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News Roundup: Lies, J.P. Morgan Chase, Best Quarterback in the NFL and More

When I first started this blog, I thought it was very important for me to combat all the lies that are told in the public sphere. That proved extremely fruitless. Yet, there are some lies that we clearly need to call out. George W. Bush’s former White House Press Secretary, Dana Perino, decided that she would tell a little fib on national television. While on Fox News she said, “We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” You don’t have to be a genius or know how to use Google to know that 9/11 occurred while George W. Bush was in his first term as president of our United States. Yet Rudy Giuliani, who was thrust into prominence by those same attacks, repeated the claim only a couple days later. Besides the multiple failures of 9/11, which I will not go into, there was the anthrax attack in which several Americans died and several others became sick. This was a terrorist attack. It happened on George W. Bush’s watch. Frank Rich has more. Look, I really don’t mind you having your own opinion. If you believe that George W. Bush was the greatest president since George Washington, good for you. I do mind when you pretend to have your own set of facts. The facts are clear. The failures of the George W. Bush administration led to 9/11. The failures in the aftermath of 9/11 led to our taking our eyes off the ball and focusing on Iraq instead of Al Qaeda. This allowed us to go into Iraq with too few troops to secure the peace. Now, let’s return to reality.

It would be nice if we had some fairy godmother who could wave a magic wand and change the world for good. Wouldn’t it be nice if corporations would be penalized for gross negligence? If you have a security breach in which 76 million credit card holders have their data exposed to thieves, isn’t that gross negligence? Why can’t we, as Americans, form a class action and sue J.P. Morgan Chase for gross negligence? Oh, that’s right, it’s illegal for us to do it.

It appears that a gay teenager was beaten. Unfortunately, this isn’t news. What is news is that he was hospitalized for the beating and is being charged by police for… I don’t know what exactly. It’s crazy.

Google is working on a really large TV which will fit together like Legos. Sounds cool. Hope it works.

Deaths from heroin overdoses have more than doubled over the last several years.

Conservatives are all up in arms because of voter suppression. I can only laugh. It is conservatives who have pushed voter suppression. They pushed ID cards and several other gimmicks in order to limit the young, the poor and some of the elderly from voting. Now one of their own, Leslie Rutledge, has been kicked off the voter registration. One of the things that I find amusing is that conservatives continue to say that this is a right-leaning country. If so, wouldn’t conservatives push to have more people vote instead of fewer? (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2014-10-11T23:02:47-04:00October 3rd, 2014|Corporate Wrongs, Healthcare, NFL, Party Politics|Comments Off

Why Donald Trump Bears No Economic Risks

From Robert Reich:

Thirty years ago, on its opening day in 1984, Donald Trump stood in a dark topcoat on the casino floor at Atlantic City’s Trump Plaza, celebrating his new investment as the finest building in Atlantic City and possibly the nation.

Last week, the Trump Plaza folded and the Trump Taj Mahal filed for bankruptcy, leaving some 1,000 employees without jobs.

Trump, meanwhile, was on twitter claiming he had “nothing to do with Atlantic City,” and praising himself for his “great timing” in getting out of the investment.

In America, people with lots of money can easily avoid the consequences of bad bets and big losses by cashing out at the first sign of trouble.

The laws protect them through limited liability and bankruptcy.

But workers who move to a place like Atlantic City for a job, invest in a home there, and build their skills, have no such protection. Jobs vanish, skills are suddenly irrelevant, and home values plummet.

They’re stuck with the mess.

Bankruptcy was designed so people could start over. But these days, the only ones starting over are big corporations, wealthy moguls, and Wall Street. (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2014-09-25T17:44:43-04:00September 25th, 2014|Corporate Wrongs|1 Comment

Hail the CEO and Spit on the Workers

I’m all for rewarding strong performances by CEOs and by workers. If someone does a good job they should be rewarded. A worker who does the extra things to make sure things go smoothly should be rewarded, as should a worker who comes up with a new innovative process to get the job done more efficiently. The CEO who figures out how to cut costs and streamline production should be rewarded. I simply don’t understand how CEOs who watch their company’s share price fall over a three-year period are rewarded with a huge bonus. Why isn’t the company board immediately fired? Why doesn’t someone sue to get the bonus back? I simply don’t understand the culture of rewarding CEOs for poor performance. Nokia is an excellent example of a company that was on top of the world but didn’t innovate quickly enough and got run over by Samsung and Apple.

From BBC:

Former Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop received a bigger-than-expected pay-off as the firm finalised the sale of it handset business to Microsoft.

Mr Elop got 24.2m euros ($33.5m; £20m) – 30% more than the initial figure.

A large part of that was awarded in Nokia shares, which have risen after the sale of the unit was announced.

When first announced, the pay-off had sparked angry reactions in Finland, not least because Nokia’s business declined under the leadership of Mr Elop.

The country’s economy minister, Jan Vapaavuori, had reportedly said at the time that he found it “difficult to understand the merits of this bonus”

By ecthompsonmd|2014-05-02T21:34:24-04:00May 2nd, 2014|Corporate Wrongs|Comments Off