Mammon category archive
The Snaring Economy, Have Cake Eat It Too Dept. 0
This should be interesting:
According to the story, in its response, Uber claims that it’s all about competition and fair shakes.
Frack the Clouds 0
Warning: Language. Also, strange and a bit strained, but a noble effort.
Spill Here, Spill Now 0
Facing South looks at the long term effects of Buccaneer Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon spill. Here’s few of the stats; follow the link for more.
As of last year, number of studies published on physical health effects reported by people directly affected by BP’s spill: 2
Number of those studies that found a higher frequency of respiratory illness, headaches, skin rash, and cough: 2
In one study looking at the disaster’s effect on cleanup workers’ lungs, number of genes in human airway cells found to be affected by exposure to a chemical oil dispersant used on the Gulf oil spill — with many of those same changes also observed in lung diseases like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: 84
Buccaneer Petroleum, where the motto is “Safety Worst.”
Chartering a Course for Disaster 3
The San Jose Mercury-News investigates online charter schools in Cali and discovers that it’s all about the Benjamins. Here’s a bit (emphasis added). Follow the link for the rest.
At the same time, K12’s heavily marketed school model has been lucrative, helping the company rake in more than $310 million in state funding over the past 12 years, as well as enriching sponsoring school districts, which have little stake in whether the students succeed.
Why am I not surprised?
Amateur Athletics 0
Yeah.
Right.
The University of Tennessee athletic department, with an operating budget of $126.6 million, spent $18.2 million on salaries, or 14.3 percent of its budget. The University of Memphis athletic department, with an operating budget of $43.4 million, spent $11.2 million on salaries, or 25.8 percent of its budget.
Yesterday, my local rag carried an interview with ESPN commentator Jay Bilas. When asked about “amateurism,” Bilas had this to say (follow the link for the full interview):
Coal Dustup 0
In an stunning example of “if you don’t let people talk about it then it must not be happening,” a coal waste company sued a citizens group for slander because they complained about the ever-present effects of the dust blanketing their community from the ash pit.
Just follow the link.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Solidarity Reimagined 0
One day those who have been seduced by the snaring economy will realize that they have been duped.
While they work for pittances, Silicon Valley reaps the premium and sucks them dry. It’s bubblelicious.
I carried a union card for 24 years.
Shortly after I started at my first employer, my job became a union job and my pay went up because I was no longer without protection. (I won’t go into the technical details of why this happened–it had to do with “deferred agreements” and stuff like that there).
When I got promoted into a non-union job, I continued to pay my union dues and maintained my seniority as a fall-back. When the time came that I needed a fall-back (my whole office and all the persons in it in Wilmington, Delaware, got offed), it turned out that I didn’t need to exercise my seniority rights, as I fell back into another industry. Nevertheless, those rights were there and I could have used them to put bread on the table had the other opportunity not come along all on its ownsome.
I never had to avail myself directly of the union’s services, because the union had already fought to protect me; I benefited from the sacrifices of persons who were willing to die for workers’ rights. I appreciated those protections, and, the more I learned about labor law, the more I appreciated them. I appreciate them still.
The union made my life better.
“Right to work” laws are in truth “right not to get paid fairly” laws and are one of the most successful cons in American political and labor history.
Image via Juanita Jean.
Afterthought:
In the phrase, “everyone is an entrepreneur,” methinks “entrepreneur” is “exploited” misplet.
The Snaring Economy 0
When “sharing” is a business, it’s not “sharing.”
It’s a business.
(snip)
A change of the law voted through parliament in January has obliged tenants to get permission from their landlords before putting their flat on Airbnb.
But according to reports in France, it’s the first time a tenant has been ordered to compensate the landlord.
Authorities in Paris, which is the world’s number one city for Airbnb rentals, have long tried to crack down on illegal rentals on the home-sharing site.
If I were a landlord, I’d want to know when a tenant was running a business out of my property also. I don’t know anything about French insurance practices, but I got a dollar to a croissant that the insurance company would want to know that you’ve turned your home into a boarding house.
“If You Can’t Google It, It Must Not Be” 0
Remember the University of California at Davis campus cop who egregiously pepper-sprayed a group of peaceful Occupy Wall Street protestors a couple of years ago?
Well, UC-Davis doesn’t want you to, so it tried to make it go away. The Sacramento Bee has the documents:
The payments were made as the university was trying to boost its image online and were among several contracts issued following the pepper-spray incident.
Some payments were made in hopes of improving the results computer users obtained when searching for information about the university or Katehi, results that one consultant labeled “venomous rhetoric about UC Davis and the chancellor.”
Much more at the link.
By the by, if you follow the link in the first sentence, the money does not appear to have been well-spent.
Asides:
Because I pay attention to stuff like this, I know that the most common technique used by the outfits that promise to cleanse your on-line reputation is not to make bad stuff go away, because they can’t. It’s to fabricate promulgate a bunch of good stuff, hoping that it pushes the bad stuff off the first page of search results, because most persons don’t look beyond the first page.
Also, remember that, with rhetoric, “venomous” and “accurate” are independent variables.
The Old Shell Game 0
Reporter shows how easily a shell company can be created in Delaware.
Via C&L, which also provides more detail.