Jewish Atheist

Capitalism is best loved by those whom it most benefits at any given time. Execs and shareholders always come first. Like any institution - religion, marriage, government — it’s no better than the people who run it. So, with people of middle-school maturity in charge, we have bubbles, inept regulation, influence peddling, Ponzi schemes, financial meltdowns, funny money (derivatives), program trading (computers superseding human intelligence), insider trading, inhumane boss-ocracy, perpetual job anxiety, people in jobs they hate, greedy executives and unions, and 24/7 marketing to keep consumers buying the latest styles and gadgets, because greed is good.

Is there ONE organization where boss-abuse, the adult form of bullying, can be reported and curbed, by a reporting structure that goes right to the CEO, such that even senior management assholes get called on their behavior and told to reform? No, I don’t think there is. In many cases, senior management confers the right to be an asshole.

All of his advice some from a highly privileged and lucky individual who probably doesn’t know why he’s so successful, so it’s all suspect.

How can Toyota owners get into their cars each morning? Incredibly, many are still loyal. This kind of brand loyalty is far from innocuous, unlike the believe-no-matter-what attitude that accompanies religion or Cubs fandom. It can cost you your life. But still they believe. If I had a Toyota, I would sell it to the first sucker — sorry, buyer — today, if possible.

He was a jihadi, a striver, a struggler. And a martyr. He gave up on this world as irremediably broken and corrupt. But the key difference: Muslims blow themselves up for the sake of a religious fantasy. He did it because he refused to stop confronting reality.

American companies waste tons of time and money on diversity activities and recruiting minorities, all of which makes them less competitive in a global marketplace that doesn’t give a damn about “proportional representation.”

The “anything you’d rather not be doing” definition of work is the simplest and purest I have enountered. It defines work as no more than what it is: giving your time and energy FIVE or SIX days a week to create the monetary energy to sustain you during the, say, 15% of your life you’re not working, as well as to save for some future time when youi won’t have to work (when is that?). This sounds like a losing investment for the worker: five days a week, 50 weeks a year, is a LOT of your life.

The costs of reverse discrimination continue to pile up. The Muslim murderer at Fort Hood was allowed to remain in his position, even promoted, despite his avowedly radical views (anybody who puts the Shari’a above the Constitution should be immediately and dishonorably discharged). To do otherwise would, it was felt, be politically incorrect. I do hope the victims’ families understand this logic. I sure don’t.

I think Peter Drucker has it right. He says that “leadership is all hype,” and he notes that “we’ve had three great leaders in this century – Hitler, Stalin, and Mao – and you see the devastation they left behind.” As for modern, so-called “post-heroic” leadership, Drucker says “It’s nothing but hard work and conscientiousness” (quoted in Forbes, 2/21/94).

I agree with Michael Moore: contemporary capitalism all too often consists of people behaving badly. The problems are so complex that I couldn’t begin to suggest solutions (one soution is NOT to bail out failing companies). But Saturn represented a Camelot moment in the American auto industry, a moment when people believed that the sins of the past could be overcome in a single leap. They were, for a bit. Then the muck of the system — make money, screw the workers, screw management, get the stock price up — sucked it into mediocrity and now, death.