Punch Line...

... Not intended by NPR; yet Morning Edition asks,

How Can You Tell When A CEO Is Lying?

Gee, dunno; but... could it be...
His lips are moving?







"Manager with peacetime output of curlers. 1942?"
Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Archive

Yes, I know I should pay attention only to the local announcer's letting me know how much time remains for getting out the door.

But the inanity is ever more grating.

This time, it's a gee-whiz story: Stanford School of Business study purports to analyze the signs of this unusual behavior. One sign being that "lying executives tend to overuse words like we and our team when they talk about their company." As one of the authors says—

If I'm saying I or me or mine, I'm showing my ownership of the statement, so psychologically, I'm showing that I'm responsible for what I'm saying.

While I realize this show has been on another planet for some time, I still get irritated by this stuff.

Because in the real world, everyone knows:

Boss + "I" = credit claimed for work done by someone else

The annoying Steve Inskeep is a master of what has become the program's format of choice: the lame, forced segue from one story to another.

As in, record spending on political ads introduced with, "let's go from struggling homeowners to struggling media companies."

Followed by a story with no substance: spending sure is up this year, and that sure is good business for media companies.

Because—except for the occasional rotten apple—CEOs make things great.

And it's natural that Republican CEOs should be running state governments.

In California.

In Michigan... It looks like I'd have to do quite a bit of digging around for local liberal blogs to find anything written against that guy, smitten as the state's media appear to be. Have to settle for this from the CPUSA: Michigan GOP Governor Ticket Favors Outsourcing, Privatization.

In Florida... well, that guy is too blatant a crook to be trumpeted all that loudly...

Everywhere else, though: those brilliant CEOs surely can be trusted to take care of... everything.