Professor Silver's Book Readings

Wow! Way to go Professor Silver! I just completed reading the last page of Chapter 4 and couldn't have been more surprised at the contents of the readings, let alone the shenanigans hoisted on the American taxpayer and voter by corporations as the have now jumped completely in bed with our government.

If I've learned anything from these readings as well as from my studies in the MBA program, it is that I will be much more astute at reading the financial pages of the Wall Street Journal and other papers that focus on business and enterprise in America and globally.

Though each of the cases were enlightening, I could not have been more alarmed by the role that major accounting firms and the practice of accounting in general plays on how skilled (or not so skilled when caught) these corporations have become in getting around the legislative and tax systems of this country. You would think that with all of the billions of dollars these corporations are making, paying a fair share of taxes or allowing the average worker, customer, employee, etc., their fair share of justice and/or earnings would be a 'drop in the bucket'. However, Professor Silver's writings have demonstrated that the fact of the mater is that corporate and government greed is incestuous, widespread, and dangerously disruptive to the entire American economy if we are not careful.

Take for example, the legislation outlined in Chapter Three on: Influencing the Law. Professor Silver makes a clear argument when he points out the fact that many pieces of this legislation was implemented, not for the protection of Americans but for the protection of large corporations. In an attempt to lock in their political gains in order to withstand future democratically-based efforts to regulate corporations, these same corporations are manipulating law by way of the relationships they have built between companies and government to secure windfall profits for years to come. I was deeply troubled by the case presented on the Medicare Prescription Drug Act of 2003.

I vividly recall visiting Canada in 2003 and seeing for myself that the same prescription drugs I had to pay upwards of $500 in the US, could be purchased in Canada for less than 1/5 the cost. No wonder drug companies closed that loophole. They used propaganda advertisement to state that it was done to secure safety in drugs. How can they say that when our own FDA is so overworked and over-loaded with cases, they don't have the time or manpower to inspect our own food and drugs or those coming to us from other overseas nations such as China?

I could go on and on about how revealing the cases were about the U.S. corporate culture and how little we know, or pay attention to, in the ways and to the extents corporations will go to secure profits. It raises more questions than answers.