Year two notable delegates
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”
Also see:
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Opinion from DSC:
Technologies — by themselves — are neither good nor bad. It’s what we do with them that makes them good or bad. The concerns I have are when people try to play God. His ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. So when the We Robot Conference puts up a banner that would normally look like the hand of God touching a human hand — but in their case, they put a robot’s hand reaching out to touch a man’s hand — something just doesn’t set well with me re: that image.
Don’t get me wrong. I think robotics can be very helpful — especially in manufacturing, fire safety, other. But in some of the robotics space/spheres of work, when we think we can “do better” than the LORD — to make a better mind than what He gave us — I get a bit nervous.
From DSC:
I couldn’t help but reflect again on the state of our hearts here in the United States when I read Greg Smith’s Op-Ed in the New York Times entitled, “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs”. It’s a depressing accounting of the rampant greed on Wall Street, with a disregard for deeper qualities and a true attention to meeting a customer’s/client’s needs and goals. It speaks to employees not giving a damn about clients, but only looking to make as much money as possible. (It’s fine to make a living, but how about sincerely trying to make a contribution to society at the same time?)
Some excerpts from Smith’s article:
And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.
To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.
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What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.
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I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.
From DSC:
I don’t know this man and I’m sure Goldman Sachs will try to discredit him; and yes, he was part of that culture and made a serious living off of it for years.
However, my focus is not on Greg Smith but upon the type of culture he spoke of; such a culture is not only bad for relationships — and ultimately for souls — but regardless of what you believe in terms of faith-based items, it’s simply bad business and it doesn’t benefit our society. In fact, it destroys it and it’s a significant contributing factor to the anger that continues to mount in the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon that is sweeping the nation.
Some relevant graphics come to my mind:
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Addendum on 3/21/12:
Please also see:
Deuteronomy 6: 6-7 –– from Bible Gateway’s Verse of the Day
“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
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10 staggering facts behind Apple’s Foxconn Factory — from Mashable.com by Samantha Murphy
From DSC:
I’m half-way through reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, and this report doesn’t surprise me in the least. According to what I’m getting from the book, Steve Jobs was a task-master who drove people incredibly hard. He was also an individual who didn’t value relationships and people — unless they served his purposes. So this report is not surprising. I just hope Tim Cook can be more honest and forthcoming about things involving their supply chain — as well as all other areas involving the way Apple does business — than Jobs ever was.
As disclosure, I own an iPhone, an iPad and our family has purchased 3 Macs. I just wish all businesses could make better attempts at serving Main Street while they are striving to serve Wall Street.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NIV) — from BibleGateway.com
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Stopping the ‘brain drain’ of the U.S. economy — from NPR
Excerpts:
“The problem is that when you’ve got 20 to 30 percent of some of the top talent in this country going into a sector that is not necessarily contributing to economic and social productivity,” he says. “That’s a problem for the country at large and it’s something that we should all be concerned about.”
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Economist Paul Kedrosky with the Kauffman Foundation says elite schools sending a bigger share of their graduates into finance and consulting is not new; they’ve been doing it for at least two decades. Kedrosky tells NPR’s Raz that what’s different now is that those students have essentially used their talents to grow the financial sector in ways that are unhealthy for the overall economy.
From DSC:
Some relevant scripture comes to my mind — which I, myself, also have to reckon with (these are hard teachings, especially in this day in age…but on second thought, in any age for us humans)
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
“For the word of the LORD is right and true; He is faithful in all He does. The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of His unfailing love.”
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From DSC:
One last, relevant reflection here…
I’ve been wondering about the place of the heart when it comes to capitalism. I was listening to Gary Hamel earlier today — Gary is author of the new book, What Matters Now (thanks to Daniel Pink’s Office Hours) and one of the items Gary mentioned was the need for a moral renaissance in business today. The comments were that:
Addendum on 3/1/12 pointing to the relationship and relevancy of our hearts as they relate to capitalism:
“For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.”
Psalm 59:16 (New International Version) — from BibleGateway.com
