Bad Boy Banks Enabling Inversion: Can a Firm Be Patriotic?

The “corporate citizenship” literature has it that companies in the private sector can indeed be “good citizens.” Even though a company cannot vote or be drafted, citizenship is said to fit as an apt description of what is organizationally speaking a profit-seeking machine. To say that a company is a good or bad citizen is, moreover, to anthropomorphise (i.e., apply human characteristics to a non-human). Furthermore, in their managerial capacities, the people who run companies are duty-bound to act in the financial interest of the stockholders, and only then in the broader societal interest. Even so, an ethical basis does exist on which some of the banks can be viewed as culpable.

The full essay is at “Enabling Inversion” 

Humanity Getting Ahead of Itself: A Mass-Extinction Event Already Underway

Around 252 million years ago, the “Great Dying” took out 90% of the world’s species. About 66 million years ago, a meteor caused the extinction of three out of four species, including those known to us as dinosaurs.[1] After 1.8 million years of existence, our own species is triggering yet another mass extinction event, according to a study in the journal Science by Stuart Pimm and Clinton Jenkins. According to Pimm, species are now going extinct at about ten times faster than scientists had thought. Prior to the arrival of homo sapiens (i.e., our species), the extinction rate was about 0.1 out of a million species per year; as of 2014, the rate had climbed to 100 to 1000 species per 1 million.[2] Behind this evolutionarily abrupt bump is not only the complicity of our species, but also unforeseen consequences that could easily take homo sapiens out of the equation.

The full essay is at “Humanity Getting Ahead of Itself”

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[1] Seth Borenstein, “World on Brink of Sixth Great Extinction, Species Disappearing Faster than Ever Before,” The Huffington Post, May 29, 2014.

[2] Ibid.

Timothy Geithner: A Regulator Beholden to a Bank?

In her article in The New York Times, Gretchen Morgenson raises the possibility that Tim Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve from 2003 to early 2009 and U.S. Treasury Secretary during Obama’s first term, was a captured regulator, “a man locked into the mind-set of the very bankers he was supposed to oversee.”[1] I contend that while a shared mindset was part of the mix, he was actively doing the bidding of Wall Street, and one bank in particular, which he owed big time. That is to say, it is not just that he worked with Republicans such as Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Fed, and Henry Paulson, Bush’s Treasury Secretary. There is more to it in him being portrayed throughout his confirmation hearing for Treasury as “a tool of Wall Street.”[2]

The full essay is at TimothyGeithner: A Regulator Beholden to a Bank?

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[1] Gretchen Morgenson, “Geithner, Staying on Script,” The New York Times, May 17, 2014.

[2] Timothy Geithner, Stress Test (Random House: New York, 2014), p. 2.

Are Today's Horror Movies Hollywood's 'Canary in the Coal Mine?'

Screenwriters who want to distinguish their work as riveting in terms of meaning and being thought-provoking can look to myths (living or dead), literature, and even dreams to gain depth and uniqueness. The lesson here may be that drawing on even well-known fables or myths need not deprive us of crafting unique stories that audiences will not view as formulaic. Put another way, a screenwriter is perhaps most fecund when he or she draws both deep within and on stories that have stood through oceans of time and thus are etched into our collective unconscious.

The full essay is at “Writing to Bring Horror Films Back from the Abyss”

GM’s CEO: Ridding GM of Its Dysfunctional Culture or Enabling It?

Has GM's CEO, Mary Barra, been behind a "new GM," or has she actually been protecting the old guard?

The essay is at “GM’s CEO”

Philomena

In the film, Philomena (2013), the audience is confronted with the spectacle of unjustifiable cruelty committed under religious auspices. Philomena is this victim, and she must struggle to come to terms with her past ordeal as a young mother at an Abbey as she goes on a search for her son in America. Her traveling companion, Martin, is a journalist writing the story from his perspective as an ex-Catholic. Philomena defends her faith against Martin’s sarcasm even as she comes to terms with just how cruel the nuns had been to her. In the end, she and Martin confront the nuns. The question is how, by which I mean, from what direction? The answer has value in demonstrating how outwardly religious hypocrites can be put in their place.  

The entire essay is at "Philomena"

Wall Street’s Maker-Taker Rebate: An Inherent Conflict of Interest

On June 14, 2014, the U.S. Senate Investigations Committee held a hearing on “High-Speed Stock Transactions and Insider Trading.” The issue at hand concerned the payments that wholesale brokers and exchanges make to brokers for going through the brokers and exchanges, respectively. An academic study had found that the broker or exchange that pays the most is not typically the most efficient, and thus in the best interest of the investor. Essentially, the payments give rise to a conflict of interest for the retail broker, who is supposed to put the client’s financial interest first, before his or her own. Is greater disclosure, such as Sen. Levin suggested, sufficient? I contend that a conflict of interest that is inherently unethical warrants complete removal, rather than merely countervailing measures.

The entire essay is at “Maker-Taker Rebate”

Israel vs. Gaza: Why Does the World Tolerate Unfair Fights within Countries?

In the very nature of occupation and in particular its attribute of a near-monopoly on military force within a given territory, the superior power is essentially inert to any normative constraints, whether from within or abroad. Such power can be drunk with anger, blatantly ignoring what even allies recognize as blatantly unfair actions. That such power may actually perceive the unfairness as fair to the innocent victims demonstrates just how much cognitive dissonance a human brain consumed with its will to power can muster, let alone tolerate, as a mental shield hiding the naked aggression. To be sure, it takes two to get tangled in a fight, so rarely is either party "the bad guy." Yet major dimensions of a conflict can be sliced and put under the proverbial microscope for close examination. Tolerance for an unfair fight, whether involving a rapist, a school-yard bully, or an occupying state, is problematic in not only the predominant aggressor but also any bystanders. In the case of Israel and Gaza in July 2014, the lopsidedness of the death-tolls stands out, as does the tacit refusal of the international community to step in and stop the fight as a result. 

The full essay is at “Israel vs. Gaza”

Labor and Stockholders: Applying Locke’s Notion of Property

John Locke’s view on how something becomes a person’s property could fundamentally alter labor-management negotiations in companies. Moreover, our assumption that management participates in the discussions may be upended. The key, I contend, lies in how we classify labor. I submit that the paradigm that has been handed down to us is deeply flawed in its fundamentals, and yet strangely we do not even question its contours.

From: “Labor and Stockholders”

Subscribing to RSS or via Email to Receive the Essays: Here or at the Sections

I am in the process of switching over to the sections I recently added (to improve the writing, I am editing the essays as I transfer them from the home page, so it is a slow process). As I post essays in the sections, I also post the first paragraph with a link on the home page. So if you are not interested in one or more sections, you can subscribe at the section(s) you like rather than here. Each section has its own subscription/email. You will only get the essays posted on the section(s) to which you have subscribed. Of course, if you want the essays from all of the sections, you can still subscribe here on the homepage (presumably you would get the first paragraph and link, which you could click for the entire essay), rather than or in addition to subscribing to any of the sections. I also post summaries with links at Google Plus (look for the Worden Report), linkedin, and a few other social media outlets, and you might prefer any of those means (a back-and-forth being possible). To those of you who have been and remain regular readers, you have my thanks and profound gratitude. Merci et Vielen Dank!

Can the Euroskeptic States Topple the E.U.?

Can we say that an E.U. state is Euroskeptic? If so, Britain would be a consistent candidate for the label. Yet what about when Tony Blair was the prime minister? Poland and the Czech Republic have also swung back and forth in line with the electoral winds within those states. If states are less fixed than typically thought with respect to being Euroskeptic, then what looks like intractable skepticism may in fact be more easily overcome at the state level. It follows that the E.U. itself has more chance than typically presumed to obviate its own decline and dissolution.

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.

Distrust of the E.U.: Prompting European Integration?

A Eurobarameter poll conducted by the European Commission between 10 May and 26 May, 2013 found that the number of Europeans who distrust the E.U. had doubled over the preceding six years to a record high of sixty percent from thirty-two percent.[1] The trust was lowest in the “bailed out” states of Greece and Cyprus. The people polled cited the five bailouts, record unemployment, and low economic growth as significant factors. In the state of Britain, 68% of the residents said they have little faith in the Union. Yet there is reason to be cautious in predicting the E.U.'s demise. In fact, closer European integration may actually result. 

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon. 

Hobby Lobby: On the Significance of the Case

For all the controversy stirred up by the case of Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius on whether an employer must comply with the mandate for contraceptives coverage in the Affordable Care Act, the significance of the decision handed down in a 5-4 majority opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court may be less than some commentators were predicting.

The full essay is at “HobbyLobby.”

A Rare Political Virtue in Citizen Kane

In Citizen Kane (1941), Charles Kane is not a replica of William Randolph Hearst. As a young, wealthy man running a newspaper, the character embodies a politico-economic ideal in both word and deed that Hearst only used as a campaign slogan. As per Kane's Statement of Principles, the young publisher is willing to diminish his own wealth held in stock in other companies in exposing the exploitive and corrupt money-bags in big corporations and trust who prey on the otherwise-unprotected working poor and presumably consumers too. For his part, Hearst merely published a daily oriented to the poor man.  As Kane's early ideal is a principle recognizable to, and even resonating with, virtually any audience, Welles' inclusion of the ideal in the film contributes to its endurance as a classic.

For the remainder of this essay, please go to "Citizen Kane: A Virtue Hearst Never Had"

World Cup Soccer Frenzy in the U.S.: A Threat to the NFL?

First, 19 out of 20 brains of former NFL football-players showed lethal brain damage in autopsies. Then, it was 45 out of 46 brains.[1] Missed at first from the initial assumption that concussions from the occasional hard-hits—which make good television—have been the cause of the dementia-causing protein in the damaged brains, was the impact of the more subtle mini-concussions from regular play. A 21 year-old with dementia (CTE) had not had a concussion from a major hit.  Nor had a high-school senior football player with chronic (CTE) brain damage in the front lobe, and thus severe short-term memory loss, difficulty thinking, personality changes, and fits of rage. Suicides are not uncommon, not to mention an abbreviated life-span.[2] Meanwhile, the violence of the sport ironically continued to be the main draw to an American audience, with cheers at the most jarring clashes. What is going on here, and is there light at the end of this tunnel?

From: “World Cup Soccer Frenzy in the U.S.: A Threat to the NFL?”

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[1] Frontline, “League of Denial,” PBS, 2012.

[2] Ibid.