelings about the appropriate role for government in defining relationships at all, so you can safely assume that I'll vote against the amendment. You can also safely assume that a great number of people, including the amendment's supporters, assume that I'm in the minority here in North Carolina and so they feel confident that they'll get the amendment passed. It's also probably a safe assumption you'll hear at least some of the amendment supporters say something to the effect of "Well, most people here are straight and are good Christians and believe that a real marriage is only between a man and a woman.  Since we're the majority we should be able to say that marriage is only rightly between a man and a woman.  That's our right in our democratic system – majority rules."

That last statement opens up a lot of arguments (equal rights/protections for minority groups, the proper role of religion in public policy, etc.) that would take about 800 pages to dig into and I'll save that for another day.  I will, however, tell you that I'm always made uncomfortable by that argument because it uses the same logic that has been used to oppress people in the minority throughout our history. I will also tell you that I'm far more concerned with the state of our economy than with the fact that Harry might marry Barry.  

I'd really rather not have our leaders play the marriage fiddle while tens of thousands of our citizens suffer through high unemployment and soaring rates of hunger and poverty in a burning Rome. (See Nero Fiddling While Rome Burns).

On a more fundamental level I'll also tell you that I will vote against the amendment because I don't happen to think that if someone is gay there's something wrong with them. I don't think being gay is something that a person can, or should, be cured of, and I find any law that singles out our gay fellow citizens and treats them as a second class citizen to be a stain on our society.  Just wanted to make that clear. 

Failure is an Option

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In this post Lex shares these thoughts from Barry Ritholtz on what might happen if too-big-to-fail banks are actually allowed to fail.  My favorite line from Ritholtz is this: "Real Capitalists know failure is part of the process. I suspect we may have another chance at a banking reorg. Let’s hope we do it correctly this time."

Anchor Baby

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This is a description of Steve Jobs that I can almost guarantee is unique:

So, who is this man? He's the anchor baby of an activist Arab muslim who came to the U.S. on a student visa and had a child out of wedlock. He's a non-Christian, arugula-eating, drug-using follower of unabashedly old-fashioned liberal teachings from the hippies and folk music stars of the 60s. And he believes in science, in things that science can demonstrate like climate change and Pi having a value more specific than "3", and in extending responsible benefits to his employees while encouraging his company to lead by being environmentally responsible.

The description comes from Anil Dash who also writes:

Every single person who'd attack Steve Jobs on any of these grounds is, demonstrably, worse at business than Jobs. They're unqualified to assert that liberal values are bad for business, when the demonstrable, factual, obvious evidence contradicts those assertions.

Agree or disagree he makes an interesting point.