Category Archives: ethics

Whose Property Is It?

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“Wall Street” is all in a tizzy over an entirely private deal made by the owner of all two of companies involved in the deal [emphasis added].

The valuation was surprising and so was how the companies got there. Only one set of advisers worked for both sides, when a deal of this size would normally take armies. In short, the unusual process resulted in a megadeal few public companies could get away with.

The news writers willy-nilly assume that all deals must have “armies” of advisers, just because. Why would an owner of two private enterprises need more than his own teams—or himself—to assess whether or how to merge his privately owned companies? Other than spreading fees out among a plethora of Wall Street investment advisor firms, I mean.

The news writers spent a whole section of their piece on the matter of The advisers worked both sides.

This proceeds, cynically, I claim, from a false premise: both private companies are/were owned by the same man. What “both sides?” There was only the single owner’s side.

And whence the question, in the first place? These are private enterprises, beholden to no one in the public sphere, especially the denizens of The Street. Even were the two private enterprises owned by two separate private individuals, no one on The Street has anything legitimate to say about the matter. Maybe this sort of interference-wannabe is part of the motivation for not going public and for taking public companies private.

No, the question implied, but never asked out loud, by these Wall Street Wonders is who owns the two companies—Elon Musk or “Wall Street?” The two news writers address this for themselves, but never put it to the wonders they claim to cite.

Reviewing Harvard’s Federal Funding

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The Trump administration has begun reviewing Harvard University’s $9 billion in Federal funding. The question I have is how badly does Harvard need any Federal funding?

Harvard’s endowment is some $53.2 billion as of last year, and the school got a 9.6% return on its endowment’s investments last year. That allowed its endowment to grow by nearly 5% year-on-year despite disbursements from the endowment.

Harvard claims $6.4 million in annual operating expenses as of last year, and it spent $749 million in scholarships and its own grants for its students.

With all of that, I ask again, how badly does Harvard need Federal funding? The school’s endowment doesn’t seem to be doing much more than collecting dust, investment returns, and net growth, while the school collects billions of average citizens’ tax money for its programs. Given that, why should citizens of Iowa, or Montana, or Utah—or New York, or Illinois, or California—pay for Massachusetts-domiciled Harvard’s spending decisions?

My answer: Harvard has little to no need for taxpayer monies.

That Includes You, Mr Newsom

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California’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom claims to be worried that Party is too judgmental and toxic and that We talk down to people. We talk past people.

Then he said this:

I mean, this idea that we can’t even have a conversation with the other side…or the notion we just have to continue to talk to ourselves or win the same damn echo chamber, these guys are crushing us[.]

These guys are crushing us. Not, “We need to converse/debate/argue/talk with folks about ideas that we think help all Americans.” It’s “We need to do better at beating the other side so we can win.”

Party will remain toxic to the American idea as long as its goal is wholly independent of working toward the national weal and wholly focused instead on doing down the other side.

Forced Out?

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The Wall Street Journal is claiming that Dr. Peter Marks, [t]he Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, has been pushed out or forced out, depending on whether you’re reading the headline of the lede. The news writer, though, gave the fact of Marks’ departure in the second paragraph:

He submitted his resignation after a Health and Human Services official earlier in the day gave him the choice to resign or be fired, people familiar with the matter said.

Even stipulating the description to be accurate—it is carefully sourced to anonymity—Marks’ decision plainly was a wholly voluntary choice.

He could have held out for being fired, but he chose otherwise. He voluntarily resigned. Pressure might have been applied, but he easily could have resisted the pressure.

This distortion isn’t unique to the WSJ; it’s a broad and hoarily held misrepresentation by the press at large.

Apart from that, there were valid reasons for wanting Marks to go, and he made crystalline one of them in his resignation letter.

It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies[.]

Those aren’t the words of someone who’d be gainfully employed any further; firing him would have been a legitimate response. He was given a choice, though, and he voluntarily chose.

Nobody forced him to make that choice. Nobody pushed him in one direction or another.

An Activist Judge’s Pseudo-Concurrence

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The 4th Circuit overruled a District Court judge’s injunction barring the Trump administration from shutting down USAID and allowed the closure to go forward (and the SecState Marco Rubio promptly announced the closure and elimination of USAID effective 1 July).

What interests me, though, is what Circuit Judge Roger Gregory wrote in his “concurrence.” He opened insisting that President Donald Trump (R) had

We may never know how many lives will be lost or cut short by the Defendants’ decision to abruptly cancel billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated foreign aid. We may never know the lasting effect of Defendants’ actions on our national aspirations and goals.
But those are not the questions before the Court today. The question before us is whether Defendants have satisfied their burden for a stay of the district courts injunction pending their appeal to this Court[.]
…
I do, therefore, think that the Executive branch has unconstitutionally invaded the role of the Legislature, upsetting the separation of powers.

Those aren’t the questions before this court, so we have no business addressing them here. But I’m gonna go ahead and do that, anyway, because I gotta have my hype and manufactured hysteria on the record.

Then he closed with this, to give effect to his hype [citations omitted]:

…the Executive has taken many likely unconstitutional actions that, collectively, dismantled an agency, rather than just a single action, does not mean the court cannot render those actions invalid. The sheer number of illegal actions taken necessitates relief that consists of “vast and detailed actions,” to adequately redress the harms caused by the illegal shutdown of a government agency. Rather than “micromanag[ing]” the Executive, the [District] Court was simply attempting to remedy each of the likely illegal actions.
The judiciary is limited to the cases and controversies before it. These Plaintiffs, suing these Defendants, cannot obtain the relief that they seek.

This is the activist judge instructing the plaintiffs in the course of action through which to pursue their own obstruction. This is an activist judge prejudging a future case, and thereby violating his oath of office. This is a judge who insults our judicial system by his presence in it.

The 4th Circuit’s ruling can be read here.