Keith Hudson wrote:
>
> This morning's news is of the suicide of Clifford Baxter, the senior
> executive of Enron who understood its complex structure -- in particular
> the reasons for thousands of subsidiaries that were used to hide losses and
> avoid tax -- and who resigned last August.
>
> Despite the enormity of the Enron scandal, it is no different from other
> scandals that occur periodically. It's no use blaming businesspeople as a
> class because our economy survives only by means of business -- that is,
> one person or group exchanging A for B from another party.
[snip]
> The time has now come now for the principle of transparency of information
> to be carried much further because we now have the technology to make this
> entirely practicable for the vast majority of businesses. This is that
> copies of *all* information -- not just financial -- that is involved in
> the normal daily practice of a business should be available for public
> inspection. In this way, we could increase the likelihood that fraudulent
> practice would be exposed long before it could be specifically outlawed by
> legislation and come to the attention of regulatory bodies.
>
> We are, in fact, already groping towards this principle of total
> transparency because past records of businesses can be subpoena'd by a
> court of law (so long as they are not shredded!). Until recently, it would
> have been impossible for copies of all voice and text information within a
> business to be copied and stored. Today, with the ever-decreasing cost of
> memory chips, it is an entirely practicable procedure.
>
> I think this will become inevitable in due course. Perhaps we ought to
> start thinking about this now because it is inevitable that other scandals
> will occur in future years that will be even greater than Enron adn cause
> even greater distress.
[snip]
I think this is a fine idea, and I would carry it probably further
than you might have intended.
I think the domain of legitimate
"trade secrets" needs to be examined and that, for instance, one
thing that need to be done to make Microsoft safe for
the world is that they be required to publish -- in usable form,
not just reverse-compiled code consisting of "information" like
@z045931q += qyy395584v1->r00356uu6 / @@k348;
// increment @z045931q by qyy395584v1->r00356uu6 divided by @@k348
--I think that Microsoft should be required to disclose all their
APIs and make the source code and all internal documentation
available to all interested parties before it reached alpha
test stage and that the information should be kept up
to date in real time. The business pages of the newspapers
should contain few if any surprises (Example: "As has
been a matter of public record
for the past 14 months, today, Controlled
Takeover Corp. lowered the price of wdigets by
1 cent per thousand in hopes of capturing
market share away from their fierce competitor,
WOrld-Wide Mergers Inc. World-Wide was completely
taken by surprise at this bold move by CTC...." "Thank
you, Buzz -- that was Buzz Case, our Wall Street
pooper scooper; aned now for the Lower Slobovia
weater report...."
But I would also like to recall what I call "Goffman's
first law" (which, in sociology has the
same status as Newton's law of inertia...),
which I believe is universally true for
all human systems:
Where there is a system, there is a way to work it.
The Frito Lays and Kenneth Shills of this world
will sooner or later find a way to deploy transparency
to deceive us and make a "killing" -- with the
well-meaning help of the George no-Bushido's of this world.
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
