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Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

reuters.com

31–40 of 151 posts

Re: Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

#31

One thing that I should point out, is that he is not going after the WSJ, for any impropriety in his firing. They are really the ones that damaged his career. So I suspect that there is more to this story than is apparent.

I believe... In the USA you cannot sue your employer for firing you unless it's for membership of a protected class or whistleblowing. If your employer wants to fire you because it's Thursday or they're just having a bad day or they don't like something you wrote in an email, tough.

Re: Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

#32
post #20

This is an angle of the uneven distribution of wealth that you seldom hear about. As long as there are rich and poor people, a rich person can hire a poor person to do basically anything. Overriding legality, decency, safety. Because the poor person just needs the money that bad. So you get people renting out their backyard as a toxic waste dump. Or murdering people. Or breathing smog. Or selling children. Crazy horr…

this is a very salient way of explaining the need for wealth redistribution in society. this doesn't necessarily mean communism or socialism, but it should mean more Keynesian economics. high taxes on the rich - including rich corporations - and strong public spending in the right areas: education, small businesses, healthcare, and safety nets so people feel like they can take risks without having the fear of becoming homeless

Re: Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

#33

One thing that I should point out, is that he is not going after the WSJ, for any impropriety in his firing. They are really the ones that damaged his career. So I suspect that there is more to this story than is apparent.

From what I can tell, there’s not necessarily more. It’s a clear conflict of interest to do business with a source for a story. Doesn’t sound illegal, but certainly gives the appearance of bias.

Re: Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

#34

One thing that I should point out, is that he is not going after the WSJ, for any impropriety in his firing. They are really the ones that damaged his career. So I suspect that there is more to this story than is apparent.

I believe... In the USA you cannot sue your employer for firing you unless it's for membership of a protected class or whistleblowing. If your employer wants to fire you because it's Thursday or they're just having a bad day or they don't like something you wrote in an email, tough.

so you're talking about at-will employment and it's generally the rule in America. however there are some states that have a good faith rule where you can't terminate a employee for malice. here's a map of which states are which: https://www.paycor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Employment...

i believe WSJ employs in NY state so this doesn't apply.

Re: Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

#35
post #20

This is an angle of the uneven distribution of wealth that you seldom hear about. As long as there are rich and poor people, a rich person can hire a poor person to do basically anything. Overriding legality, decency, safety. Because the poor person just needs the money that bad. So you get people renting out their backyard as a toxic waste dump. Or murdering people. Or breathing smog. Or selling children. Crazy horr…

Yeah and the problem is getting worse. sometimes it seems that even institutions are trying to maximize human pain. I thought of writing an economics book about this phenomenon. I have no idea how we can fix this problem and hope someone else can chime in

Individuals need better morals imo. The corporate entries of this works however do everything for the benefit of the share holder which isn’t always the right moral thing.

Re: Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

#37
post #20

This is an angle of the uneven distribution of wealth that you seldom hear about. As long as there are rich and poor people, a rich person can hire a poor person to do basically anything. Overriding legality, decency, safety. Because the poor person just needs the money that bad. So you get people renting out their backyard as a toxic waste dump. Or murdering people. Or breathing smog. Or selling children. Crazy horr…

Yeah and the problem is getting worse. sometimes it seems that even institutions are trying to maximize human pain. I thought of writing an economics book about this phenomenon. I have no idea how we can fix this problem and hope someone else can chime in

the solutions are there, we implemented them in the post-war era, and they worked, massively reducing inequality until about the early to mid-1970s, where due to a number of reasons, lots of Western economies slowed down, especially the UK and the US, and the free-market Milton-Friedman-inspired right got into power and more or less has been since then. their policies creating overall growth, yes, but at the expense of wage growth and (after an initial bump from selling off public property) living standards.

as a related aside, if someone ever tells you that taxes are at an all-time high so we must reduce them, take a look at the top marginal tax rates in the UK and US in the mid-60s. or corp tax back then

the way to actually solve these problems was told to us by Keynes. the problem is that the political will is just not there. that's where we need a solution. how do you circumvent the capital-holding elite [to use a meaningless word]?

Re: Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

#38
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah and the problem is getting worse. sometimes it seems that even institutions are trying to maximize human pain. I thought of writing an economics book about this phenomenon. I have no idea how we can fix this problem and hope someone else can chime in

Individuals need better morals imo. The corporate entries of this works however do everything for the benefit of the share holder which isn’t always the right moral thing.

individuals can have all the morals they like. there are always going to be sociopaths and opportunists in this world, and corporations - and, as you point out, their shareholders - benefit from hiring them. the improvement must come from society as a whole. public organisation, whether that's government, or unions, or even charities, must have the balls to stand up to profit-mongering, and properly regulate this mess

Re: Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

#39

One thing that I should point out, is that he is not going after the WSJ, for any impropriety in his firing. They are really the ones that damaged his career. So I suspect that there is more to this story than is apparent.

I believe... In the USA you cannot sue your employer for firing you unless it's for membership of a protected class or whistleblowing. If your employer wants to fire you because it's Thursday or they're just having a bad day or they don't like something you wrote in an email, tough.

No, employment law is much more complicated than that.

Re: Former WSJ reporter says law firm used Indian hackers to sabotage his career

#40

One thing that I should point out, is that he is not going after the WSJ, for any impropriety in his firing. They are really the ones that damaged his career. So I suspect that there is more to this story than is apparent.

Or he believes he was justifiably fired, but would have been able to get another job had the emails not been made public. The Journal is not interfering in his future prospects.
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