Posted on

The Gospel of Getting Rich

Unfortunately, there are far too many believers in this Gospel of Getting Rich.
The main idea: wealth is a reward for following God.
So that makes Halliburton, Exxon and the health insurance companies all paragons of virtue. They are doing god’s work – ripping off the rest of society.
And people like Stephen Hemsley must be a saints.
Nice.
So how come Jesus was a poor carpenter? Or the Buddha had nothing but a begging bowl? Must be because they weren’t very blessed… Poor beggars.

Posted on

Here Comes The Big Oil Lobby

It’s nice to see how democracy works, or not.
First the insurance lobby, now Big Oil.
Let’s allow the insurance companies to deny people health care in order to maximize profits.
Let’s look the other way while Oil companies stop alternative energy strategies from taking off…
Is this a last gasp for Capitalism 1.0?
Why is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation silent?
Where’s the Pope? Again, the silence of “the church” is deafening.

Posted on

Boycott Whole Foods: John Mackey’s Branding Problem

A few weeks ago I gave up on Silk Soy.
Now, I’m done with Whole Foods.
How does the CEO of a company justify his “politics” when it goes against the brand of his company?
The short answer is: he’s not the right person for the job. I mean, you won’t see the NRA electing Howard Dean as CEO. So how does Whole Foods have a CEO so out of touch with his customers values? Or his company’s values? On Rupert Murdoch’s WSJ no less. What’s next, FOX?
Bye-bye, Whole Foods.
Additional Reading: On Value and Values by Douglas K. Smith

Posted on

Fact Check on Health Care Reform

The New York Times reports:
A patient in Illinois was charged $12,712 for cataract surgery. Medicare pays $675 for the same procedure. In California, a patient was charged $20,120 for a knee operation that Medicare pays $584 for. And a New Jersey patient was charged $72,000 for a spinal fusion procedure that Medicare covers for $1,629.
Whew.
Wake up everybody!

Posted on

When Lies Become the Truth

The sad truth is that 30% of Americans are so out of touch with reality that they won’t see the truth, preferring instead to chant their prepared slogans and lies – prepared for them by those bastions of morality: Rush Limbaugh, FOX News, and the good old GOP.
There is no reasoning with them. They are fascists.
The saddest part is that they are hurting themselves to help the very companies which would deny them care at the drop of a hat.

Posted on

GOP Gone Wild


What happens when the right-wing runs out of ideas. They turn to stupidity, lies, fear, hate, and hypocrisy – the five cardinal virtues of the Republican right.

Posted on

Health Care Reform: Is Bill Moyers the Last Journalist?


Nice quote from Dante.
This is what we’re up against. Is this the America we want? Bad news: we already have it. Well done, CIGNA. Thank you, Blue-Dog Dems. And of course, this edition of American Reality is brought to you by the Republican party, or as they call it now, the GOP.

Posted on

Health Care: Who do you Trust?

Do you trust your doctor or the paper pushers at your insurance company?

Another way to look at the issue: is it bribing or lobbying?
When the Republicans and the blue dog Democrats are both in the pockets of the drug and insurance companies, what do you expect? This is why we have lost our way, and why specifically, we need campaign finance reform.
Here’s some background reading:
– Health Care Realities
– Gang of Sickos: Six US Senators Sell Out Constituents for $11 Million from Health Industry
– How Pharma and Insurance Intend to Kill the Public Option, And What Obama and the Rest of Us Must Do
– Sicko by Michael Moore (watch the whole thing)
– Industry Cash Flowed To Drafters of Reform
– Obamacare Is At War With Itself Over Future Costs
– The cost of no public option
– Crazy Wingnut Healthcare Attacks Exposed
– Nearly 2,000 Americans Seek Treatment in Fairgrounds Barn
– My Car Has Better Insurance Than I Have
– Firefighting in the 1800’s: A Corrupt, Bloated, Private For-Profit Industry
Time to throw these money-lenders out of the temple! Call and write your reps on Capitol Hill – daily! It’s your health, after all.
P.S. – Democrats, dump Baucus, now.

Posted on

The Rise of Intuitive Intelligence: An Interview with Francis Cholle

Here’s my intuitive intelligence interview with Francis Cholle at Emory Marketing Institute >>
Cholle’s main point is that businesses have lost track of how to manage holistically. They are too focused on counting beans to create sustainable business value.
He’s not saying analytics are useless. He’s just saying that Mark Hurd at HP isn’t going to come up with the products HP needs for the future by using analytical processes (that’s not in the published interview – but we did discuss it!).
Read the interview here>>

Posted on

Silk Soy Milk Loses its Way: Adventures in Corporate Unsustainability

My family has been a customer of Silk Soy for well over seven years. As of today, we quit. Why? Two reasons:
1) the soy beans aren’t organic anymore
2) they’re from China
Anyone who trusts food from China is being foolish. Remember this? Not to mention the carbon costs of transporting food all that way…
Read all about how Dean Foods destroyed its brand and beat up on American organic farmers at the same time. I thought about writing them or calling them, but it’s less work to just switch. They’re obviously not going to listen to their customers anyway.
Just another example of the short-term, unsustainable mindset of the multinational company.

Posted on

Jack and Suzy Welch’s Reality Advertising

Jack and Suzy Welch star in a Microsoft-sponsored, web-based, business reality show. The site is here, but it’s too cluttered (I think they were trying to be cool).
I do think this is a great advertising campaign, if the branding fools don’t destroy it (by placing too many Microsoft (yawn) pitches in the margins, for example).
Watch the first show below. Jack jumps in and “surfaces” a few issues at Connect by Hertz – a new car-sharing venture. In a way, the fact that Jack pulls these issues out in 5 minutes sorta tells us how out of it Hertz is.
Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

After watching this I get the feeling they don’t understand VG’s Box1-2-3 strategy for innovation. In fact, they are most likely going to fail. After 30 days, the CEO has still NOT created a global business unit for Griff. Not good. No follow through on commitments.
One more thing. Why doesn’t Microsoft bring Jack and Suzy into Microsoft for a few days? They could wake the sleepyheads real fast. Stop one: The Automotive group!
Also, I’d like to see Obama send Jack and Suzy into GM for six weeks. That would sure be a reality show worth watching.
BTW: A quick ecosystem analysis shows that Zipcar is beating them hands down. Rankings: almost 600,000 for Connect by Hertz and 22,000 by Zipcar.

Posted on

O Jerusalem: The Rise of Jewish Fascism

The extremists seem to have taken over Israel’s soul.
Watch >>
Tragic blindness.
Max Blumenthal says about his video:
I hope those who have watched it, especially those predisposed to dismiss it as anti-Israel propaganda or shock video with “no news value,” will at least ask how vitriolic levels of racism are able to flow through the streets of Jerusalem like sewage, why the grandsons of Holocaust survivors feel compelled to offer the Shoah as justification to behave like fascist street thugs, and how the sons and daughters of successful Jewish American families casually merged Zionist cant with crude white supremacism. The willful avoidance of these painful questions by self-proclaimed supporters of Israel is setting the stage for the complete delegitimization of the country they claim to love. As Obama said, “any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners of it.”
And on top of this we have morons like Rupert Murdoch.
On the other side, we have the moving story of Josh Lipsky and his trip to Buchenwald.
I see how easy it is to use hate to unite people – the Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists, Jewish settlers, Zionists, Hamas, Taliban, Al-Qaeda – flip sides of the currency of terror.
The world is not against you, Israel. You are against you.
Hat-tips to Dera and Steven for sending me these stories.

Posted on

Virtual Warfare: China Leads the US

“When the US Department of Defense is the target of no fewer than 128 information infrastructure attacks per minute from China, and we discover that while DoD is almost universally using off-the-shelf Microsoft Windows systems while China is engaged in working toward 100% military deployment of security hardened FreeBSD, it becomes clear that there’s definitely something wrong with US information security policy.”
Whoa!

Posted on

Burger King: “Global Warming is Baloney”

Business stupidity is always a sign of something else more worrisome. Several Burger King franchises in Tennessee have been displaying “Global Warming is Baloney” signs outside their restaurants.
Now that they’ve decided to speak their minds, how about we speak ours with signs like these:
– “Try our Massive-Coronary-Failure Burger – Buy 1 get 2 Free”
– “No Mad Cows Allowed on Premises”
– “Our Burgers are E-Coli free, or Your Money Back”
– “Our Rats are Sanitized for Your Protection”
– “Our Employees Wash Their Hands after Using the Restroom”
See what I’m getting at?
The franchises are all owned by a company called the Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC) that owns more than 40 Burger Kings across Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.
Nice going, guys. What next? A “whites-only” sign?
Burger King should yank their licenses. I’m sure they can get some other, more responsible, business owners to take over.

Posted on

John McEnroe: Give Tennis a Chance

The political machinations you find in national sports authorities, whether it’s US Track and Field (remember when they denied Carl Lewis a chance for his tenth gold in the relay?) or the USTA – which is hemming and hawing over letting John McEnroe set up a Tennis Academy in New York – are always horrible to watch, and even worse to experience.
It’s always gratifying to see people who never played the game at the highest level make big money off the game and mess it over at the same time.
Think Sepp Blatter’s FIFA and Samaranch’s IOC.
Disasters all around.
So who do we have to bribe to get John McEnroe a shot at giving back to the US tennis community?
Like McEnroe or not, you have to agree he always, always, showed up for the Davis Cup. I remember watching the great Arthur Ashe talk about McEnroe’s dedication to the red, white and blue. Let’s give him a chance, you guys in the USTA administration. There really isn’t anything to lose at this point. Think about it. Who do you want? McEnroe or FEMA’s Brownie?