Has Jacob Marley been visiting?

After reading Stormy’s post on global warming posted Thursday, 3/12, I heard on NPR’s Market Place today, Thomas Friedman’s solution to the problem – Greed. (Green with a D) Now, there is something wrong I think when a negative character trait is professed as a good thing and a necessity to solve a community problem. It’s to bad he did not stop at this:

that basically argues that green is the most strategic capitalistic β€” and I think progressive β€” ideology now for rebuilding America’s future. By confronting climate change, by taking the lead in doing that, by setting really high standards for our industries and businesses, we are gonna stimulate, we can stimulate an enormous amount of innovation. Innovation that will really strengthen our companies to compete globally in what is clearly going to be the next, great, global industry

Is this the work of the ghost of Marley?
But, then I read PGL’s post on a review of a book that challenges the Church of Global Trade. In the interview of Gomory at The Nation, and the author notes:

Public investment in new technologies and industries, I would add, may not achieve much either, if there is no guarantee that the companies will locate their new production in the United States

.
Mr Gomory’s solution:

He wants to re-create an understanding of the corporation’s obligations to society, the social perspective that flourished for a time in the last century but is now nearly extinct. The old idea was that the corporation is a trust, not only for shareholders but for the benefit of the country, the employees and the people who use the product. “That attitude was the attitude I grew up on in IBM,” Gomory explains. “That’s the way we thought–good for the country, good for the people, good for the shareholders–and I hope we will get back to it…. We should measure corporations by their impact on all their constituencies.

You think old Marley’s bones got to him too?
Which leads me to Bruce Webb’s comment (comments I agree with) in Stormy’s post:

Any changes that don’t ultimately cut costs or boost productivity are in that light a violation of his charter.

Charters are granted by “we the people”. They are a privilege. They are not a right. We have the ability to solve the destruction of the environment. We just have to remember that the economy functions for us. What do we want it to do?

I think Lee Iacocca had a visit too. He has a new book out. It begins:

Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car.

But it is this bit, almost at the end of the excerpt that made me chuckle:

We didn’t elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name?

Yup, Marley’s been a very busy ghost. Can’t wait to see the results after they all get their visits from the past, present and future ghosts.