8 posts tagged “evil”

Further evidence of the bigotry of insurance companies:

They show these commercials that claim "singing can add 15 years to your life!"

Okay, so if that's the case, then I want $50 off of my premium because I friggin' love karaoke.  I mean, if they can charge you more for, say, smoking...  why don't you get a discount for this alleged fountain of youth that is karaoke?

Scheißenhosen...

Well, the latest crash of my Linux server caused me to take a look at my options.  And I have to say, I was pretty pleasantly surprised by Google Apps.  For someone who just has their own personal domain name and wants somewhere to park their e-mail and maybe a few documents and web pages, it's quite a robust solution.  And it's free.

Sort of.  Like almost all Google offerings, the service is paid for by advertisements.  Up until this very latest encounter, I considered advertisements evil, and any company that proliferated them on the web to be doing evil.  Sure, there were lots of other cool things that Google was doing, but at its core, I didn't really like their whole mantra of advertisement supported services.

I'm coming out to say that I've officially changed my position on this topic.  I still consider obnoxious advertisements evil and tasteless.  Things like pop-ups or Flash-based obnoxopages that obscure what you're trying to actually do/see.  But the way Google (and Vox, by the way) does it is acceptable:  the advertising is a small part of the page, and it does not interfere with my ability to access the services at any time.  They are links off to the side of an e-mail.  I can live with that.

The way I see it now is that these advertisers are paying for my Google Apps service.  This is a service that I'd probably be willing to pay $10-20/month for, and I'm getting it for free by allowing some tasteful, non-intrusive words to hang on the side of my screen.  I can easily ignore them if I want.  That's fine.  It's capitalism:  I'm getting a service in exchange for potential mindshare.

I want to make it clear that this is the only kind of advertisement I deem acceptable:  an exchange of service or product for potential mindshare.  What I still consider theft is pretty much every other form of advertisement out there:  billboards, spam, junk US Mail, etc.  I'm not getting anything in return for the potential mindshare there - most of them actually waste my time as well - so it's tantamount to theft.  Note that TV commercials ride a fine line:  yes, they are supporting, in part, the programming.  But too much of that revenue doesn't actually go into the production costs of the program.  So it's kind of like walking into a grocery store and paying only 19 cents for the $2.50 cookies.  Still theft, but at least it's kind of an effort not to be.  Is there some magical ratio that would make me comfortable?  Maybe...  something like 90% would be nice.  But then none of the Rupert Murdochs of the world would make any money.  Oh no!  How terrible would that be?

Anyway, bravo Google.  Keep riding that line between Good and Evil...  preferably on the Good side.

Okay, so there's been some coverage nationally about the predatory nature of the "payday loan" industry.  How it targets poor people and military bases, and that sort of thing.  It's really easy to make an example of this situation because the unfairness seems so clear:  I mean, you've got these opportunistic predators preying on these poor, hard working people!  Oh no!  Something must be done to punish these predators!

But that's the easy way out, a myopic view of the big picture.

Just remember Jet's 2nd Law of Evil:  Banks are Evil.

The real, underlying problem here is that "mainstream" (Yes, feel free to apply every connotation of that word as previously discussed in my blog) banks refuse to extend these people a branch in their time of need.  That famous saying "a bank don't lend you money 'til you don't need it no more" is so very true.  The evil banks have decided that these Americans are not worth their trouble, so these people have nowhere else to turn for credit, and in desperation, they have to go to the predators who lie in wait.  All these predators have done is recognized that someone else has created a desperate situation that they can take advantage of.

The real solution to the problem lies not in punishing payday loan outfits for charging exorbitant fees, or by shutting them down.  The real solution is to punish mainstream banks for turning their greedy backs on hard working Americans.

The major oil companies have posted a profit totaling $31,600,000,000 this quarter.  That's thirty-one billion six hundred million dollars.  I think it's important to put all those zeros in, unlike most major news sources, to emphasize the enormity of that number.

That is more than $5 per person on earth.  Profit, not revenue.  Profit.

That's $350,000,000 (three hundred fifty million dollars) per day.  Or, if you prefer, $14,600,000 per hour...  or $4,000 per second.  Yes, that's right, in the amount of time it's taken you to read this far, they've made about your annual salary, give or take a few ten thousand dollars.

Here's a great snippet from the Seattle P-I:

While more productive refineries contributed to Chevron's upturn, Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Fadel Gheit said the company reaped its biggest gains at the gasoline pumps. "They really cleaned up there," Gheit said.

Without providing specifics, Chevron Chief Financial Officer Steve Crowe confirmed during a Friday conference call that the company's profit margins were higher at the gasoline pump than at its oil refineries. "That shouldn't be terribly surprising," Crowe said, citing the "stickiness" of gas prices as he discussed the results with industry analysts.

In other words:

"We think you are dumb, and we are going to clean you out.  Ha ha ha."

These people are Evil, man.  Just remember that when you hit the polling place next month.  Yes, we are their hostages now, because they have conspired with your government and your business leaders to create an energy monopoly.  But there are other forms of energy out there.  We just don't have any way to use them because these people hold them at bay with all their might so that they can pillage you.  Yes, you.

So be smart.  Don't vote for anybody that will even talk with an oil company executive.  Or, at the very least, vote for the guy who stands to profit less from oil.  And maybe use the bus when you can?  Carpool, at the very least?  Turn your heat down 1 degree?  C'mon.  Small steps.

A couple of terrorists in the Enron Financial Attacks on America were recently granted leniency.  Andrew Fastow and Paula Rieker were given this show of mercy because they had shown remorse and had cooperated with investigators and prosecutors in their attempt to fry the bigger fish, Skilling and Lay.

Well, frankly, I think this is bullshit.  I mean, we're holding people who some guy says he suspects of aiding terrorists in secret concentration camps all over the world without due process, without anything!...  and our joke of a justice system can't even punish REAL terrorists who really FUCKED people like you and me over.  It's ridiculous.  All these Enron guys are terrorists.  Their actions more directly affected my life than those of al-Zarqawi or bin Laden, or Saddam.  These Enron guys destroyed markets, and ruined lives in a direct manner.  Every time I see or hear about Enron, it makes me angry.  Those "terrorists" in the Middle East are just guys who are fighting to get our Imperialistic asses out of their country.  I'm not saying that I condone what they do, but I am saying that I can at least understand what drives them to do what they do.  The Enron terrorists did what they did out of pure, blatent, unadulterated EVIL and GREED.  Their targets were the American people, just like the terrorists you hear about on Fox News.

And I certainly don't buy this whole "remorse" and "assistance" argument for leniency.  These people narced on their bosses to save their own asses.  Period.  In my opinion, that's even less honorable.  They should get more time.

If this Enron thing doesn't illustrate how unfair our justice system is, I don't know what does.

"The Visa Halftime Show, brought to you by Visa."

In other words,

"We think you are dumb.  We think you are dumb."

We've all seen it...  the inevitable slide of a once-idealistic company into the clutches of greed and hypocrisy.  When executives start using phrases like "shareholder return" and "market penetration" instead of "great new idea" and "this is awesome."

What causes this slide?  Why do we see the theme of "in fighting the Man you become the Man" over and over?

Believe it or not, there is a very simple explanation.  It crosses industry lines, it crosses cultural lines, it crosses national borders.  It's so simple there must be something wrong with this explanation.  Which is why I present it to you, for your critique.

Companies become evil when they go public.

Period.

There are certainly benefits of going public, both for the company and the general public.  It allows a regular person like you and me to share in the success (or demise) of a company.  It is a great way to get a huge shot in the arm in terms of money and publicity for the company.  An IPO is a big deal, no matter what the company does, how big it is, or what industry it plays in.

The little secret behind all this is that the moment a company goes public, no one person or group of people is really in control of the company anymore.  The company becomes an entity unto itself.  And by law, it exists for one purpose and one purpose only:  to generate profit for the shareholders.

Many companies exist for other reasons, such as making software or batteries or the little plastic knob on your stereo, or providing a service like cleaning your clothes or fixing your computer...  but if that company is public, all that is really secondary to making money.  That's why a company like SCO could get away with existing solely on the basis of suing other companies instead of making a product or providing a service.  They convinced their shareholders that they could make more money by suing people instead of making stuff.  Thanks to the litigious shareholders in America, the executives probably felt it was their fiduciary responsibility to sue instead of make stuff, once they decided they had a better chance of making money that way than "earning an honest living."  The shareholders do not care about "honest livings," they care about making money.  And if the shareholders perceive that you did not do everything you could to squeeze out every bit of profit you could, they can and will sue you.

It's a cycle of fear that causes a company like Google to lash out in fear of its trademarks.  People who work at public companies also get a veil of protection in the name of their company.  Doing something horrible for the perceived good of the company allows people to set their morals aside because they feel not just protected by their company, but compelled to do so for the company.  Like they had no choice.

Certainly there are plenty of evil private companies, but that's a different topic.  What I'm saying here is there is no such thing as a non-evil public company, by definition.

If a company could be "semi-public" this could help...  ie. "only investors who agree with our stated mission and values need invest."  That way a company could forgo a potentially lucrative deal that is contrary to its values without being at risk from shareholder lawsuits.  And some companies certainly try to be less evil than others, even while being public.  But it takes a lot of effort on the part of their marketing and PR people to keep their investors convinced that being less evil will be more profitable in the long run.  Why bother with that when you can just tell investors who are "greed above all else" to buzz off?

One need look no further than the blogosphere to find the latest example of how corporations pervert beautiful things once they get their hands on them.

I can't tell you the number of job descriptions I've seen recently that require that the person in the position "blog."

Let me just say, a "corporate blog" is no blog at all.  It's an advertisement.  A blog, in the truest essence of the word, is a personal, non-corporate forum for individuals to speak out.  For a company to mandate that an employee write in a blog is like the federal government paying news organizations to run segments promoting propaganda.