Another Great Example for Ethics Classes

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m0002a
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Post by m0002a » Wed Sep 10, 2008 1:57 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:Hiya,

I know who and what the neo-cons are -- my questions still stand unanswered.
I answered the first question. Neo-con is not a "source of information", it is a political philosophy. They get their information from the same place (CIA) as everyone else, including Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden. The CIA does not have a political philosophy. They only care about who, when, and how much--especially how much (to quote the guy from Three Days on the Condor).

I was assuming you knew the answer to the second one by now and that it was a rhetorical question.

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Post by NeilBlanchard » Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:19 pm

Hi,

That's splitting hairs -- the neo-cons are people, and they set up their own "intelligence" office, because they were not happy with the CIA. They groomed Ahmed Chalabi, and they paid him; and they stove piped his "info" to Dick Cheney.

They cooked the info, in other words, and they poisoned the actual intelligence gathered and analyzed by the CIA. They bent things to suit their agenda -- and they lied. I wouldn't trust the neo-cons to tell me the weather...they are the people who helped drag us into Iraq, so any "logic" from them is sure to be self-serving.

----------------------------------

On another lesson in ethics, have you heard about the "gifts" and drugged and drunken partying, and sex with subordinates and with oil industry employees -- over at the Department of the Interior? These are the folks that are supposed to be regulating the oil companies... :roll: :evil:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=94482311

And on the "bridge to nowhere":

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=94481282
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=94481285

'Lipstick on a pig."

m0002a
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Post by m0002a » Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:34 pm

NeilBlanchard wrote:Hi,

That's splitting hairs -- the neo-cons are people, and they set up their own "intelligence" office, because they were not happy with the CIA. They groomed Ahmed Chalabi, and they paid him; and they stove piped his "info" to Dick Cheney.

They cooked the info, in other words, and they poisoned the actual intelligence gathered and analyzed by the CIA. They bent things to suit their agenda -- and they lied. I wouldn't trust the neo-cons to tell me the weather...they are the people who helped drag us into Iraq, so any "logic" from them is sure to be self-serving.
Clearly Chalabi had his own agenda, but I don't think your facts are "accurate" either. One man's truth is another man's lie.

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Post by NeilBlanchard » Mon Sep 15, 2008 8:54 am

Hi y'all,

Well, I think that the yogurt has hit the fan:

Lehman Brothers bank is in bankruptcy.

Merrill Lynch is being bought up by Bank of America for a paltry 50 billion. BoA already has bought up Countrywide -- the largest mortgage company until they self destructed.

AIG is looking pretty shaky. What about Wachovia, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and other banks?

We, the US taxpayers have already bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- this is HUGE!

We, the US taxpayers have already bailed out Bear Stearns, and IndyMAC.

Britain has bailed out Northern Rock, and Germany has rescued IKG.

Do you still think that government oversight is too heavy handed? When private profit is mixed with public liability -- is a guarantee of unethical behavior.

Have you ever wondered why it is Republican administrations (Reagan and W) that precipitate financial debacles? The Savings and Loan failures under Reagan, and the Global Crossing, Enron, Adelphia, Worldcom failures -- and now the sub-prime and credit meltdown under Bush -- wake up people!
Last edited by NeilBlanchard on Tue Sep 16, 2008 2:43 am, edited 2 times in total.

m0002a
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Post by m0002a » Mon Sep 15, 2008 10:09 am

NeilBlanchard wrote:Have you ever wondered why it is Republican administrations (Reagan and W) that precipitate financial debacles? The Savings and Loan failures under Reagan, and the Global Crossing, Enron, Adelphia, Worldcom failures -- and now the sub-prime and credit meltdown under Bush -- wake up people!
Since the topic of this thread is ethics, maybe we should make sure we have our facts straight. The Global Crossing, Enron, Adelphia, Worldcom excesses largely occurred while Clinton was in office, although the problems came to light during the the early years of the Bush Administration.

Can we blame Clinton for the dot.com over-valuation in the late 1990's and subsequent meltdown?

In any case, maybe you can enlighten us and explain what changes in the law or government regulations occurred after Bush took office that contributed to the current mortgage loan problems or the previous problems you mentioned? Congress has been controlled by the Democrats for the last 2 years (almost), so what legislation have they passed that Bush vetoed that would have prevented this?

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Post by aristide1 » Fri Sep 19, 2008 4:17 pm

Clinton didn't go to Ken Lay's funeral saying "There goes a good man."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 42498.html


I see the republicans are very busy this week. They like to privatize profits and socialize the losses. What a model of capitalism this is, big reward and zero risk. What a great way to curb unethical behavior.

But then why would someone like W curb that? I mean after all, W is a conservative who's trying to limit government interference every chance he gets. :roll:

Not one mention of sending anyone to jail for this global fiasco. It's not so hot living in the United Corporations of America.

W's improvement to national security up to 9-10:
This box intentionally left blank.

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Post by m0002a » Fri Sep 19, 2008 6:29 pm

aristide1 wrote:Not one mention of sending anyone to jail for this global fiasco. It's not so hot living in the United Corporations of America.
I am all for sending the corporate executives to jail who violate the law. In fact, if it were up to me, I would have sentenced Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom to death (I am serious) if it was legal to do that (no, I didn't loose a dime on WorldCom nor do I personally know anyone who did).

However, before you charge someone with a crime you need to come up with a law that has been violated (let us know, and please cite the exact portion of the US Code). As to what Bush can do, the executive branch does not send people to jail, they only file charges. It is up to the judicial system to try and sentence them. Fortunately (for me at least) people can’t be sent to jail just because you don't like them.

The current problems are the result of government involvement in the mortgage process when Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association or FNMA) was founded as a government agency in 1938 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal to provide liquidity to the mortgage market. Then in 1968 (during LBJ’s term with a Democrat controlled Congress) FNMA was converted into a private corporation to remove the activity of Fannie Mae from the annual balance sheet of the federal budget.

Fannie Mae (and Freddie Mac) buy loans made by banks and other mortgage lenders and package them into debt instruments that sell as bonds on the secondary markets. So the people at the banks who approved the loans had had no real stake in the outcome if the loans defaulted, because the loans were sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac right after they were initiated. These “New Dealâ€

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Post by xan_user » Fri Sep 19, 2008 7:38 pm

m0002a wrote:
aristide1 wrote:Not one mention of sending anyone to jail for this global fiasco. It's not so hot living in the United Corporations of America.
...
snip
...

However, before you charge someone with a crime you need to come up with a law that has been violated (let us know, and please cite the exact portion of the US Code). As to what Bush can do, the executive branch does not send people to jail, they only file charges. It is up to the judicial system to try and sentence them. Fortunately (for me at least) people can’t be sent to jail just because you don't like them.

...
snip
...
Unless Bush sends them Guantanamo? Then its OK?

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Post by aristide1 » Fri Sep 19, 2008 7:59 pm

(let us know, and please cite the exact portion of the US Code).
And when did you ever cite any of your stuff? You practice the republican game of peppering your viewpoint with a couple of facts to make it seem legit. There are also civil laws, lawsuits than can be filed, plenty if the government doesn't squash the little guy's rights again.

And you can also barely escape the letter of the law and be an unethical self serving dirt bag, the point of the thread. Witness GE dumping PCBs into the Hudson River. It was not illegal, but they did know how dangerous the stuff is. What does that make them in your eyes, great business men?

You can now return to praying to your statue of Michael Milken, your hero. Or is that Ken Lay?

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Post by m0002a » Fri Sep 19, 2008 9:27 pm

aristide1 wrote:And when did you ever cite any of your stuff? You practice the republican game of peppering your viewpoint with a couple of facts to make it seem legit. There are also civil laws, lawsuits than can be filed, plenty if the government doesn't squash the little guy's rights again.

And you can also barely escape the letter of the law and be an unethical self serving dirt bag, the point of the thread. Witness GE dumping PCBs into the Hudson River. It was not illegal, but they did know how dangerous the stuff is. What does that make them in your eyes, great business men?

You can now return to praying to your statue of Michael Milken, your hero. Or is that Ken Lay?
I am not going to respond to personal attacks. If the moderators had any sense of decency, they would remove your posts.

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Post by m0002a » Fri Sep 19, 2008 9:34 pm

xan_user wrote:Unless Bush sends them Guantanamo? Then its OK?
The US Supreme court has ruled many times that people who are not citizens on the US and captured during a war do not have the same constitutional rights of due process. Do you think we should have granted those rights in previous US wars? From what I remember, FDR did not even grant those rights to some US citizens who had nothing whatsoever to do with any war other than their racial background.

So if you want to advocate that the US Supreme Court be stripped of its powers so you can decide what is constitutional, then I think you should clearly state that in your post.

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Post by xan_user » Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:10 pm

m0002a wrote:
xan_user wrote:Unless Bush sends them Guantanamo? Then its OK?
The US Supreme court has ruled many times that people who are not citizens on the US and captured during a war do not have the same constitutional rights of due process. Do you think we should have granted those rights in previous US wars? From what I remember, FDR did not even grant those rights to some US citizens who had nothing whatsoever to do with any war other than their racial background.

So if you want to advocate that the US Supreme Court be stripped of its powers so you can decide what is constitutional, then I think you should clearly state that in your post.

If the constitution is so behind our policy, why do we hide it out side the US, in questionably occupied land, taken from foreign communist country? -Should be real easy for the news to cover it there, so no injustices happen while no-one is looking.

Basic human rights should not be different depending on who you are or where you come from. Yes even if your President or VP- (They should be prisoner #1&#2 in Cuba's occupied land if we're going to have one under the current regime's definition.)

What we are engaged in now is a politically motivated which hunt, not a war.
Unless you see that, there is no point for me to waste my time.
Its like talking to a flat earth society member.
Luckily the flat earth society doesn't have the lobbying power the republicans do or I 'd be hauled off to gitmo for possessing a globe.(-al view)

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Post by m0002a » Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:30 pm

Cuba was in Spanish possession for almost 400 years (circa 1511-1898). The US obtained Cuba after the Spanish American War in 1898. The Republic of Cuba was granted formal independence by the US on May 20, 1902. The Cuban constitution agreed to lease to the U.S. the naval base at Guantánamo Bay.

A 1934 treaty, reaffirming the lease, granted Cuba and her trading partners free access through the bay, and added a requirement that termination of the lease requires the consent of both the U.S. and Cuba governments, or the U.S. abandonment of the base property. Although the US continues to send the Cuban government annual lease payments the current Communist government has never cashed any of these checks.

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Post by NeilBlanchard » Sat Sep 20, 2008 6:57 pm

Hello,

The Bush administration obviously was trying to duck the Constitution by housing the "worst of the worst" in Guantanamo -- and they have been slapped down at every step by the conservative Supreme Court.

The Bush administration should close Gitmo, and a special prosecutor should investigate Bush and Cheney and their staffs -- and prosecute them for any crimes they may have committed. Some of the people there are innocent goat herders, or doctors, or just innocent. They were turned in for the $5,000 bounty.

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Post by aristide1 » Sun Sep 21, 2008 5:56 am

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26809759/

Check out these low lifes.
m0002a wrote:From what I remember, FDR did not even grant those rights to some US citizens who had nothing whatsoever to do with any war other than their racial background.
And this is justification for Bush's actions? Hogwash.

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Post by AZBrandon » Mon Sep 22, 2008 1:17 pm

I remember after Clinton left office (with half the White House furniture with him, and following a couple hundred criminal pardons) that they tallied it up and found something like 26 members of the Clinton administration had been convicted of crimes during his term as president. Unfortunately I can't find the article now, as it was published, uh, like 7.5 years ago I guess. Anyone know where to find such information?

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Post by aristide1 » Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:40 pm

AZBrandon wrote:I remember after Clinton left office (with half the White House furniture with him, and following a couple hundred criminal pardons) that they tallied it up and found something like 26 members of the Clinton administration had been convicted of crimes during his term as president. Unfortunately I can't find the article now, as it was published, uh, like 7.5 years ago I guess. Anyone know where to find such information?
It's probably been supressed by the DNC (M0002a won't mind me saying that since I am making democrats look bad, and that's OK.) You'll have better luck seeing W's drunk driving conviction.

Meanwhile we return now the socialization of corporate greed, sponsored by the US government, err sorry, sponsored by you!

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Post by m0002a » Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:07 pm

aristide1 wrote:It's probably been supressed by the DNC (M0002a won't mind me saying that since I am making democrats look bad, and that's OK.) You'll have better luck seeing W's drunk driving conviction.
DNC doesn't have to supress it. They have the 4th estate to do that for them.

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Post by aristide1 » Wed Sep 24, 2008 6:49 pm

Here's some more work of the innocents you keep clinging to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Onondaga

No laws broken, so they must be a-ok. A page out of the W ethics manual for businessmen.
m0002a wrote:
aristide1 wrote:And you can also barely escape the letter of the law and be an unethical self serving dirt bag, the point of the thread. .....

You can now return to praying to your statue of Michael Milken, your hero. Or is that Ken Lay?
I am not going to respond to personal attacks. If the moderators had any sense of decency, they would remove your posts.
Can you for once try to comprehend correctly or do you enjoy taking stuff out of context like a republican? "You can" does not denote you personally, it means anybody, despite what your ego instills in you.

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Post by m0002a » Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:27 am

aristide1 wrote:Here's some more work of the innocents you keep clinging to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Onondaga

No laws broken, so they must be a-ok. A page out of the W ethics manual for businessmen.
Last time I looked, the state of NY is run by mostly by members of the Democratic Party. They are free to enact any laws they see fit to prevent these problems or punish offenders.

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Post by aristide1 » Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:54 am

But you had to see it coming. IE who expected people to be so unethical back then. Nobody had such laws in those years. IE Your trying to dodge the bullet again. Limbaugh tactics hard at work.

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Post by m0002a » Thu Sep 25, 2008 7:35 am

aristide1 wrote:But you had to see it coming. IE who expected people to be so unethical back then. Nobody had such laws in those years. IE Your trying to dodge the bullet again. Limbaugh tactics hard at work.
What are you saying? That there are unethical people out there? Well yes, there are, but it is not my fault and I don't answer for the actions of others. If you don't think there are unethical people in communist countries (where there is no private enterprise), you have never talked to anyone who has ever lived in one.

If you live in NY and want to pass laws that will put those people in jail or execute them, that is OK with me.

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Post by aristide1 » Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:50 pm

m0002a wrote:What are you saying?
That you're the only one here asking that question.

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Post by aristide1 » Mon Sep 29, 2008 7:36 am

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26913988/from/RSS/

This week's list of the unethical includes a story about the death of Paul Newman. Not because Paul was unethical, far from it. The unethical part comes from the usual source, the party of fear and paranoia.

"Newman had a soft spot for underdogs in real life, giving tens of millions to charities through his food company and setting up camps for severely ill children. Passionately opposed to the Vietnam War, and in favor of civil rights, he was so famously liberal that he ended up on President Nixon's "enemies list," one of the actor's proudest achievements, he liked to say."

I always wondered when US citizens gave up being for the underdog and decided it was better to make the "L" symbol on their forehead and scream "LOSER!"

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Post by m0002a » Mon Sep 29, 2008 8:46 am

aristide1 wrote:This week's list of the unethical includes a story about the death of Paul Newman. Not because Paul was unethical, far from it. The unethical part comes from the usual source, the party of fear and paranoia.
Between you and Nixon, I am not sure which one is the most paranoid.

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Post by aristide1 » Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:15 am

m0002a wrote:
aristide1 wrote:This week's list of the unethical includes a story about the death of Paul Newman. Not because Paul was unethical, far from it. The unethical part comes from the usual source, the party of fear and paranoia.
Between you and Nixon, I am not sure which one is the most paranoid.
You forgot Cheney.

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Post by aristide1 » Mon Oct 06, 2008 8:38 am

Business ethics at its finest.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27047714/

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Post by xan_user » Mon Oct 06, 2008 9:18 am

Did we all forget, or is it now just referred to as the Keating 4 in "balanced" media?

90 seconds to jar your memory.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAzDEbVFcg8

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Post by aristide1 » Mon Oct 06, 2008 9:34 am

Not learning a thing from its unethical past BoA repeats its own history.

Who's at the helm of this beast? The guy who was steering the Exxon Valdez?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27050659/

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Under Bush, Performance Woes Akin To PR Problems

Post by NeilBlanchard » Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:42 pm

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=95442887
Under the Bush administration, federal agencies like the Food and Drug Administration are encouraged to treat performance problems like public relations problems. The FDA's response to criticism over its handling of the salmonella outbreak and other inspection failures was to offer a $300,000 contract to Qorvis Communications.
Please listen to the wise old man.

Not only did they figure out a way to get around the competitive bid that is required, they sold it as equal opportunity.

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