"a large monolithic corporation acts just like a communist government. it is responsible for all the welfare of the people who it serves and it serves the people because they all work for it"
Sorry Charlie, but corporations have been pushing for ZERO responsibility for years. The real "people who[m] it serves" are the executives, then insitutional shareholders, and then a bit of the general shareholders. Everyone else can just suck vacuum and fight constantly for their due.
Corporatism is actually Fascism. There is no justice in such a system. Power will be concentrated in the hands of people for no particular reason. We may as well just return to having Kings, for all the rationale that's required to support them.
"it sounds bad, but this form of economic system [...]"
No, chum, it sounds bad since it IS bad. Corporations nowadays only practice social responsibility when forced to by law. And populism is failing, leading to decreasing use of such force. Do you really think that corporatizing America (for instance) will keep our air and waters clean? After all, it costs money to process waste, and instead corporations can just dump such waste into rivers and the air. It'll wash downstream and downwind and be out of the corp's area... problem solved! The execs and other rich will always be able to filter their air and water, so it's not like they'll ever suffer the consequences at any rate.
I didn't say I ignore building codes. In a fine, rightwingnut fashion, you assumed that. Good job, Rush. Unfortunately for you, I DID say that I've learned not to ask (and by implication, invite) the government to judge my work.
It's nuts to build without knowledge of building codes, since the codes also tell you how to do the work... and I do want to know how. If my house burns down, duh-fucking-duh, I'm the first person affected (if not actually killed).
If you want to bother with rules, you should also bother to have your esteemed government disclose them. Secret rules are bullshit and only lead to widespread disobedience of the law. And you can take that one to the bank, Roscoe.
Regulation is perfectly fine as a first cut... but as I implied, and you noted anecdotally, secret rules are bullshit. If we are going to regulate home construction and alterations, we MUST disclose these regulations so the homeowner can comply.
You're correct that this is not exactly what the *AA are doing. What they are doing is Fascism. They are merging corporate power with state power. Since Fascism must eventually be fought outside courtrooms and legislative halls with a hail of bullets, I really have little problem with the *AA. We The People will simply disobey the law until the actual shooting starts (or less likely, the laws are revoked in favor of individual liberty). All those highly degreed twits in corporate offices should be educated enough to know that the bullets are coming from what they're doing, and if they don't, then they must be the best educated stupid motherfuckers on Earth. And "stupid" is eventually a lethal aspect to life.
You're too modest. The "something else" is Fascism: the merging of corporate and state power.
You can use the word Fascism to describe what's going on. Go ahead. After all, it's exactly what it is, so don't hesitate. The talk-radio twits will scream about it, but they were never known for their logic, consistency, and overall secular Humanism anyway.
It's a wonder it's not illegal to use a hammer, nails, screwdriver, drywall, plaster and screws to build or modify your house any way you want to.
There are building codes, so in some way, it is illegal. Also, for those who bother to ask, there are permits and regulation requirements. This means that in order to conduct a legal alteration of your house, you need at least a permit in many cases, and in cases where certain wiring needs to be done, or work is being done for a tenant (even if it's your house), then the regulations may require a licensed and bonded professional to do some or all of the work.
It's because of this crapola that I've learned not to ask government agencies about the legality of doing things myself. There seems to be no end to the requirements they pull out of the air, and then there's the too-frequent shock later on in finding out another "requirement" that no one told you about in the first place (but since you involved some inspector, you are utterly liable for it now -- kind of in line with Dracula's alleged motto "enter freely and of your own will").
Gee, it took.02 seconds to come up with the simple tactic of hijacking the existing fuel-rod transport trucks to get around these "impossible!-can't happen!-we're safe!" scenarios that are just designed to make Mr. Average American feel good about his wide-open nuclear facilities.
It appears that we can always trust Forbes to spout some feel-good security propaganda.
Why be picky? My experience with small businesses tells me that individual medical practices should be as tight-fisted as all the rest of the entrepreneurs. Computers, printers, hubs... these are used until they simply can't be fixed. Note well that replacements for old equipment are quite available even at shops in modest cities; and there's always eBay.
Small business is generally frugal. That's a good thing, since otherwise they are so foolish with personal expenses that they'd probably go under at an even higher rate of failure. The thousands of dollars they save on not upgrading a PentiumI server is just funneled into the owner's son's liquor account for the year.
Don't even joke about that. I knew a guy who worked for ConRail, and it was his oft-said half-joke that if the railroad's accountants weren't restrained, they'd fire everyone else just to show an enormous profit that quarter. Getting rid of productive assets just to show a transient profit is a mental virus that can infect anyone at any time. If we give in to it, we'll eventually see people selling their arms and legs, one by one, just to get some fat cash.
After being assaulted by this knee-jerk Neo-Con response for many years, I hit upon the base assumptions of it. Those who use it assume that one is bringing no value to the equation of work. And that's as invalid an assumption as any.
To properly respond to such an assault, I do dearly love to say: "I'm not owed a living, but I AM owed the opportunity to work for it." That usually shuts 'em up in hurry (I think that it's because my response runs on assumptions that use all the Neo-Con concepts and buzzwords: work, opportunity, enterprise, etc.).
There's one thing that the Hypercapitalists can't wish away: In order to make profit on a business, you must pay people to run the business. You must pay for the electricity your business uses, the supplies it consumes, and so on. Business costs. You must spend money in order to make more. And once you hook the "don't owe you a living" twits on that barb, they are caught and can only twist in the wind. (Of course, they are free to repudiate the idea of paying vendors and employees for items and labor consumed, but that contrariness hasn't gained many converts... yet.)
A business exists for ONE PURPOSE: to make money for its shareholders.
Funny you would mention "one purpose" and then "shareholders" in the same sentence. Shares generally indicate a corporation, and a corporation indicates a corporate charter... the terms of which the public very much has a say in. Granted, regulators, courts and the people in general don't reach out their hands nowadays and assert such authority, but that doesn't deny that the authority exists.
The hell we are currently enjoying is an overdrive of profit motive. It is so strong that it obviously prompts people like you to spout falsehoods like the "one purpose" myth. But it's just an overdrive, and like all such things, a correction will eventually be applied after the crash. Once enough people are terribly abused by the corporations they failed to oversee, and failed to enforce some social responsibility upon, then said people will lurch into the direction of corporate restrictions.
I'm perfectly accepting of the concept of corporate restrictions. After all, rights must be linked to responsibilities, and another word for "responsibility" is "restriction" (or "regulation"). We don't owe corporations a living, but they do have a right to work for one... just as we do.
That's one theory. It certainly has enough precedent.
However, there's another historical theory that says newbies get less vacation time, vesting, and so on. So it may also be that senior employees are the actual "dead weight" by some straaaaange coincidence.
There is essentially no market for a downgraded form of modern computing equipment. And where there is market demand, the suppliers ignore it since they are driven by extreme profit motives, which drives them to remain on the "cutting edge". After all, making a "decent profit" can never be a stated goal for a major product development; your stockholders would probably sue you for failing in your fiduciary responsibilities.
This is why we have at least 22 million SUVs on America's roads. Those monstrosities make a great profit per vehicle, so car companies are making as many as they can. But that 1-person "people mover" that can reach 55mph, weighs 400lb, gets 90mpg, and costs $4000? Sorry, there are none of those in the market.
I go through this angsty wanting all the time. Nearly constantly, I desire things that there is little market for, and what market exists is essentially and intentionally ignored by manufacturers. You'll have to do what I have to do often enough: make your own solution to achieve the price+function combination you can live with. For example, you can always stack rechargeable batteries together to give your "longevity laptop" creation the long operation times you desire... as long as you don't mind toting a battery bag along, that is.
Quite a list. Unfortunately for you, and in contrast, the only openness that will result will be your ass. For example, Congress continues its elitism under our watch, hence the continued opening process applied to your rectum. We could take the trouble of voting the scum out, even if it means in practical terms voting out 90% of them. Are you willing to undertake the responsibility of doing that? Are you willing to talk some hard politics with friends, family and associates? I do all that, but I am vastly out-numbered.
It's interesting that so many Americans accept being dominated for the benefit of the rich, because they fantasize about winning the lottery and dominating the poor in turn.
That's such a good summary that it's sig material. I think that the pervasive fantasy you identified is more than enough to account for many American cognitive failures.
I recall talking with an old neighbor just a few years ago. She fondly recalled the old days, when you couldn't hear people shoveling their snow since they used wood snow shovels (unlike the modern racket of aluminum shovels, and of course snowblowers). She pointed out that in those days, people didn't care what anyone else made, as long as they supported themselves. Now we have a culture of endless envy, and the weight of our greed is getting to be very destructive.
Good luck with your parent poster. Greed makes such people so blind that it's more than highly aggravating how they deny everything you'll say about society, culture, and all those nutty ideas about secular Humanism. They're "going to be millionaires", no matter how many people are hurt along the way, and no matter how obviously they will be inflicting such pains. I'll be fighting such beastly people for the rest of my life, and I'm not particularly looking forward to at least 30 more years of them trying to throw me into poverty as a result.
After the invasion, you will NEED to get repairs done. But it's likely he'll have to destroy the Hubble to save it. After all, that fine philosophy worked in Viet Nam.
Well... no. War money is different. If not spent on war, it simply will not be spent. If by some miracle it is re-allocated, it will be re-allocated for perfectly slimy reasons (like Washington DC's Homeland Security funding being diverted for Inaugural purposes). No war money is going to magically or even practically turn into Hubble money.
Before a catastrophe occurs, everything looks just fine. You also have the prevailing attitude that "it can't happen here". America is exactly there.
You also use terminology like "major economic crisis" in the same breaths while denying my statements. The current administration has no intention of having their policies "leave office". Hence, this "otherwise" condition of yours is likely to occur. Why not be honest and just admit it?
I didn't say it will just affect Americans. I just said "tough fuck" and "Americans will get what they deserve". Over the last 50 years, free peoples around the world should have captured and executed any American CIA operatives they could find to have avoided the terrible Imperial fall that is starting to occur. You avoid Imperial collapses only by avoiding Imperial expansions. All Empires drown in their own blood.
Re-alignment is now unstoppable. It doesn't matter what our judgments are about it. Once I identified that I actually lived in the first Nazi Germany of the 21st Century (i.e. Imperial America), I dropped my support of American government and overall American culture. But I'm exceedingly outnumbered in America and the Empire is just going to lurch into a violent paroxysm. The violence is well expressed aboard. What remains to be settled is domestic violence. And then the rest of the world will have to re-align once the smoking crater in NYC, Washington or Chicago completly consumes American attention.
Revenge, chaos, etc.... these are all coming. They are inevitable as general American bankruptcy. It's sad, but I'm not so deranged as you to think that the Fall can be avoided.
Didn't we go through this before with the dotcoms? Managers, executives and stockholders are screaming in unison that "outsourcing" must happen, so entire chunks of many industries lumber in that direction. Sure enough, all kinds of incompetent twits appear, dressed in natty suits, looking to catch the wads of cash that are being incautiously thrown. Suddenly, managers (and so on) find themselves not only having to become skilled in outsourcing (your own company's suited twits may be calling it "strategic sourcing"), but they are well behind on the skill of determining who the bullshit artists are in the outsourcing supply world. Dip all of this in more investor screaming, and you have a wonderful recipe for a disaster.
All foolish demands will be met by con artists. This is the first thing a manager or executive should know.
I can't speak for sensationalist spin, but partisan spin is a cornerstone of historic American journalism. Although I find it objectionable, I can't deny that stuff like Limbaugh's daily rant, Rather's inept evidence, and the like are the actual basis of American journalism.
The good thing about partisan journalism is that you can sample viewpoints and reach your own conclusions. The bad thing about it is obvious; it can be dressed in the clothes of objectivity while it is actually anything but.
The Neo-Conservatives are working hard to bring back an old America. There are many good things about this old America. But I doubt Americans will see many of those benefits, since the Neo-Liberals had been working long before to build the New World Order atop this construct of (allegedly) supreme personal responsibility and advocacy. Neo-Cons plus Neo-Libs equals a new American Civil War or Depression. It is (quite simply) extreme Capitalism without any Socialism.
Journalism was significantly killed off in the 1990s from the use of corporate power by the Neo-Liberals. The Neo-Cons are just kicking out the other leg, that's all. As usual, squeezed between tyrannical power groups, the common American must rise to the occasion and make use of the resources at his command. And right now, that's essentially Internet news.
They're not stupid. They simply have no patience for learning music culture and then apply that expertise to music business. They already learned everything they need to know about the music business by getting their MBAs... as long as you only define "music business" as a BUSINESS, that is.
I define "stupid" as "being too long in a condition of ignorance". I don't think those music-industry execs are actually ignorant of music culture. They simply think it's irrelevent. As some other poster said here in this discussion, the prevailing business attitude is that music is just like selling soda water, soap or cars. Music is therefore just another product to the class of business executives which have (perhaps fatally) infected the music business.
I find it even more cheering that such dreadfully inhuman methods would be used to make mainstream music that can only present indie music in a better light. If I were an indie musician (like perhaps the band Brother), I'd rejoice that my "competition" would take such a route to its own mediocrity.
Apparently Humanity needs a constant lesson in what happens when power is removed from people and placed centrally in a bunch of corporate dirtbags. We need to learn this over, and over. The music industry is now teaching it to the consumer, and is about to ramp up the pace of the instruction.
Of course your CEO did. The more engineers he can choose from, the lower his costs to employ them. He'd love to have millions of unemployed engineers in America, China and India to choose from. Capital + Engineers + Energy + Time = Products. He's just trying to sucker people into reducing the costs of the 2nd term in his vicious business equation.
Note he didn't encourage those young people to go into MBA programs. The last thing he needs is competition in the supply of business executives.
Slashdot Mirror
The great weakness in your argument is this:
... problem solved! The execs and other rich will always be able to filter their air and water, so it's not like they'll ever suffer the consequences at any rate.
"a large monolithic corporation acts just like a communist government. it is responsible for all the welfare of the people who it serves and it serves the people because they all work for it"
Sorry Charlie, but corporations have been pushing for ZERO responsibility for years. The real "people who[m] it serves" are the executives, then insitutional shareholders, and then a bit of the general shareholders. Everyone else can just suck vacuum and fight constantly for their due.
Corporatism is actually Fascism. There is no justice in such a system. Power will be concentrated in the hands of people for no particular reason. We may as well just return to having Kings, for all the rationale that's required to support them.
"it sounds bad, but this form of economic system [...]"
No, chum, it sounds bad since it IS bad. Corporations nowadays only practice social responsibility when forced to by law. And populism is failing, leading to decreasing use of such force. Do you really think that corporatizing America (for instance) will keep our air and waters clean? After all, it costs money to process waste, and instead corporations can just dump such waste into rivers and the air. It'll wash downstream and downwind and be out of the corp's area
I didn't say I ignore building codes. In a fine, rightwingnut fashion, you assumed that. Good job, Rush. Unfortunately for you, I DID say that I've learned not to ask (and by implication, invite) the government to judge my work.
... and I do want to know how. If my house burns down, duh-fucking-duh, I'm the first person affected (if not actually killed).
It's nuts to build without knowledge of building codes, since the codes also tell you how to do the work
If you want to bother with rules, you should also bother to have your esteemed government disclose them. Secret rules are bullshit and only lead to widespread disobedience of the law. And you can take that one to the bank, Roscoe.
Regulation is perfectly fine as a first cut ... but as I implied, and you noted anecdotally, secret rules are bullshit. If we are going to regulate home construction and alterations, we MUST disclose these regulations so the homeowner can comply.
You're correct that this is not exactly what the *AA are doing. What they are doing is Fascism. They are merging corporate power with state power. Since Fascism must eventually be fought outside courtrooms and legislative halls with a hail of bullets, I really have little problem with the *AA. We The People will simply disobey the law until the actual shooting starts (or less likely, the laws are revoked in favor of individual liberty). All those highly degreed twits in corporate offices should be educated enough to know that the bullets are coming from what they're doing, and if they don't, then they must be the best educated stupid motherfuckers on Earth. And "stupid" is eventually a lethal aspect to life.
moving towards something else
You're too modest. The "something else" is Fascism: the merging of corporate and state power.
You can use the word Fascism to describe what's going on. Go ahead. After all, it's exactly what it is, so don't hesitate. The talk-radio twits will scream about it, but they were never known for their logic, consistency, and overall secular Humanism anyway.
It's a wonder it's not illegal to use a hammer, nails, screwdriver, drywall, plaster and screws to build or modify your house any way you want to.
There are building codes, so in some way, it is illegal. Also, for those who bother to ask, there are permits and regulation requirements. This means that in order to conduct a legal alteration of your house, you need at least a permit in many cases, and in cases where certain wiring needs to be done, or work is being done for a tenant (even if it's your house), then the regulations may require a licensed and bonded professional to do some or all of the work.
It's because of this crapola that I've learned not to ask government agencies about the legality of doing things myself. There seems to be no end to the requirements they pull out of the air, and then there's the too-frequent shock later on in finding out another "requirement" that no one told you about in the first place (but since you involved some inspector, you are utterly liable for it now -- kind of in line with Dracula's alleged motto "enter freely and of your own will").
Gee, it took .02 seconds to come up with the simple tactic of hijacking the existing fuel-rod transport trucks to get around these "impossible!-can't happen!-we're safe!" scenarios that are just designed to make Mr. Average American feel good about his wide-open nuclear facilities.
It appears that we can always trust Forbes to spout some feel-good security propaganda.
Why be picky? My experience with small businesses tells me that individual medical practices should be as tight-fisted as all the rest of the entrepreneurs. Computers, printers, hubs ... these are used until they simply can't be fixed. Note well that replacements for old equipment are quite available even at shops in modest cities; and there's always eBay.
Small business is generally frugal. That's a good thing, since otherwise they are so foolish with personal expenses that they'd probably go under at an even higher rate of failure. The thousands of dollars they save on not upgrading a PentiumI server is just funneled into the owner's son's liquor account for the year.
Don't even joke about that. I knew a guy who worked for ConRail, and it was his oft-said half-joke that if the railroad's accountants weren't restrained, they'd fire everyone else just to show an enormous profit that quarter. Getting rid of productive assets just to show a transient profit is a mental virus that can infect anyone at any time. If we give in to it, we'll eventually see people selling their arms and legs, one by one, just to get some fat cash.
nobody owes you a living so get over it
... yet.)
After being assaulted by this knee-jerk Neo-Con response for many years, I hit upon the base assumptions of it. Those who use it assume that one is bringing no value to the equation of work. And that's as invalid an assumption as any.
To properly respond to such an assault, I do dearly love to say: "I'm not owed a living, but I AM owed the opportunity to work for it." That usually shuts 'em up in hurry (I think that it's because my response runs on assumptions that use all the Neo-Con concepts and buzzwords: work, opportunity, enterprise, etc.).
There's one thing that the Hypercapitalists can't wish away: In order to make profit on a business, you must pay people to run the business. You must pay for the electricity your business uses, the supplies it consumes, and so on. Business costs. You must spend money in order to make more. And once you hook the "don't owe you a living" twits on that barb, they are caught and can only twist in the wind. (Of course, they are free to repudiate the idea of paying vendors and employees for items and labor consumed, but that contrariness hasn't gained many converts
A business exists for ONE PURPOSE: to make money for its shareholders.
... the terms of which the public very much has a say in. Granted, regulators, courts and the people in general don't reach out their hands nowadays and assert such authority, but that doesn't deny that the authority exists.
... just as we do.
Funny you would mention "one purpose" and then "shareholders" in the same sentence. Shares generally indicate a corporation, and a corporation indicates a corporate charter
The hell we are currently enjoying is an overdrive of profit motive. It is so strong that it obviously prompts people like you to spout falsehoods like the "one purpose" myth. But it's just an overdrive, and like all such things, a correction will eventually be applied after the crash. Once enough people are terribly abused by the corporations they failed to oversee, and failed to enforce some social responsibility upon, then said people will lurch into the direction of corporate restrictions.
I'm perfectly accepting of the concept of corporate restrictions. After all, rights must be linked to responsibilities, and another word for "responsibility" is "restriction" (or "regulation"). We don't owe corporations a living, but they do have a right to work for one
That's one theory. It certainly has enough precedent.
However, there's another historical theory that says newbies get less vacation time, vesting, and so on. So it may also be that senior employees are the actual "dead weight" by some straaaaange coincidence.
There is essentially no market for a downgraded form of modern computing equipment. And where there is market demand, the suppliers ignore it since they are driven by extreme profit motives, which drives them to remain on the "cutting edge". After all, making a "decent profit" can never be a stated goal for a major product development; your stockholders would probably sue you for failing in your fiduciary responsibilities.
... as long as you don't mind toting a battery bag along, that is.
This is why we have at least 22 million SUVs on America's roads. Those monstrosities make a great profit per vehicle, so car companies are making as many as they can. But that 1-person "people mover" that can reach 55mph, weighs 400lb, gets 90mpg, and costs $4000? Sorry, there are none of those in the market.
I go through this angsty wanting all the time. Nearly constantly, I desire things that there is little market for, and what market exists is essentially and intentionally ignored by manufacturers. You'll have to do what I have to do often enough: make your own solution to achieve the price+function combination you can live with. For example, you can always stack rechargeable batteries together to give your "longevity laptop" creation the long operation times you desire
Quite a list. Unfortunately for you, and in contrast, the only openness that will result will be your ass. For example, Congress continues its elitism under our watch, hence the continued opening process applied to your rectum. We could take the trouble of voting the scum out, even if it means in practical terms voting out 90% of them. Are you willing to undertake the responsibility of doing that? Are you willing to talk some hard politics with friends, family and associates? I do all that, but I am vastly out-numbered.
It's interesting that so many Americans accept being dominated for the benefit of the rich, because they fantasize about winning the lottery and dominating the poor in turn.
That's such a good summary that it's sig material. I think that the pervasive fantasy you identified is more than enough to account for many American cognitive failures.
I recall talking with an old neighbor just a few years ago. She fondly recalled the old days, when you couldn't hear people shoveling their snow since they used wood snow shovels (unlike the modern racket of aluminum shovels, and of course snowblowers). She pointed out that in those days, people didn't care what anyone else made, as long as they supported themselves. Now we have a culture of endless envy, and the weight of our greed is getting to be very destructive.
Good luck with your parent poster. Greed makes such people so blind that it's more than highly aggravating how they deny everything you'll say about society, culture, and all those nutty ideas about secular Humanism. They're "going to be millionaires", no matter how many people are hurt along the way, and no matter how obviously they will be inflicting such pains. I'll be fighting such beastly people for the rest of my life, and I'm not particularly looking forward to at least 30 more years of them trying to throw me into poverty as a result.
After the invasion, you will NEED to get repairs done. But it's likely he'll have to destroy the Hubble to save it. After all, that fine philosophy worked in Viet Nam.
Well ... no. War money is different. If not spent on war, it simply will not be spent. If by some miracle it is re-allocated, it will be re-allocated for perfectly slimy reasons (like Washington DC's Homeland Security funding being diverted for Inaugural purposes). No war money is going to magically or even practically turn into Hubble money.
Before a catastrophe occurs, everything looks just fine. You also have the prevailing attitude that "it can't happen here". America is exactly there.
You also use terminology like "major economic crisis" in the same breaths while denying my statements. The current administration has no intention of having their policies "leave office". Hence, this "otherwise" condition of yours is likely to occur. Why not be honest and just admit it?
I didn't say it will just affect Americans. I just said "tough fuck" and "Americans will get what they deserve". Over the last 50 years, free peoples around the world should have captured and executed any American CIA operatives they could find to have avoided the terrible Imperial fall that is starting to occur. You avoid Imperial collapses only by avoiding Imperial expansions. All Empires drown in their own blood.
... these are all coming. They are inevitable as general American bankruptcy. It's sad, but I'm not so deranged as you to think that the Fall can be avoided.
Re-alignment is now unstoppable. It doesn't matter what our judgments are about it. Once I identified that I actually lived in the first Nazi Germany of the 21st Century (i.e. Imperial America), I dropped my support of American government and overall American culture. But I'm exceedingly outnumbered in America and the Empire is just going to lurch into a violent paroxysm. The violence is well expressed aboard. What remains to be settled is domestic violence. And then the rest of the world will have to re-align once the smoking crater in NYC, Washington or Chicago completly consumes American attention.
Revenge, chaos, etc.
Didn't we go through this before with the dotcoms? Managers, executives and stockholders are screaming in unison that "outsourcing" must happen, so entire chunks of many industries lumber in that direction. Sure enough, all kinds of incompetent twits appear, dressed in natty suits, looking to catch the wads of cash that are being incautiously thrown. Suddenly, managers (and so on) find themselves not only having to become skilled in outsourcing (your own company's suited twits may be calling it "strategic sourcing"), but they are well behind on the skill of determining who the bullshit artists are in the outsourcing supply world. Dip all of this in more investor screaming, and you have a wonderful recipe for a disaster.
All foolish demands will be met by con artists. This is the first thing a manager or executive should know.
I can't speak for sensationalist spin, but partisan spin is a cornerstone of historic American journalism. Although I find it objectionable, I can't deny that stuff like Limbaugh's daily rant, Rather's inept evidence, and the like are the actual basis of American journalism.
The good thing about partisan journalism is that you can sample viewpoints and reach your own conclusions. The bad thing about it is obvious; it can be dressed in the clothes of objectivity while it is actually anything but.
The Neo-Conservatives are working hard to bring back an old America. There are many good things about this old America. But I doubt Americans will see many of those benefits, since the Neo-Liberals had been working long before to build the New World Order atop this construct of (allegedly) supreme personal responsibility and advocacy. Neo-Cons plus Neo-Libs equals a new American Civil War or Depression. It is (quite simply) extreme Capitalism without any Socialism.
Journalism was significantly killed off in the 1990s from the use of corporate power by the Neo-Liberals. The Neo-Cons are just kicking out the other leg, that's all. As usual, squeezed between tyrannical power groups, the common American must rise to the occasion and make use of the resources at his command. And right now, that's essentially Internet news.
If I had modpoints, you'd have one, Sir.
For postings like this one, we need a "humor as prophecy" karma rating.
They're not stupid. They simply have no patience for learning music culture and then apply that expertise to music business. They already learned everything they need to know about the music business by getting their MBAs ... as long as you only define "music business" as a BUSINESS, that is.
I define "stupid" as "being too long in a condition of ignorance". I don't think those music-industry execs are actually ignorant of music culture. They simply think it's irrelevent. As some other poster said here in this discussion, the prevailing business attitude is that music is just like selling soda water, soap or cars. Music is therefore just another product to the class of business executives which have (perhaps fatally) infected the music business.
I find it even more cheering that such dreadfully inhuman methods would be used to make mainstream music that can only present indie music in a better light. If I were an indie musician (like perhaps the band Brother), I'd rejoice that my "competition" would take such a route to its own mediocrity.
Apparently Humanity needs a constant lesson in what happens when power is removed from people and placed centrally in a bunch of corporate dirtbags. We need to learn this over, and over. The music industry is now teaching it to the consumer, and is about to ramp up the pace of the instruction.
Of course your CEO did. The more engineers he can choose from, the lower his costs to employ them. He'd love to have millions of unemployed engineers in America, China and India to choose from. Capital + Engineers + Energy + Time = Products. He's just trying to sucker people into reducing the costs of the 2nd term in his vicious business equation.
Note he didn't encourage those young people to go into MBA programs. The last thing he needs is competition in the supply of business executives.