The evil that reality television contestants do – TV & Radio, Media – The Independent via kwout

However, after years of Bush / Obama administration systematic torture and rendition, torture porn from the 24 TV show, in other words, after the banalization and acceptance of torture in the name of fighting terrorism, I fail to see why this seems so shocking.

The evil that reality television contestants do – TV & Radio, Media – The Independent via kwout

More money makes society miserable, warns report | Business | The Observer via kwout

]]> http://globalsociology.com/2010/03/14/light-blogging-paging-thorstein-veblen/feed/ 0 http://globalsociology.com/2010/03/13/the-financial-class-hypermasculine-cultish-and-class-conscious/ http://globalsociology.com/2010/03/13/the-financial-class-hypermasculine-cultish-and-class-conscious/#comments Sun, 14 Mar 2010 05:26:38 +0000 SocProf http://GlobalSociology.edublogs.org/?p=3641 The great Yves Smith (have you gotten a copy of her book yet?) over at Naked Capitalism (which should be in everyone’s newsreader) has posted a great demonstration of the ways in which financial class behaves in a fashion very similar to cults and very class conscious. The post is a bit longish but worth everybody’s time if one wants a greater understanding of our overlords.

A snapshot:

Indefensible Men « naked capitalism via kwout

Smith does not go into the gender aspects of this but there is certainly no doubt that hypermasculinity plays a major part in what she discusses. Combined with the cultish and class-conscious, quasi-Randian aspects, this makes for a very dangerous mix, obviously.

Singer Jean Ferrat dead at 79: News24: Entertainment: International via kwout

Amnesty report condemns US death rates of women in childbirth | World news | guardian.co.uk via kwout

“Mothers die not because the United States can’t provide good care, but because it lacks the political will to make sure good care is available to all women…

Whatever form they finally take, President Obama’s healthcare reforms will not resolve the crisis of unavailable and unaffordable maternal care, says Amnesty.”

The whole article is pretty devastating.

Bill Black’s Top Ten Ways to Crack Down on Corporate Financial Crime | CommonDreams.org via kwout

So, what are the top 10 ways?

10. Hire 1,000 FBI agents to investigate corporate and white-collar crime

9. Appoint a chief criminologist at each of the financial regulatory agencies.

8. Fix executive compensation by tying it to long-term corporate performance.

7. Target the top 100 corporate criminals. (It would be interesting to see who would be on the list… Todd Krohn? Any suggestions?

6. Regulate first.

5. Bust up the FBI partnership with the Mortgage Bankers Association.

4. Get rid of Ben Bernanke as chair of the Fed. Replace him with Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz.

3. Get rid of too big to fail.

2. Create a consumer financial protection agency headed by Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren.

1. Fire Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Office of Thrift Supervision chief John Bowman, Fed chief regulator Patrick Parkinson, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Chief John Dugan.

This will become part of my global issues class. It touches upon so many issues:

• Environment and sustainability, of course
• Globalization
• Global governance and the role of international governmental organizations
• Global civil society / global activism
• Global stratification
• The multi-layered nature of global governance and the role of national governments
• The mixing of cultural, political and economic factors
• Health and public policy