“Bottom line: We need whistleblowers in both the public and private sectors. We seem to only get them in the public.”—Plume
“‘Labor’ is to ‘labor capitalism’ as ‘lamb’ is to ‘lamb-chop.’”—Michael Hudson h/t Yves Smith
“I used to think Gapingvoid’s social hierarchy/corporate pyramid of losers, surmounted by the clueless, and topped by sociopaths was a joke, only to find it the reality.”—Lord
“I think we should always, when referring to wealth disparity, remind ourselves to consider the proposition that wealth=power.”—Jumper
“How ironic it is that austerity measures everywhere are pushing to raise retirement age and decrease holidays? And this creates more jobs how?”—@ThoughtInfected
“Businesses and economic elites in developing countries left frustrated by incompetent police, clogged courts and hopelessly overburdened judges and prosecutors are increasingly circumventing these systems and buying their own protection. In India in late 2010 the private security industry already employed more than 5.5 million people — roughly four times the size of the entire Indian police force. A 2009 World Bank report showed roughly the same ratio in Kenya. The largest employer in all of Africa is a private security firm, Group4Securicor, and in Guatemala, private security forces outnumber public police 7 to 1.”—Gary A. Haugen h/t David Brin
“If one is contrasting the results of natural events (e.g., storms at sea) on the one hand to deliberate and direct human action on the other (the proverbial gun to the head) then I think the argument has some merit. However I think it breaks down somewhere in the middle ground where the chain of causation from human action to circumstances is more indirect and obscure. There are lots of examples of clever humans able to keep their own hands relatively clean while arranging things so as to be able to make others offers they couldn’t refuse.”—Frank Hecker
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