John Kozy 
Member since: October 05, 2007
Total live articles: 51
Retired professor of philosophy and logic who blogs on social, political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years working as a writer for various private companies. He’s an active blogger. His pieces can be found on http://www.jkozy.com/.
Do those who buy the paintings of long dead artists and fund buildings for artistic performances do so because they truly love the arts or because they want to boast, "Look what I can afford to do!"? There was a time when wealth supported artists. That practice died out sometime after the sixteenth century. What goes on today borders on the absurd. While huge amounts of money are being spent, the artists themselves are being neglected. This is not love of art for art's sake; it's merely benefact
The notion that there is political lopsidedness in academia tilted to the left is an old canard propagated by anti-intellectual ideologists who do not now and never had a taste for truth. The only reason this canard keeps popping up is that journalism is a label that leans toward stupidity. It will go away when journalists quit reporting it.
Mainstream American journalists have long given up on any attempt to report real news. They are engaging in nothing more than National Enquirer sensationalism. ABC news is an excellent example. Whenever anyone watches any mainstream news broadcast, s/he should ask her/himself what of significance was learned that was not known beforehand. Much more often than not the answer will be Nothing! And if anyone asks why the popularity of the American mainstream press is dropping, that answer should ans
Software manufacturers have foisted the impression on the public that software is intellectual property, but there are so many differences between the paradigms of intellectual property and software that only the naive could ever take such claims seriously.
When Calvin Coolidge said "The business of America is business," he and very few if any others knew just how deep this sentiment would sink into the American consciousness. Now it seems apparent that the way business thinks has muscled every other kind of thought process out of the American mind. The unfortunate result is that if no business solution exists to an American ailment, it festers into an incurable American disease.
America is a killing field! It has been for a very long time. Historically, the oppressed have killed their oppressors. In America the oppressed kill each other. American politicians claim that America is the free-world's leader. But what other country would want to follow America down this road? It is noteworthy that since 1789, approximately 70 nations have become democratic, but not a single one has copied the American model. Whom are we leading where? Perhaps only ourselves to perdition.
Thinking about filing a class action suit? First find a lawyer who understands that if s/he is unable to negotiate a substantial award for each member of the settlement class, you will insist that the suit be taken to trial; otherwise, you are merely involving yourself in a lawyerly boondoggle in which the lawyers will use your misery to enrich themselves. If your lawyer is not going to get you and your colleagues substantial awards, at least make sure that s/he does not get any either.
As an elderly, former university professor, I am deeply anguished whenever I come across shameful academic writing. Such writing not only exposes the inability of the writer but it exhibits the extent of decline in American university teaching and is a symptom of a decadent civilization. Institutions that employ these writers have abandoned the classical educational ideals of truth, goodness, and beauty for belief, greed, and exploitation. And not only Americans but the whole world is paying a h
Excellent journalism was never a priority of Joseph Pulitzer's, and the prizes reflect it. So does the mainstream press which is yellower than ever in both the conventional journalistic sense and the colloquial sense of cowardly. Even worse, however, are the Nobels. They are almost always given to those committed to Western civilization and Capitalism. So now Obama has gotten the prize. Why was it awarded to him? Because he is a protector of the economic status quo and a hegemonist—a true child
Why are the standard terms for mortgages 15 and 30 years? Could it be because downturns in the American economy have occurred on an average of once every 14.5 years? When a buyer defaults on a loan after paying on it for 14 years, the lender gets the house for free, sells it again, and nets a small fortune or an investment of zero. Wouldn't you like to find a way of doing that?
American businesses have not only endangered the nation, they are killing the goose that lays golden eggs. When President Calvin Coolidge told an audience of newspaper editors that “The business of America is business” he made popular a legal form of treason that Americans have suffered under ever since. Our business community not only continues to prove that it can’t govern itself effectively but that a free market economy is a destructive myth.
Entertainment is America's big thing. This devotion to entertainment has enormous consequences. Entertainment encompasses much more then mere acting, song, and dance. It includes sports, television news, advertising—in short, anything that attracts a huge number of spectators. Although man may not live by bread alone, more bread and less play yield better lives than more play and less bread. America needs what is called "a paradigm shift." Americans need to rethink their cultural values.
The economy has been characterized by policies that had to produce an economic collapse. First companies shifted manufacturing offshore. Second, they created conditions that held down wages. Third, they made borrowing easy but expensive. The first made consumption the economy’s driving force. If the borrowing had not been made easy, consumption, and the economy would have receded. But the restraint on wages made consumer debt unserviceable. The only possible result is an economic collapse.
Neville Singham, of ThoughtWorks, says he wants to do good, change the industry and make money, that immoral actions that are legal doesn't justify them but when his company has a revenue shortfall, it’s going to go after revenue. Doing good when it doesn’t hurt isn’t being good. Because businesses are willing to compromise anything to keep the bottom line black is why poverty, hunger, disease, crime, and war kill, why people are enslaved and exploited, and why the planet has been raped.
If nothing else, the controversies among economists on almost every issue proves that economics is a fraudulent ideology. So although economists claim to be engaged in a rational enterprise, they themselves are not clearly rational.
Americans have developed ways of obfuscating problems so that solving them is impossible. Illegal immigration suffers from such obfuscation. Immigrants are always welcomed in prosperous times. But when economies slump, immigrants become targets. If this economy should go under, discrimination will increase, and race relations could get very ugly. For that reason, our problem with illegal immigration must be resolved or both our illegal immigrants and the rest of us will have hell to pay.
What’s good for the Congress is just too good for the American people.
Ideological domination of cultures can be associated with declines in learning. The problem with such domination is that true believers in any ideology, religious or not, lose their curiosity and their inclination to question, both of which are essential to the development of knowledge. If someone already knows the truth, there is no reason to foray into the unknown, so learning wanes and a new dark age emerges.
Banking has always been an elaborate confidence game, and the history of central banking provides ample evidence that his claim is true. Six decades ago, the U.S. Treasury wanted to shut down the Bank for International Settlements, saying it helped finance the Nazis. Today, Jean-Claude Trichet and Ben S. Bernanke are transforming the organization into one of the world's most powerful networking clubs.
Recent research shows that while human civilization has advanced by leaps and bounds over the past two millennia, income inequality has stayed relatively the same. In other words, the economic practices since the beginning of the industrial revolution have not materially improved the financial condition of human beings live, and laissez faire economics must be considered a failure.
American businesses have not only endangered the nation, they are killing the goose that lays golden eggs. When President Calvin Coolidge told an audience of newspaper editors that “The business of America is business” he made popular a legal form of treason that Americans have suffered under ever since. Our business community not only continues to prove that it can’t govern itself effectively but that a free market economy is a destructive myth.
Entertainment is America's big thing. This devotion to entertainment has enormous consequences. Entertainment encompasses much more then mere acting, song, and dance. It includes sports, television news, advertising—in short, anything that attracts a huge number of spectators. Although man may not live by bread alone, more bread and less play yield better lives than more play and less bread. America needs what is called "a paradigm shift." Americans need to rethink their cultural values.
Neville Singham, of ThoughtWorks, says he wants to do good, change the industry and make money, that immoral actions that are legal doesn't justify them but when his company has a revenue shortfall, it’s going to go after revenue. Doing good when it doesn’t hurt isn’t being good. Because businesses are willing to compromise anything to keep the bottom line black is why poverty, hunger, disease, crime, and war kill, why people are enslaved and exploited, and why the planet has been raped.
Banking has always been an elaborate confidence game, and the history of central banking provides ample evidence that his claim is true. Six decades ago, the U.S. Treasury wanted to shut down the Bank for International Settlements, saying it helped finance the Nazis. Today, Jean-Claude Trichet and Ben S. Bernanke are transforming the organization into one of the world's most powerful networking clubs.
Alan Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence contains a chapter titled The Modes of Capitalism which are similar to religious sects, clearly demonstrating that economics is not a science. The book reveals several other beliefs, so erroneous, that holding them is self-delusional. Wise men know the importance of periodically asking themselves, What if what I believe to be true is wrong? It is time that our economists start asking themselves this question.
The economy has been characterized by policies that had to produce an economic collapse. First companies shifted manufacturing offshore. Second, they created conditions that held down wages. Third, they made borrowing easy but expensive. The first made consumption the economy’s driving force. If the borrowing had not been made easy, consumption, and the economy would have receded. But the restraint on wages made consumer debt unserviceable. The only possible result is an economic collapse.
The U.S. is a failed state. It is built on an 18th Century ideology trying to become a 19th Century empire in the 21st Century. This failure results from the Constitution’s having been nullified by non-constitutional institutions that have taken control of the nation—faction, lobbying, and the Supreme Court’s decision making political contributions a form of speech. As long as Americans allow factionalism and its consequences to endure, the nation’s future will be grim.
Mark Davis, a Dallas radio talk show host, claims that comment sections on media websites attract a lot of inane stuff and that they “deserve to survive only in an atmosphere of accommodating responsible supervision. Any print or TV web site editing for lucidity will be doing its part to improve the tenor of public discourse.” But “noise” is ubiquitous in American media, and editing comments on-line will not help.
Software manufacturers have foisted the impression on the public that software is intellectual property, but there are so many differences between the paradigms of intellectual property and software that only the naive could ever take such claims seriously.
The usual answers given to explain the decline of great nations never consider the roll played by historians who tend to emphasize accomplishments rather than failures in their writings. The result is that people think far too highly of themselves than reality justifies and therefore tend to neglect their faults which fester and expand until they become so overwhelming that the nation collapses in its own dissoluteness. The lessons of history that we need to know if we are not to be doomed to re
