Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Recommended reading

Jim Grey
8 comments on Recommended reading
1 minute

💻 Seth Godin says something I’ve thought for a long time: public companies end up serving their shareholders overwhelmingly more than they serve their actual customers. I think it is a misalignment of values. Read Public companies are too often out of alignment

I wonder what this could be? *EXPLORED*
Yashica-12, Ilford Pan F Plus, 2018

💻 Roman Yanovitcin gives an insider view into amateur photography in the former USSR. Cameras were often broken when new, and it was illegal to sell your work as an amateur. Read Amateur photography in the USSR: Part One

📷 The Petri Penta is a 1959 35mm SLR that takes the vast range of M42 screw-mount lenses. Mike Eckman tells Petri’s history and puts a Penta through its paces. Read Petri Penta (1959)

📷 Andrew Morang shoots some Ilford Pan F Plus that I sent him. He gets better results from it than I ever have. Read Another Film Treasure: Ilford Pan F Plus

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Comments

8 responses to “Recommended reading”

  1. Olli Thomson Avatar
    Olli Thomson

    I don’t think it’s news to anyone that the corporate sector is no friend of the consumer. Adam Smith recognized that a long time ago: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

    Or again, “To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers…The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      It is so, all of it. Yet any other system I’ve ever seen tried had even worse corruptions. What to do.

      Reply
      1. Olli Thomson Avatar
        Olli Thomson

        I don’t think there is a single ‘capitalist’ or ‘market’ system. Capitalism and markets exist in different forms and some are better than others. What we have now is a very bad version. Smith’s answer was regulation, yet the corporate sector has managed to persuade people that regulation is ‘bad’. But regulation can be both bad and good depending on who’s interests it serves. Bad regulation serves the interests of big business and government; good regulation serves the interests of the consumer/citizen and small business. Because as surely as big business wants to screw the consumer it also wants to screw any upstart business that might threaten its comfortable position. And big business for all its anti-government/anti-regulation talk is usually in bed with big government to their mutual benefit – case in point, the defence industry or the healthcare industry. But enough politics – I got my second shot of Moderna yesterday. Maybe it’s just making me grouchy:)

        Reply
        1. Jim Grey Avatar
          Jim Grey

          Of course regulation is “bad” if you’re a corporation! You want no limits. So what if you end up oppressing people?

          Be as crabby as you want about this, I’m right there with you.

          Reply
  2. Andy Umbo Avatar
    Andy Umbo

    Plus One for the Petri article…when I was in high school, a buddy bought one new and even then, it was NOT a well known or obvious choice, but had the fit and finish of any inexpensive Japanese camera at the time. Glad to know more…

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      Now I’m curious to try one! If that one belongs to the author, maybe he’d lend it to me. He lives in Indiana; it wouldn’t be hard to arrange.

      Reply
  3. Steve Mitchell Avatar
    Steve Mitchell

    Absolutely correct about public companies. Triple bottom line management is a great theory, but rarely, if ever practiced. As I have accumulated birthdays I have become a little more thoughtful about where I spend….there are many corporations that I actively avoid.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      The people attracted to top corporate positions aren’t naturally bent toward the triple bottom line.

      Reply

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