I see that Alfred and Federico are in the news again. Mr. Villalobos had been a board member for CalPERS, the California State Pension. Here is a link to the L.A. Times Article.
Villalobos, Buenrostro targets of CalPERS fraud enforcement action
Whenever we find Mr. Villalobos, we should remember that he was a Deputy Mayor for the City of Los Angeles also. We also find this interesting article from Globes Israel's Business Arena regarding allegations made by the L.A. Times that Mr. Villalobos had been paid $16 million by CIM Group to get investments from CalPERS. Why is there a revolving door between CalPERS and Lacers where they exchange board members with ties to placement agents?
The Globes article - Delek Real Estate suitor CIM cited in corruption scandal
If you read the whole article you will discover that Elliot Broidy (the guy who plead guilty in New York's pension scandal) was in communication with CIM group. If all of these people are connected then why are they not all being investigated and charged?
Federico Buenrostro Jr.was the former CEO for CalPERS who left to work for Villalobos. Huh? Look, the Pimpernel works for the government, that should be obvious. I would work for one or two companies that I dealt with during my career; but, I would never represent them in dealing with my previous employer nor would I give them advice on how to deal with my former employer. I hired someone once, they had worked for another organization within our organization. I told them that I would never ask them for any information that was privileged when they obtained it.
I will probably not work in private industry when I retire. Odds are I am going to be more and more involved in the church; but the question is still valid. When should people be prohibited from working for one company in a particular industry and then taking a job with a competitor in the same industry? I think we can certainly say that if you are specifically hired to give up all of the privileged information that you have learned in exchange for money.
Have a great week.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Survival of the Most Pharmaceuticaly Wealthy
I have written about transhumanism before. This is the belief held by some that the next stage in evolution will be through the use of technology or gene therapy to make us faster, stronger, smarter and all around better. Well, to an extent college kids are doing that now. There is a drug called Adderall, it is used by people with attention deficit disorder because it is claimed that it helps them to concentrate. Well some smart college kids decided it might help them study and it is now common for kids to take these pills in order to pass their classes higher.
KTLA.com - The Adderall Advantage": Students Taking Big Risk for Good Grades
Let us for the sake of argument assume that Adderall actually works, what are the issues in taking the drug? In graduate school I learned some of the other students were taking uppers to help them study. I thought it was foolishness. So what if it works, would you take it just to pass a test? When you get a job, do you stop taking it or do you become dependent on it to do better than others?
Lets think about this a different way. You go out and buy a new car, you buy a new Ford Fiesta. A decent compact car with good gas mileage. You want to go fast so you put the same gas in the car that you would put in a race car. Eventually, you will burn the car out because it wasn't made to go that fast or use that type of fuel. Same things for humans.
Adderall is an amphetamine salt. It is speed. In a study as many as 25% of the kids at one college reported taking it to study. So do you think these kids get the money from their parents to buy the pills? No, they get enough money that they don't have to ask. Kids in Universities tend to come from wealthier families.
So what if you could do better in life if you could afford the medicine? Poor people don't pay $15 for a pill to study better, they couldn't buy enough of them to last four years. If transhumanism occurs, who will be able to afford these "upgrades" and will you feel at a disadvantage if you don't get them? The thing is, all the knowledge in the world is meaningless if one does not have wisdom.
Now lets say that you use pills to compete in the world because you can afford them, wouldn't you want them to be expensive so that not everyone could get them. I mean if everyone could get them then it sort of defeats the purpose. You would get no competitive edge.
I forgot something, the kids at the colleges where binge drinking was big are the same ones more likely to take Aderall according to the article. Well off kids who get completely blasted and then take pills at the last minute to get good grades. So the kids with the best grades that will get the best jobs binge drink and take speed to get ahead. Our future leaders.
Where are we headed as a nation? I mean things are bad enough already; but, where are we headed? We are so busy looking for advantages that we have not earned that we fail to see what a society based on such things becomes. We need to slow down and take an inventory of ourselves rather than plunge head first into new improvements of ourselves.
When did life become all about "winning", when did it stop being about living and growing at our own pace? And what type of world do you win, when you cheat?
KTLA.com - The Adderall Advantage": Students Taking Big Risk for Good Grades
Let us for the sake of argument assume that Adderall actually works, what are the issues in taking the drug? In graduate school I learned some of the other students were taking uppers to help them study. I thought it was foolishness. So what if it works, would you take it just to pass a test? When you get a job, do you stop taking it or do you become dependent on it to do better than others?
Lets think about this a different way. You go out and buy a new car, you buy a new Ford Fiesta. A decent compact car with good gas mileage. You want to go fast so you put the same gas in the car that you would put in a race car. Eventually, you will burn the car out because it wasn't made to go that fast or use that type of fuel. Same things for humans.
Adderall is an amphetamine salt. It is speed. In a study as many as 25% of the kids at one college reported taking it to study. So do you think these kids get the money from their parents to buy the pills? No, they get enough money that they don't have to ask. Kids in Universities tend to come from wealthier families.
So what if you could do better in life if you could afford the medicine? Poor people don't pay $15 for a pill to study better, they couldn't buy enough of them to last four years. If transhumanism occurs, who will be able to afford these "upgrades" and will you feel at a disadvantage if you don't get them? The thing is, all the knowledge in the world is meaningless if one does not have wisdom.
Now lets say that you use pills to compete in the world because you can afford them, wouldn't you want them to be expensive so that not everyone could get them. I mean if everyone could get them then it sort of defeats the purpose. You would get no competitive edge.
I forgot something, the kids at the colleges where binge drinking was big are the same ones more likely to take Aderall according to the article. Well off kids who get completely blasted and then take pills at the last minute to get good grades. So the kids with the best grades that will get the best jobs binge drink and take speed to get ahead. Our future leaders.
Where are we headed as a nation? I mean things are bad enough already; but, where are we headed? We are so busy looking for advantages that we have not earned that we fail to see what a society based on such things becomes. We need to slow down and take an inventory of ourselves rather than plunge head first into new improvements of ourselves.
When did life become all about "winning", when did it stop being about living and growing at our own pace? And what type of world do you win, when you cheat?
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