Goldman Sachs Tries To Shut Down Dissident Blogger 161
The Narrative Fallacy sends along a piece from the Telegraph on efforts by Goldman Sachs to silence a blogger who is posting commentary critical of the bank. "Goldman Sachs has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website goldmansachs666.com. According to the C&D letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site 'violates several of Goldman Sachs' intellectual property rights' and also 'implies a relationship' with the bank itself. Morgan claims he has followed all legal requirements to own and operate the website and that the header of the site clearly states that the content has not been approved by the bank. In a post entitled Goldman Sachs vs Mike Morgan, the blogger predicts that the fight will probably end up in court. He went through a similar battle with US home builder Lennar a few years ago after he set up a website to collect information on what he alleged was shoddy workmanship in its homes. 'Since I went through this with Lennar, I've had advice from some of the best intellectual property lawyers, and I know exactly what I can and can't do. We're not going to back down from this.'"
Streisand Effect for Goldman Sachs (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems to me the banks are largely in control of the country, not the government or the people.
We need to transfer money to and from Europe and Brazil. We discovered that the banks: 1) Determine the exchange rate themselves; some banks won't even tell you their exchange rate in advance. 2) Charge a large fixed fee. 3) Charge a percentage of the money transferred.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
More of the many abuses by banks: (Score:3, Interesting)
The Federal Reserve Bank is not federal. There is nothing in reserve. It is not a bank. Three lies in the title! "The Fed" is controlled by the big banks.
Someone associated with the big banks, acting for "The Fed", determines the interest rate that will be paid on savings. There are often news stories saying how brilliant he is for lowering the interest rate, which allows the banks higher income, and means that those who save money get less interest.
Retirement savings accounts (IRAs): 1) IRAs are given a lower interest rate. 2) When IRA CDs are renewed automatically, it is always at a lower interest rate, taking advantage of people who are extremely busy before the renewal date, and don't have time to research a better rate at a different bank.
Credit Cards: 1) Credit card rules are changed any time the bank wants, with little prior notice. 2) Changes in the rules are hidden in complicated language.
Savings accounts: 1) Banks advertise a high rate, then lower the rate later, with very little or no notice. 2) Accounts don't show the interest rate. 3) Banks advertise phrases like "Great Rate" and then give an especially poor rate, depending on the lack of ability of most people to do research.
Bank Representatives: 1) Banks hire support people who have no power other than to waste time. 2) Online email support people press a button and give pre-recorded answers that have no relevance to the issue raised.
Re:Signal To Noise Ratio (Score:2, Interesting)
Either that, or they've figured that the old adage "No press is bad press" might be true and that this is a hell of lot cheaper than a real advertising campaign.
Gets the name out in the mainstream media.
Re:Signal To Noise Ratio (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Streisand Effect for Goldman Sachs (No Issue) (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't think the fact that there is a Streisand Effect matters here. That is slashdot trying to rationalize a decision made by lawyers for a large corporation. The guy is free to set up another site and post stuff that does not constitute infringement.
It doesn't matter what the blogger says here, that is not the main point of this C & D action. No tinfoil hat needed for this one- just a company protecting its copyright.
Look at it from Goldman's point of view: if they don't protect their trademarks they can easily lose them, which means they lose a lot of money. This is standard business protocol, nothing about this action screams "we're going to censor him at any cost."
Re:Signal To Noise Ratio (Score:5, Interesting)
The more people who know that the better.
Why do they try to stop him? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:More of the many abuses by banks: (Score:3, Interesting)
That was at best an extremely poor choice of words on the parent's part.
The FED rate is the rate the FED will lend to large banks at. The parent IS correct in that, effectively, the FED has nothing in reserve, and any money it lends is basically created out of thin air. The way it influences (and benefits) these banks is that the lower the rate, the more will be lent and borrowed, and anything they get from the FED they will multiply 10x through the magic of fractional reserve banking.
This is bad because it distorts the economy. By artificially lowering rates and encouraging capital borrowing, businesses misallocate their assets and efforts, anticipating economic conditions that are ultimately fake (because real capital is only created through savings, not the printing press), and that will lead to losses when the real condition is revealed (the classic boom/bust cycle).
Ties Between Goldman Sachs & Obama Administrat (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect that many Slashdotters are unaware of the numerous deep ties between Goldman Sachs and the Obama Administration. A few for instances:
This above list is by no means exhaustive. Nor are the sources cited above (The Huffington Post, The Nation, etc.) exactly known for their fierce and unstinting criticism of Obama.
Re:Signal To Noise Ratio (Score:1, Interesting)
For a number of reasons ... (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, there are psychological factors. It's not the company that responds, it's certain individuals that do. Individual who set policy, or individuals who carry out said policy.
People who set policy, i.e. people at the top of the food chain in business usually didn't get there by being kind, timid, passive, open-minded, self-effacing and objective. Instead they tend to have much larger egos than the norm and also tend to be more much agressive towards others than usual (usually in the guise of being "effective" "goal-oriented", "focused", and "exercising management authority"). They obviously must be smart enough to get away with being agressive, or they won't be successful. Oh, and by the way, I'm extremely happy that Business offers such people a constructive outlet for their energy and aggression. Because otherwise it would go into Crime or Politics (or both).
As a result, while they are successful, life shows them on a daily basis that their thinking is correct, their opinions are valuable, and that their approach to life is the right one.
Now consider what happens when you contradict someone like that. Consider first what it means exactly to contradict someone like that. You and he (or she) are in a business setting, and both are vying for a "group position", i.e. who leads the thinking of whatever group is listening at that time on the issue at hand. And the subject under consideration isn't the weather either, it's (as in the case of the blog on Morgan Sachs) about company policy. Policy as set out and supported over a period of time by themselves.
With that in mind think of how this contradicting opinion (and the one doing the contradicting) will be perceived. There are no credits for answering that the perception will be that of a threat, if not a challenge.
So lets reformulate our original and fairly neutral description of "contradicting" a executive of a firm like that.
I believe the way to formulate it that does justice to the depth of emotion and self-interest would be: "you issue a public challenge to an executive, implying that he is at best incompetent and unethical, and at worst a crook"
Now about the institutional factors. Consider that high-ranking individuals impact their environment in various ways. First of all, they lead, and they can't do that without some authority. Only the very rarest of individuals can lead purely through their influence, and without exercising authority. The norm is that you shape your environment through selection (read hire-and-fire), rewards, promotions to support and protect your general ideas and the "image" of what you do and what you stand for. In its positive form it's called "Esprit de corps". It's what e.g. the Armed Forces insist on instilling in recruits. They do that because it makes the social coherence of the organization stronger. But in its negative form it can also degenerate into group think, bullying, and abuse (e.g. Nazism, Communism, Party doctrine, Scientology, and even religious abuse at the Airforce Acacdemy (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4091956.stm) [bbc.co.uk]).
Now PR officials are a prime example of guards of a firm's public image (i.e. what others think of a firm and its actions). It's their job to be aware of the public image and to steer it in the way the firms wants it to be through propaganda. Lawyers are another example. Apart from their more mundane tasks of drawing up contracts they are specialists in the enforceable obligations in our society operates. Rules on topics like intellectual property, slander, defamation, torts, compensation for damages, etc..
Now do you understand the reaction of such companies? Their first-response mechanism is PR. Their secondary response are legal threats. Their tertiary response is litigation. All motivated by extremely aggressive and self-confident people who direct a lot of money and therefore wield a lot of power and who perceive the dissonant opinion as a threat to their personal position. Of course they get nasty!
Re:Signal To Noise Ratio (Score:2, Interesting)
There are some surprisingly uninformed criticisms here.
- a guy looking for his 15 minutes
No. I have not noticed he has much interest in fame. At least he doesn't seem to try too hard.
- site is up only because he's shorting
No. His short position is besides the point. He expects them to go down on fundamentals. This is a protest site.
To this post:
Can you point out some specific posts that qualify as 'bordering on schizophrenic lunacy'?
The few posts I looked over sound about right.
I think this site (or anyone like it) is not just a good idea, but serves an important role to further necessary civic action. This far into the economic crisis that /.ers think otherwise surprises me.
As a current client, I know the site holder to the extent of what DD I could do. His other site does provide quite a bit more information.
From the other side (Score:1, Interesting)
I own a small ISV startup, and you would be surprised how many people are more than willing to fabricate and spread complete lies about your company and products (for various reasons of their own, usually vested interests e.g. competitors, or people using your as a scapegoat for their own failures, especially in government), and you'd be surprised how much damage they can do to your business.
Unfortunately if you show yourself to be a pussycat who just rolls over and does nothing, these people and their damaging lies do proliferate rapidly and exponentially, and you'll be crushed - so your hand is forced - you have to be willing to show that you take the liars seriously and will fight unfair slander to the end. So you are in effect forced to have policies in place to defend yourself against unfair attacks. And once you have procedures and policies, it gets harder to sit and say on a case-by-case basis, are these negative comments legitimate, or bogus. E.g. sites like this can be and often are set up by competitors or other people with vested interests. I'm guessing the top management in a very large company don't sit on a case-by-case basis and say "go after this guy", they just have e.g. lawyers and others who work for them who are tasked with dealing with these kinds of things routinely and systematically.
So while I don't condone this (I'm a big 'consumer advocate' myself), I can at least understand it.
Re:For a number of reasons ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and by the way, I'm extremely happy that Business offers such people a constructive outlet for their energy and aggression. Because otherwise it would go into Crime or Politics (or both).
They are becoming indistinguishable. I'd opine that the whole bailout was nothing than legalized theft - grand larceny actually - on a rather grand scale. Despite the obvious carelessness and contempt inherent in the Wall Street money train, there were few (if any) real consequences.