D Block Criminology 12 - Today in Criminology class we're turning the clock back a few days and I'm going to show you a tv show called White Collar. From USA network:
White Collar is about the unlikely partnership of a
con artist and an FBI agent who have been playing cat and mouse for years. Neal Caffery (Matt Boomer), a
charming criminal mastermind, is finally caught by his nemesis, FBI Agent Peter
Burke (Tim DeKay). When Neal escapes from a maximum-security prison to find his
long-lost love, Peter nabs him once again. Rather than returning to jail, Neal
suggests an alternate plan: He'll provide his criminal expertise to assist the
Feds in catching other elusive criminals in exchange for his eventual freedom.
Initially wary, Peter quickly finds that Neal provides insight and intuition
that can't be found on the right side of the law.
The
episode I’d like you to show is called Hard Sell from season
1, which deals with stock manipulation and
churning the value of stock in a boiler room (metaphor). From tv.com...
The scam is a "pump and dump", in which a group of "junior Gordon Gekkos" is selling bad stock. The guy in charge buys a large amount of dollar stocks, and has his men inflate the price by selling it over the phone. When the price peaks, guy in charge dumps the stock and leaves the buyers holding worthless shares. The average person loses $30,000, and some victims have lost their homes. The boiler room is mobile, moving to a new location after each stock dump
The scam is a "pump and dump", in which a group of "junior Gordon Gekkos" is selling bad stock. The guy in charge buys a large amount of dollar stocks, and has his men inflate the price by selling it over the phone. When the price peaks, guy in charge dumps the stock and leaves the buyers holding worthless shares. The average person loses $30,000, and some victims have lost their homes. The boiler room is mobile, moving to a new location after each stock dump
This episode deals
with the white collar crime unit that we covered in Criminology this week and
I’d like you to have a discussion about this:
Agent Burke
describes the boiler room salesmen as "junior Gordon Gekkos". Gordon
Gekko was the mega-successful, totally ruthless stock trader played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film Wall Street. Minor trader Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) tries to break into the big time by following Gekko's merciless killer-instinct
methods. Along the way Fox discovers that Gekko-style success can cost dearly.
One of the most famous quotes from
the movie is when Gekko says “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the
essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life,
for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and
greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other
malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.” So we’ve looked at psychopaths in
Criminology and we watched “The Corporation” which compared modern business to psychopaths…Gordon
Gekko is the embodiment of the psychopath in the 1980’s corporate world while
the boiler room characters in White Collar are a 2000’s version of the same
thing. So… does Avery Phillips (the “man behind the curtain”) exhibit
psychopathic traits and if he’s successful what does that say about business
(corporate) crime?
C Block Social Studies 10 - Today you are in the class for your third and last day of research on the economy of BC assignment. Take a look at yesterday's blog entry for a list of URL's that you can use to find information on each sector of the British Columbia's economy.
B Block Social Studies 11 - Today we will work on the history of Quebec “nationalism” and the roots of the separatist movement (Chapter 8 pages 190-204 in the Counterpoints textbook). We'll go through pages 198 – 204 as a class and then we will watch Canada: A People’s History episode “Years of Hope and Anger” chapter 12 "October 1970". This deals with the Front de Libération de Québec (Quebec Liberation Front) whose actions culminated with the kidnapping of James Cross (who was released) and Pierre Laporte (who died while in FLQ custody) in the province of Quebec. The Canadian Prime Minister (Pierre-Eliott Trudeau) responded by imposing the War Measures Act in Quebec (suspending civil liberties).
After, we'll examine the rise of the Parti-Quebecois who came to power in 1976 and in 1980 held a referendum in the province of Quebec to determine if there was a desire to pull the province out of confederation (really it was a convoluted form of independence where the province would still maintain Canadian currency but be able to make its own laws). To help understand this we'll watch Canada: A People’s History “In an Uncertain World” chapter 3 “The Choice”. In the end the province voted 59% "non" and 40% "oui". I'll get you to work on questions 1, 3, and 4 from page 200 of the Counterpoints textbook today. Since it was somewhat close, the government of Canada reopened constitutional talks and "repatriated" the constitution from Great Britain. In this, however, Quebec once again felt "betrayed" or left out. The government of Canada tried Constitutional Reform in 1988 & 1992 (both of which failed) and in 1995 the Parti-Quebecois held a referendum on separation that was narrowly defeated
C Block Social Studies 10 - Today you are in the class for your third and last day of research on the economy of BC assignment. Take a look at yesterday's blog entry for a list of URL's that you can use to find information on each sector of the British Columbia's economy.
B Block Social Studies 11 - Today we will work on the history of Quebec “nationalism” and the roots of the separatist movement (Chapter 8 pages 190-204 in the Counterpoints textbook). We'll go through pages 198 – 204 as a class and then we will watch Canada: A People’s History episode “Years of Hope and Anger” chapter 12 "October 1970". This deals with the Front de Libération de Québec (Quebec Liberation Front) whose actions culminated with the kidnapping of James Cross (who was released) and Pierre Laporte (who died while in FLQ custody) in the province of Quebec. The Canadian Prime Minister (Pierre-Eliott Trudeau) responded by imposing the War Measures Act in Quebec (suspending civil liberties).
After, we'll examine the rise of the Parti-Quebecois who came to power in 1976 and in 1980 held a referendum in the province of Quebec to determine if there was a desire to pull the province out of confederation (really it was a convoluted form of independence where the province would still maintain Canadian currency but be able to make its own laws). To help understand this we'll watch Canada: A People’s History “In an Uncertain World” chapter 3 “The Choice”. In the end the province voted 59% "non" and 40% "oui". I'll get you to work on questions 1, 3, and 4 from page 200 of the Counterpoints textbook today. Since it was somewhat close, the government of Canada reopened constitutional talks and "repatriated" the constitution from Great Britain. In this, however, Quebec once again felt "betrayed" or left out. The government of Canada tried Constitutional Reform in 1988 & 1992 (both of which failed) and in 1995 the Parti-Quebecois held a referendum on separation that was narrowly defeated
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