Sunday, June 29, 2014

Motivation & Stimulation

What is it about motivation?  Sometimes you have it, and other days you just don't?  If only it was something you could synthesise.  I recall the novel of Red Dwarf, where the crew stumbled across the luck virus in liquid form.  Hilarity and fun ensued.  Can these sort of human conditions actually be re-created artificially?  There's so many good ideas out there, but will they ever be acted upon?  The Onion recently came out with a good (as always satirical) header that questions why society keeps letting bossy people who think they are always right run the show.  That's a legitimately good question.  Why does that keep happening?  That's not real democracy, is it?  The problem is apathy, nobody really cares, so they will keep letting it happen.  Nothing changes.

There's an issue at the moment in regards to the Commonwealth Bank and how their wealth management arm messed up, and conducted lies and forgery to get the regulator off their back.  In Australia, that regulator is ASIC, and they appeared to be utterly ineffectual, and believed the lies, and refused to investigate thoroughly.  As a result, a lot of people have lost money, and have not been paid adequate compensation.  It appears that a lot of the traders attempted to cover their losses by engaging in high risk trades without authorisation, and lost a lot more money.  Some compensation is being paid, but it's not being tracked by either the bank or the regulator adequately.  There are now calls for a Royal Commission after a Senate Inquiry.  There's a lot of things that are wrong with society, and one of the key matters is the role of financial institutions in everyday life.  Banks own everything.  Wealth management firms and hedge funds are some of the biggest non-resources based companies in the world.  They own all the major assets in your life, your car, your house, they manage your superannuation.  Isn't there something wrong with that?  It would be okay if the regulator was stepping in and doing their job, but it simply isn't happening, they bow to the private sector and take everything they say as gospel.  The fact is that they're only looking after themselves and the bottom line.  But when is the story any different for any company?  One of the greatest follies of western law is the fact of corporate independence as a separate legal entity.  Companies can screw over people, but the people in charge are never the ones blamed for it.  It's not right, it's morally inept. 

There's just too many problems, aren't there?  But what about the solutions?  You have to dig down and get yourself out.  There's no other way.  There's a lot of buildings in the world that contain asbestos.  Do you know how dangerous it is?  One spore is enough to give you a death sentence, and it could be hidden in the walls of your work, in your room.  One crack, and that's it.  More needs to be done in society to identify it and remove it.  Companies have known about its toxicity and carcinogenic effect for a long time, but they've deliberately lied to the public to protect their profits.  They need to de-list these companies and throw all their executives in jail.  You remove the company tag from the title and it's essentially criminal negligence.  Any other situation, and people would be in prison.  The corporate veil is there to help rich white people get away with atrocities. 

Ok, just 45 minutes to go until I can get out of here, and it couldn't come soon enough.  I am utterly exhausted.  It's been good work wise, got a lot of things done.

I'm done.

Joaquin out
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