Buggy Salesmen 2.0

Do representatives of America's High-tech workers "get it" or are they stuck in the past? A recent New York Times story (by Matt Richtel) highlighted some cracks in American attitudes towards immigration. We know the republicans have been against the immigration of "poor and downtrodden" - but apparently there is now significant pressure against the immigration of "smart and innovative". The Times' story was primarily about US immigration, it's impact on individuals enmeshed in the process, and how it is perceived among some in the tech community. (disclaimer: I am a beneficiary of the H1-B/Green card immigration process, and I'm working towards citizenship)

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Amazon.com Now Censors As Policy

Amazon.com has just initiated a new marketing policy. They are stripping away the sales ranking of any book with so-called Adult Content. Here's their little explanation: "In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature. Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us. Best regards, Ashlyn D Member Services Amazon.com Advantage What this mean in effect, however, is that books primarily with gay and lesbian content are being singled out for exclusion from database searches. It is being applied in a bigoted and surprisingly hamfisted manner to conform to someone's standard of what constitutes Offensive Material. Adult Content generally means anything with more than coyly suggested sex in it. However, as a sample of the books not having their sales ranking stripped away, consider these: --Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds by Chronicle Books (pictures of over 600 naked women) --Rosemary Rogers' Sweet Savage Love" (explicit heterosexual romance); --Kathleen Woodiwiss' The Wolf and the Dove (explicit heterosexual romance); --Bertrice Smal's Skye o'Malley which are all explicit heterosexual romances --and Alan Moore's Lost Girls (which is a very explicit sexual graphic novel) These book sell very well, generally, so it's obvious that there's a dollar connection to this new policy. Midlist---the vast majority of books---will be targeted.

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Frank Rich on the character of Larry Summers

In today's NYT, Frank Rich is reminding us of the sordid background of one of the architects of Barack Obama's economic recovery program. These are sad times, indeed.

Lawrence Summers, the president’s chief economic adviser, made $5.2 million in 2008 from a hedge fund, D. E. Shaw, for a one-day-a-week job. He also earned $2.7 million in speaking fees from the likes of Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

[P]erhaps I’ve become numb to the perennial and bipartisan revolving-door incestuousness of Washington and Wall Street.

That the highly paid leader of arguably America’s most esteemed educational institution [Harvard]would simultaneously freelance as a hedge-fund guy might stand as a symbol for the values of our time.

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Bank Regulator William K. Black: The best way to rob a bank is to own one.

I’ve often had the thought that our massive meltdown could be figured out if we could only recruit some intelligent and well-motivated people to gather and analyze the evidence. But who would those people be? Who could serve as the template the type of character we seek out in such people? Too bad we don't have 1,000 people like William K. Black. Black is the former senior regulator who cracked down on financial institutions during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, pointing fingers at five congressmen including John McCain. Black went about his work with such vigor that he even drew a death threat from Charles Keating. Have you ever gotten excited listening to anyone talking about the economy? In this breath-taking interview with Bill Moyers, Black offers his own carefully studied analysis regarding the "bailout." This is not the intentionally abstruse financial jargon that you usually hear when pundits discuss the meltdown. The theme of the Black’s interview is this: "The best way to rob a bank is to own one," which is also the title to a book he wrote in 2005. Black teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri — Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. This video is required viewing for anyone who is convinced that we are not getting the straight scoop from the corporate media or from our government.

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Jeffrey Sachs trashes the Geithner-Summers plan

Economist Jeffrey Sachs has trashed the Geithner-Summers plan.

Two weeks ago, I posted an article showing how the Geithner-Summers banking plan could potentially and unnecessarily transfer hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth from taxpayers to banks. The same basic arithmetic was later described by Joseph Stiglitz in the New York Times (April 1) and by Peyton Young in the Financial Times (April 1). In fact, the situation is even potentially more disastrous than we wrote. Insiders can easily game the system created by Geithner and Summers to cost up to a trillion dollars or more to the taxpayers.

Credible experts from every direction are trashing the Geithner-Summers plan. And for good reason. The "plan" is opaque and its foundation consists of "hide the ball," "trust us" and too much "business as usual" by too many too big corporations whose main function is to game the system, rather than creating necessary goods and services to Americans. Barack Obama has been getting terrible advice from his economic team, I believe. It's time to switch teams. More to come . . .

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