According to The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/world/europe/12hungary.html?_r=1&hp
Hungary has arrested the managing director of the company responsible for polluting waterways with a poisonous red sludge that has killed eight, injured hundreds, devastated plant and animal life and destroyed millions of dollars in private property.
The government also retook control of the formerly state-owned MAL Zrt. In the meantime the officials are racing to construct a concrete barrier and emergency dam to contain the sludge before three huge gaps in the remaining wall fail.
Critics accuse the government of overreacting for political gain. Supporters claim it had no choice if it were to protect the public interest.
According to a report in the October 10 Bloomberg/Business Week (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-06/hungary-red-sludge-threatens-danube-commission-says.html, the release of the red sludge could reach the Danube River and threaten water supplies in neighboring countries. Hungary is engaged in heroic efforts to prevent the spill from spreading that far. The highly toxic sludge is a byproduct of alumina production and spilled from the Magyar Aluminum Zrt. Reservoir.
Are we helpless to prevent these constant attacks on our life support systems by the institutions that control our lives? Are we trying to commit species suicide? And if so, why oh why do we have to take so many other species with us?
Here's what I think...
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Friedman on U. S. Goverment Dysfunction
(Click on this post's title for the article.)
Sometimes I read something that expresses my concerns far better than I can. Today it was Thomas Friedman's op-ed piece in The New York Times.
I consider this one a "must read."
Sometimes I read something that expresses my concerns far better than I can. Today it was Thomas Friedman's op-ed piece in The New York Times.
I consider this one a "must read."
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Caveat Emptor: Customers as "Marks"
The 21st century style of cold calls or sales.
The office telephone rings. You answer and the caller demands, "I need to talk to the person in charge of the utility (or telephone, credit card, business insurance) account." You ask, "Who is calling?" The sternly toned response is, "Are YOU the person in charge of this account?"
The tone is officious and demanding. It intimates this call is from officialdom or from a vendor who has missed a payment or found a discrepancy in your account. Careful questioning is met with confrontational demands to "speak with the person in charge." The implication being no one else can be told what the caller has to say -- further creating the impression of a problem with an existing account.
If you ask to take a message, the caller usually refuses, asking when the person in charge will be available. If you say you are "the person in charge," the confrontational tone does not end. They are seeking to sell you a product change or addition. But the approach is that if you do not accept their product, you are making a serious mistake that could compromise your position and/or your business.
One such caller demanded, "Don't you know what deregulation means?" As if by resisting I was violating some kind of regulation.
The only way to terminate the call is to hang up. As long as you refuse their offers, they will continue to badger you.
Initially I assumed these callers were ill-suited to their jobs. Yesterday I had an Epiphany. The cold callers are TRAINED to bully the potential customers they call. It happens far too often to be accidental.
We inhabit a world in which customer abuse and lies have become the foundation of commerce. You cannot trust your banks, your credit card providers, your superstores, your computer hardware and software providers, the providers of your utilities, or your insurance companies. Every one of them will cheat and lie to you on a daily basis. It brings new understanding to the Roman saying "caveat emptor."
The office telephone rings. You answer and the caller demands, "I need to talk to the person in charge of the utility (or telephone, credit card, business insurance) account." You ask, "Who is calling?" The sternly toned response is, "Are YOU the person in charge of this account?"
The tone is officious and demanding. It intimates this call is from officialdom or from a vendor who has missed a payment or found a discrepancy in your account. Careful questioning is met with confrontational demands to "speak with the person in charge." The implication being no one else can be told what the caller has to say -- further creating the impression of a problem with an existing account.
If you ask to take a message, the caller usually refuses, asking when the person in charge will be available. If you say you are "the person in charge," the confrontational tone does not end. They are seeking to sell you a product change or addition. But the approach is that if you do not accept their product, you are making a serious mistake that could compromise your position and/or your business.
One such caller demanded, "Don't you know what deregulation means?" As if by resisting I was violating some kind of regulation.
The only way to terminate the call is to hang up. As long as you refuse their offers, they will continue to badger you.
Initially I assumed these callers were ill-suited to their jobs. Yesterday I had an Epiphany. The cold callers are TRAINED to bully the potential customers they call. It happens far too often to be accidental.
We inhabit a world in which customer abuse and lies have become the foundation of commerce. You cannot trust your banks, your credit card providers, your superstores, your computer hardware and software providers, the providers of your utilities, or your insurance companies. Every one of them will cheat and lie to you on a daily basis. It brings new understanding to the Roman saying "caveat emptor."
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Fraudulent Foreclosures
Click on the post title for the New York Times article.
Financing giants JPMorgan Chase and GMAC "robo-signed" thousands of foreclosure documents without personal knowledge of the facts. This calls into question the legality of many previous foreclosures and clouds the titles on subsequently purchased foreclosed properties.
Surprise, surprise. The esoteric financial instruments into which mortgages were bundled and sold and rebundled and resold makes finding the mortgage paperwork almost impossible. This is probably the reason so many lenders have adamantly refused to renegotiate mortgages that are in danger of foreclosure. They have no idea how to proceed! This has not, however, deterred them from initiating foreclosure proceedings, which they confidently processed without doing the arduous homework.
Ugly, ugly example how today's super-corporations conduct business. Make no mistake, to them we are not considered customers, we are "marks."
Perhaps it's not perjury unless you get caught?
Financing giants JPMorgan Chase and GMAC "robo-signed" thousands of foreclosure documents without personal knowledge of the facts. This calls into question the legality of many previous foreclosures and clouds the titles on subsequently purchased foreclosed properties.
Surprise, surprise. The esoteric financial instruments into which mortgages were bundled and sold and rebundled and resold makes finding the mortgage paperwork almost impossible. This is probably the reason so many lenders have adamantly refused to renegotiate mortgages that are in danger of foreclosure. They have no idea how to proceed! This has not, however, deterred them from initiating foreclosure proceedings, which they confidently processed without doing the arduous homework.
Ugly, ugly example how today's super-corporations conduct business. Make no mistake, to them we are not considered customers, we are "marks."
Perhaps it's not perjury unless you get caught?
Monday, October 4, 2010
What NYS Dems and Repubs have in Common
Come November New York State voters in both major parties will have to hold their noses and up their blood pressure meds before casting their votes for governor.
I have heard life-long loyal Democrats express anger at having to vote for Andrew Cuomo. In my not-so-humble opinion, he just barely scrapes by as the lesser of two evils. Carl Paladino was discovered to have sent out racist, misogynistic and pornographic emails. Cuomo, on the other hand, is reputed to have built a impressive career stepping over the bodies of better men. Many suspect his behind the scene maneuverings in the downfalls of both Elliot Spitzer and David Paterson.
Moving on to the Senate and Assembly races one can only hope a tidal wave will sweep through both bodies and somehow cleanse the slime. Hope is the key word here. Neither party has anything to boast about, but the Democrats actually come out worse following their complete botching of the majority they achieved in the Senate at the last election. A plague on both their houses. Throwing out incumbents should be a voter priority.
I have heard life-long loyal Democrats express anger at having to vote for Andrew Cuomo. In my not-so-humble opinion, he just barely scrapes by as the lesser of two evils. Carl Paladino was discovered to have sent out racist, misogynistic and pornographic emails. Cuomo, on the other hand, is reputed to have built a impressive career stepping over the bodies of better men. Many suspect his behind the scene maneuverings in the downfalls of both Elliot Spitzer and David Paterson.
Moving on to the Senate and Assembly races one can only hope a tidal wave will sweep through both bodies and somehow cleanse the slime. Hope is the key word here. Neither party has anything to boast about, but the Democrats actually come out worse following their complete botching of the majority they achieved in the Senate at the last election. A plague on both their houses. Throwing out incumbents should be a voter priority.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
They're Wagging Their Fingers at Me?
Election season is in full sway. The robo-calls and phony surveys are constant. As a registered Democrat, I get lots and lots of automated calls, usually just as I have sat down for dinner or become absorbed in a favorite TV show. The week before the Primary was very heavy.
The television ads range the usual mix of down home, love my family and community feel-good spots to the mysterious Over 60 group's attack on my congressman for "following Nancy Pelosi's agenda". This one even trumps the Paladino and Cuomo ads on the nasty meter.
The Democratic Party is holding onto my membership by a thread, largely because the Republicant Party has veered so far to the right and steadfastly clung to its failed policies of the past decade, I quite simply cannot go there.
So how does the party to which I have belonged all my adult life seek my vote?
Vice President Biden tells me to "stop whining." President Obama stands behind his podium wagging his finger at me and telling me the election is too important for me not to vote, no matter how unhappy I am with the limitations and shortfalls of the party's achievements since his election.
When all else fails, attack your base? Are these guys TRYING to lose their Congressional majority?
Perhaps, as Thomas Friedman suggests in his op-ed piece in today's New York Times, there is another way. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/opinion/03friedman.html?_r=1&hp
The television ads range the usual mix of down home, love my family and community feel-good spots to the mysterious Over 60 group's attack on my congressman for "following Nancy Pelosi's agenda". This one even trumps the Paladino and Cuomo ads on the nasty meter.
The Democratic Party is holding onto my membership by a thread, largely because the Republicant Party has veered so far to the right and steadfastly clung to its failed policies of the past decade, I quite simply cannot go there.
So how does the party to which I have belonged all my adult life seek my vote?
Vice President Biden tells me to "stop whining." President Obama stands behind his podium wagging his finger at me and telling me the election is too important for me not to vote, no matter how unhappy I am with the limitations and shortfalls of the party's achievements since his election.
When all else fails, attack your base? Are these guys TRYING to lose their Congressional majority?
Perhaps, as Thomas Friedman suggests in his op-ed piece in today's New York Times, there is another way. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/opinion/03friedman.html?_r=1&hp
Friday, October 1, 2010
Change
Every liberal elitist like myself, should have a wonderful, conservative Republican friend like my friend, Bob. It helps to keep me grounded. The following post is an email Bob sent to me:
I'm dreadfully worried about the real possibility of a time of deflation. No matter how good the government is at dissembling and obfuscation, the truth will out. The signs are all there and unless there has been a "Jim Jones"-like drinking of the waters of the River Teethe, our leaders must, surely remember what led to the Great Depression.
Impossible, they say. Too many safeguards.
The truth of the matter is that, no, we are not a nation in transition from an agrarian society to a manufacturing one as we were in 1929; however, we are in a dramatic transition from a manufacturing society to an information-based society. All change exposes our underbelly and so makes us vulnerable to mortal wounding. This is our situation today.
The sea change underway is riddled with underwater challenges that make the journey difficult to navigate and treacherous -- possibly fatal to a nation that sets sail on these challenging waters with no navigational guides. The acceptance of a global marketplace is the only chart available that can be followed. Absent our embracing of this Absolute, deflation and continued degradation of our financial system are certain. I'm so worried about this possibility that I usually don't even discuss it, lest it become, somehow, self-fulfilling.
One cannot pick up a factory and move it easily from one place to another to take advantage of a more favorable business environment. Static brick and mortar edifices are so "yesterday." Today, a person sitting at her computer while on vacation in Puerto Rico can order raw material from Africa, have it sent to China for manufacturing, hire a phone marketing firm in the Philippines to sell the product and contract with Fed Ex to warehouse the product and to provide third party logistics to ship it anywhere in the world. One never needs to see or touch one's product! All that is required is a five hundred dollar laptop.
This is the new paradigm. The whole world is in play. This IS our world today. Many mistakes will be made and hopefully we will learn from them. The waters will roil as they strike unforeseen and hidden obstacles. Such is the way of change. The miracle is that we will survive and thrive. I know this to be true.
I'm dreadfully worried about the real possibility of a time of deflation. No matter how good the government is at dissembling and obfuscation, the truth will out. The signs are all there and unless there has been a "Jim Jones"-like drinking of the waters of the River Teethe, our leaders must, surely remember what led to the Great Depression.
Impossible, they say. Too many safeguards.
The truth of the matter is that, no, we are not a nation in transition from an agrarian society to a manufacturing one as we were in 1929; however, we are in a dramatic transition from a manufacturing society to an information-based society. All change exposes our underbelly and so makes us vulnerable to mortal wounding. This is our situation today.
The sea change underway is riddled with underwater challenges that make the journey difficult to navigate and treacherous -- possibly fatal to a nation that sets sail on these challenging waters with no navigational guides. The acceptance of a global marketplace is the only chart available that can be followed. Absent our embracing of this Absolute, deflation and continued degradation of our financial system are certain. I'm so worried about this possibility that I usually don't even discuss it, lest it become, somehow, self-fulfilling.
One cannot pick up a factory and move it easily from one place to another to take advantage of a more favorable business environment. Static brick and mortar edifices are so "yesterday." Today, a person sitting at her computer while on vacation in Puerto Rico can order raw material from Africa, have it sent to China for manufacturing, hire a phone marketing firm in the Philippines to sell the product and contract with Fed Ex to warehouse the product and to provide third party logistics to ship it anywhere in the world. One never needs to see or touch one's product! All that is required is a five hundred dollar laptop.
This is the new paradigm. The whole world is in play. This IS our world today. Many mistakes will be made and hopefully we will learn from them. The waters will roil as they strike unforeseen and hidden obstacles. Such is the way of change. The miracle is that we will survive and thrive. I know this to be true.
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