Over the last few days there has been much keening and thrashing about over the sorry state of the Penguin Group that it could allow such a runt as Sentinel (it's new imprint) to publish such rubbish as Ed Klein's The Truth About Hillary.
Everyone seems shocked ("Shocked!") that such a reputable publishing company would sink so low.
Let's see if we can help explain it.
The Penguin Group, despite it's admirable reputation is really just a division of a much larger publishing group, The Pearson Group, a company that has greatly expanded it's brief in recent years: data mining, business consulting and, what, Homeland Security!!
It is, of course, merely a coincidence that Dame Marjorie Scardino, who became the conglomerate's CEO in 2001, just happens to be a down home girl from Texas, a graduate of Baylor Baptist in Waco in 1969 - back when she just plain old
Marjorie Morris.
One of a handful of Texans to have accepted a British Title (Does Sir George H W Bush count, since he was, after all, born in Connecticut?) Dame Marjorie has done wonders to invigorate the Pearson brand since taking the helm. Having spun several new divisions out from the company's once rather staid, classic lit and Financial Times profile, KEI Pearson and NCS Pearson being among the most relevant and interesting to us today.
My oh my, Dame Marge really knew how to get in on the old government outsourcing gravy train - They proudly boast of their services to the Departments of Defense, Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and Labor, (and) the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Good job, Marge!! Oh, and see here - barely three months after 9-11 they won a lucrative contract from the Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to manage and operate its National Customer Service Center (NCSC)
(see Pearson press release: Feb 19, 2002)
Of course, the main reason the Pearson Group was in the news recently was over the early reports of the many 100s of millions/billions wasted in the rush to render urgent services immediately after 9-11. (Although the Washington Post story cited here endorsed that line of reasoning, but I can't help but wonder if giving such contracts as the one Pearson received, a company with no experience at all in Airport Security, might have contributed to a general atmosphere of waste and cronyism?
For some reason this company, once devoted to educational services was awarded a $104 million contract to screen a new generation of Airport Security personal. That sum quickly ballooned up to over $700 million!!
With just over 60,000 candidates hired that's about $11,000 - and, that's without training - 11,000 per head - just for interviewing them!!
SO, could it be that Dame Marjorie is just hoping to repay her generous benefactors??? Is that the real reason for Sentinel?
I'll leave you with a quote from Lunderg's seminal 1937 book, America's 60 Families, in which he discussed the Graham Committee that investigated profiteering in the World War I:
"The war profits scandals were covered in a an investigation by a special House committee and subcommittee that heard evidence for more than three years under the chairmanship of Representative William J. Graham of Illinois. This evidence and the reports fill twenty-one massive volumes that contain an unparalleled panorama of graft, corruption, extortion, knavery, and incompetence, if not of treason.
The genral spology made for the characters involved is that, considering the sudden war emergency, the job done was the best possible. The Graham Committee found, however, that competent persons in certain fields were deliberately removed in favor of incompetents; disinterested persons were shunted aside in favor of persons with a private pecuniary interest in decisions; experts were dismissed in favor of non-experts; military officers of probity who protested against the plundering and looting were demoted, transferred, and sometimes discredited, and were replaced by officers of dubious inclination; higher bids were accepted in favor of lower; known inferior materials were accepted rather than good, tested materials; and many expenditures, involving huge sums, were made - on the plea of a military necessity that did not exist - solely for the benefit of private entrepreneurs of political influence. Business was not apportioned fairly; discrimination was practiced in favor of the politically dominant element of Wall Street finance capital."
pgs. 189-190
Needless to say, not a single individual was ever indicted back then.....