Mammon category archive
The Entitlement Society 0
If you can’t change the law, change the lawyers.
Plus ca Change 0
Don’t think that this is anything new.
Here’s a bit of historical perspective for all you youngsters out there.
Swamp Things 0
Farron looks at Donald Trump’s “newly drained swamp” and concludes the drains are clogged.
Taxation without Consideration 0
Job’s Anger.
Puerto Rico, the Plundering 0
Warning: Language.
(Video embed fixed. I had assistance from the cat while I prepared the initial post. She’s a nice cat, but she knows nothing about HTML5.)
The Snaring Economy, Gypsy Cabs with an App Dept. 0
Owen Davis reports that Uber has achieved another milestone.
It has gotten itself sued for stock fraud, even thought it has not yet issued any stock. An excerpt:
If Uber had recently gone public in a massively overhyped IPO, only to shed double-digits as the true depths of its mediocrity came to light, a lawsuit would not be unusual. Just ask Blue Apron. But it’s rare for a startup to face investor suits in any situation short of complete and utter fabrication on the part of the founders. It basically signals that the highly illiquid startup stake you’ve got – and for which you’d like good money – is worthless.
Read the whole thing. It will give you a lyft.
Facebook Frolics 0
The Register explains why, in the “social” media industry (and it is an industry, not a service), cluelessness is not a bug; it’s a feature. A snippet:
Of course not. Facebook, like its rival Google, thrives on the income of ignorance and contrition.
To prevent money laundering, financial institutions must comply with know-your-customer laws.
Facebook and Google know everything about their product – the people who use their free services – but as little as possible about everything else, because knowledge goes hand-in-hand with liability.
Gaming the Google 0
That seldom works out well.
War Games 0
From my local rag:
Unlike other types of submarines people are familiar with from Hollywood, Virginia-class submarines don’t have a traditional rotating tube periscope that only one person can look through at a time.
It’s been replaced with two photonics masts that rotate 360 degrees. They feature high-resolution cameras whose images are displayed on large monitors that everyone in the control room can see. There’s no barrel to peer through anymore; everything is controlled with a helicopter-style stick. But that stick isn’t so popular.
In the “words fail me” department, the story goes on to point out that the XBox controllers will cost just 0.1% of the controller designed by the defense contractor.
Hoist on the Elmer Gantries 0
Leonard Pitts, Jr., marvels at the plethora of prophets proposing to profit from meteorlogical despoilation.
The Biblical “scribes and pharisees” had nothing on this lot.
“Just the Equifax, Ma’am” 0
Thom and his guest discuss the Equihacks.
But Where Are the Trolls?
Send in the Trolls.
Don’t Bother, They’re Here.
0
In a long and thoughtful piece, Josh Marshall explains why he sees the Trump-Russia investigation and the issue of Russian bots on the Zuckerborg heading for a collision. He delivers this trenchant observation almost as an aside:
He goes on to expand on this theme later in the article:
Facebook is so accustomed to treating its ‘internal policies’ as though they were something like laws that they appear to have a sort of blind spot that prevents them from seeing how ridiculous their resistance sounds. To use the cliche, it feels like a real shark jumping moment. As someone recently observed, Facebook’s ‘internal policies’ are crafted to create the appearance of civic concerns for privacy, free speech, and other similar concerns. But they’re actually just a business model.
Marshall also senses a rising public resentment against the intrusiveness of “Big Data.”
Follow the link. It’s worth your while.
Plus ca Change (Updated) 0
Addendum, Later That Same Day:
The Charlotte Observer reports on how coastal real estate developers are trying to weasel out of being honest about the dangers of flooding.
