To Big To Fail?

We are the 99%If a company is to big to fail then it needs to be managed for the benefit of all of us (the 100%) and not for the benefit of the shareholders or top management.

If the public must subsidize a business to prevent it’s failing because it will cause catastrophic impact on all of us (the public), then the public needs to sit on the board of that company to make sure they do not fail.  Another option is to nationalize these businesses for the benefit of everyone.  I am not in favor of this option, because the U.S. Congress cannot seem to manage themselves or our country.  But there are many examples of non-profit companies, with no shareholders, managing water, electric, and phone services very well, for the benefit of their customers.

I am not advocating that the government is directly involved with management of a business, but the government makes rules that provide access to a businesses information and governance.  This public access could be accomplished in several ways: board seats, public notice of future plans, rules specific to a industry or business area.

As the US subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 showed, industry practices that might be OK on a limited basis can be devastating when practiced industry-wide.  This is the result of a free market behaving badly!

Global Post rails against privacy!?

I was surfing my news feeds and ran across this post on the Global Post that gave me pause.  Here is a quote from their site with emphasis added.

The letter was published a day before House Judiciary committee members will debate on the Stop Online Privacy Act introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.). Although Smith’s bill has attracted tons of support from media firms and the Hollywood industry, web companies and public interest groups strong oppose it, the Washington Post reported.

SOPA aims to cut the amount of pirated content online and would give content owners and the US government the power to request court orders to shut down websites associated with piracy, the BBC reported. The bill also aims to stop online ad networks and payment processors from doing business with foreign websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.

I know Mark Zuckerberg thinks privacy is over, but Sergey Brin of Google, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Elon Musk of PayPal (EBay), Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post and Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia?  Apparently they were opposed to the Stop Online Piracy Act introduced by Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), which is very different.  And even Mark Zuckerberg is not as open as he wants you to be!

Apparently the editors and fact-checkers at the Global Post are out for the holidays.  Happy New Year!