To Indict PETA or not?

Last summer when fans were gearing up for the NFL season, Michael Vick was found guilty of dog-fighting charges. Fans were outraged by Michael Vick’s involvement in dog fighting; Vick did horrible things to dogs and people were angry and disgusted by it. Even, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) launched multiple campaigns urging NFL to sack Vick. Eventually, Vick was sacked from the Atlanta Falcons and indicted of dog-fighting charges.

There is no questioning the fact that dog fighting is gruesome and immoral lifestyle and those involved should face severe punishment. But if you followed the story closely, there was another question that popped up: Was it ethical to make money off the Michael Vick dog-fighting situation? As soon as Vick was indicted of the charges, many parties saw an opportunity to make money by selling anti-Vick related accessories, which includes t-shirts, car stickers, hats. Etc. A simple Google search would show there were many different parties involved in make the best of this opportunity but one that was the most interesting and questionable was PETA.org.

PETA, with more than 1.8 million members and supporters, is the largest animal rights organization in the world. PETA works through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns. If you visited the PETA website, you would notice that it had created a store with anti-Vick shirts, hats, buttons, dog clothes and other products. This was very unusual for an organization like PETA, who holds high standards similar to UNICEF. No matter what the scenario, one has never seen UNICEF offer products for sale to make a quick buck. I'm sure that a case that involved a public figure would lead to the temptation to maximize the monetary opportunity but clearly there were moral issues involved; organizations such as PETA are expected to not let monetary opportunities supersede moral and ethical behavior.

I think ethical companies that had ties to Vick made the correct moves in distancing themselves from Vick. Nike for example, removed any Vick products from its site. But it seemed like PETA was too busy chasing dollars. So if you had a chance, would you act similarly to PETA?

Yahoo... Extended Information !!

Here is the answers to the question raised in the class

why not Google was forced?

Google and Microsoft have opted not to offer e-mail services hosting user data inside the PRC. Despite the fact that Gmail would work a lot better for Chinese users if they did so, and Google would probably be making more money in China in the short run if they did so.
Yahoo brand, didn't care about their inevitable future complicity with human rights violations, or they were not thinking.

The Shi Tao case was actually solved in Novemeber 2007.The settlement comes after Yahoo executives last week went to Capitol Hill to apologize to family members of the dissidents and to get a tongue-lashing by lawmakers for the company's role in the jailings.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7093564.stm

After this incidence the Yahoo also insists it must comply with local laws in areas where it operates but it was rejected .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6747095.stm

This doesnt end here recntly the Yahoo sued again by Chinese dissidents on Feburary 28th 2008.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20080229/tc_infoworld/95666

Lesser of two evils

Another week, another case that I struggle to find the right answers to a complex ethical issue/case. I think I finally got it, there is no good or bad, there is always some good & always some bad. Our only hope is to try to do the lesser of two evils. If we refer to this week’s case, K-PAN, by seeking their increased profitability, went to a developing country that provided low cost labor. As it happens in many developing countries, Nicaragua (Country chosen by K-PAN to operate) has high unemployment rate and fewer a) wages, b) effective labor unions, c) effective labor laws, d) producer constraints, e) environment standards. By having low labor cost & long shifts, K-PAN was in fact promoting sweatshop manufacturing.
But what are the alternatives? The alternatives are maintain production in USA & lose a competitive position (and provide ZERO new jobs in Nicaragua) or increase the wages in developing countries & also lose our competitive position. Either way the competitors will probably find a way to beat us. On the other side, if we move production to developing countries, we will be bring jobs to people in need & that should count for something. What we need to ensure is that there is a balance in place. A low wage but secure job can be ethically correct as long as it does not violate the basic ethical norms of society. For example, child labor should not be allowed, pregnant women should have the right for temporary maternity leave, have the right incentives in place, and so on. To conclude, I think that by providing a safe work environment & market-based wage, companies can reach a profit maximizing point that is both economically & socially responsible for all parties.

Maybe It's Not Such a Great Idea

The globalization issue is a really great topic to look into when it comes to ethics because of the diverse viewpoints it offers. I really enjoyed the topic of the Bottom of the Pyramid segment of the third world and the urgent need to bring consumer culture to this part of the world. I can only assume from the authors work that introducing a society to consumer dependency is a great way to bring about social change? Priming the pump of spending by offering cheap goods to the “brand conscious” men and women of impoverished nations may be a great idea, if we’re looking for new addicts to the consumer market.

I think the author is really talking about the “invisible hand” and how it needs to (or will eventually) find this overlooked segment of the market. I feel that the actions described in the article by C.K. Pralahad are actually underway already, but perhaps not moving fast enough for the author. Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat is describing the concept of interconnectedness that is leveling the playing field and opening up marketing avenues as we speak. If a new consumer market is opened up within the impoverished community, there may well be an improvement in their living conditions in the immediate future, but will this only make them more reliant on the goods and services of large MNC’s? Will they become junkies to consumerism with private-sector dealers?

“Global Warming” A Manufactured Crisis…

I recently read an article mentioning Al Gore being sued for manufacturing a crisis using blatantly false information. Actually, the lawsuit is for selling “Carbon Credits” to help companies/people offset their Carbon emissions (as a result consumers are greeted with higher utility costs by companies who sold their emissions credits to make money and raised prices to force consumers to use less). But I would like to stick to the crisis of global warming.
You can basically pinpoint the exact day people became scared of Global Warming. The day Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth” debuted in theatres. A court in Great Britain who ruled against showing the film in schools stated that there were 11 inaccuracies presented in this film. (See below for the inaccurate facts.)
I believe there is an ethical issue with using scare tactics for one's own personal agenda. That it is unethical for political figures to irresponsibly bring publicity and hysteria to a controversy if the facts are not sound. Especially if it may cause economic ripples and harm businesses and/or consumers. By putting out false information, governments and companies have had to react and have spent billions of dollars to deal with the issues. Regardless, the emissions/carbon issue in the US and EU has continued to rage on. In a recent meeting, world leaders have called for the US to spend $180 billion/year to fight this unproven “crisis”. This money should be spent on healthcare, homeless, education or NECESSARY WARS!

False facts in the film according to expert testimonies in a Great Britain court:
· “The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
· The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
· The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
· The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
· The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
· The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
· The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
· The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
· The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
· The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
· The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.”

Globalization

What an interesting series of articles! If there is one thing I've learned about Moral and Ethical behavior from the readings we have been assigned in this class, it's that moral and ethical behavior can be interpreted as what's in the eyes of the beholder--everyone has an opinion. The question is: Whose opinion is correct? I guess the answer to that question depends on what side of the fence you find yourself on.

The series of arguments presented in this chapter were both informative and very thought provoking. In the article entitled: "Global Profits, Global Headaches," I had to place myself in two different sets of scenarios as I read. The first scenario forced me to picture myself as an executive working for this company. In that scenario, my choice would be to do what is best for the corporation and my actions and strategy would be based on doing whatever it takes to tap into the global markets as outlined by this large corporation.

I had to ask myself: "On what basis would I have my management team conclude the purpose for our being there?" Certainly the usual arguments corporations use are valid: 1) Reduced costs, 2) Expansion and growth 3) New markets, etc. But when the feasibility studies indicate that my company's presence may or may not have an impact (positive or negative) on the environment, the people, and the economy; would I first think about what's best for my company at the expense of what's best for the local economy and natural resources? Would I rationalize my response to reflect whatever my boss would want me to think? Or would I defer my first choice and create opportunities that would focus on alleviating any damages my business there might have on the local area?

These are the questions that I surmise are being addressed by CEO's, board of directors and executive management teams on a regular basis. Yet, why am I still surprised and enraged when the choices they seem to make are predominantly focused on the results of increased wealth to the shareholders and themselves as opposed to increased positive contributions to the people and villages and economies they impose upon?

It is one thing to argue that it is in the best interest of corporations to move their operations offshore to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them by way of reduced labor costs, increased availability of natural resources and cooperative governments; it's a poor excuse to rationalize that paying sweatshop labor wages to already starving people is better for them then to pay higher, and more fair wages for that labor, especially in view of the enormous profits these companies make off of the people of third world countries! I was even more struck by how the chairman of the board shrugged the decision that needed to made off to family members of the founder (nepotism) instead of making the hard, right decision then and there!

The same is true when I placed myself in shoes of an individual working in a sweat shop. Do I care about whether I make as much as my counter-part in the USA on any given day or do I care more about having enough money to feed my family, keep a roof over my head, or buy a pair of shoes for my child so that he/she can walk the seven miles to school (hypothetically of course as I have no idea how far or even IF these children attend school)? Which do I prefer?

I guess the problems with what we are learning in Ethics class present more, 'devil is in the details' scenarios than we will ever be able to address in the short time that we have available to us over the semester. However, the quest to impact the world that we inherit and the need to continue to be change makers of the world in a positive rather than negative way should always force us to make the hard, right decision; we should be ever cognizant that we are balancing our choices between what is good for us and our company and what is right in our decisions, not only for the people that we may find ourselves working for and with, but also for the people, environments, and economies we impact.

Unfortunately, many of the articles I've read in the chapter on Globalization led me to believe that when corporate CEO's are given a choice, increased profits seem to have a way of outweighing common sense. Hard, right (which can be interpreted as ethical and moral decisions) are constantly being pushed off to some other person, place or organization to take care of. In other words, corporations know how to pilfer from a society, but they seem to grow dumb when it comes to understanding or trying to work out a plan to build and/contribute in a broader sense to that countries, social, economic and environmental structure.

Whether the choices corporations like Nike, Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot are making are fair, equitable, relevant or impact the poor negatively is left to one's own interpretation or to some other organization (is this fair or is this passing off the crumbs and mess to some other social or political organization) to take care.

Frankly, none of the arguments presented here have convinced me that corporate greed takes a back seat to what is good and right and fair when corporations move in and out of new markets in impoverished countries. What has been demonstrated in these arguments is how well man can find a way to reason away anything. Even if it means that paying someone in Asia $0.29 on the dollar and $30. an hour in America vs. paying a CEO hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour to make one simple decision is the right thing. Everyone has a conscience don't they? This isn't rocket science. Just do the right thing!

Are Employers Willing to Pay the Price for Office Gambling?

The hype and focus on March Madness made me think about the ethics involved in sports gambling with office pools. Certainly this is a relevant topic as many of us participate in office pools throughout the year for various sporting events – fantasy leagues, basketball brackets, Superbowl pools, etc. The legality of this form of gambling is questionable on a state to state basis as some states outlaw any form of gambling in the workplace even nominal wagers. Aside from the direct legal consequences and the threat of non-productivity involved with placing bets and strategizing brackets during work hours, an interesting ethical perspective was addressed in an article from USA Today.

“Are employers held accountable for worker’s addictions that develop from the participation of office gambling?” It is actually possible for an employee to get compensated if it can be proven that the individual suffered a financial loss due to the encouragement of office gambling. There are also other factors that can result in allowing sports gambling at the office; addictive gamblers are more likely to miss work and assignments, borrow money from co-workers, and there is also the possibility of company theft.

For the majority of workers, March Madness pools are an entertaining way for groups and small companies to encourage friendly competition and fun in the workplace. But what about the gamblers or recovering addicts who are surrounded by these office pools on a daily basis at work? For the small minority of workers who have gambling addictions that may worsen due to these office pools, are the employers directly responsible for monitoring this type of behavior at work?

The Consumer Culture, Capitalism, and the Chickens Come Home...

The particular case study on globalization has pushed a button for me as I look at the news of the day. It makes me consider the blatant hypocrisy of our culture. We want everything…now, but we want to pay nothing for it. We leverage ourselves up to our eyeballs – and beyond (with most Americans) – and then when things get bad we want to blame everybody else. We want to blame the system: big business, or the government, or big business and the government. We want to blame everybody but ourselves. And then, we want help from everybody, to bail us out from our self-constructed dilemma.

We are a consumer society. It is a construct that we perpetuate everyday. As I’m sitting in the coffee shop drinking my green tea ($2.00) and my Miso Soup (another $2.00), and looking at the people walking around with their IPods, and “cool” clothing, talking about playing their Wii or Xbox, and all the ridiculously expensive – gas guzzling cars – with their after factory add-ons, and this freaken laptop with wireless everything. I’m thinking that some of these consumers are likely in personal danger of loosing their homes…and (many) expecting that everyone else should bail them out.

Maybe I’m the same consumer in North Carolina and I’ve lost my job because our hyper-consumer society all but insures the short-term commoditization of goods, forcing firms to find cheaper means of production.

Is it really fair to hold corporations accountable for actions that are necessary and appropriate based on the system that we support? When does our hyper-consumer behavior get called out for its ethical shallowness (“our” meaning the collective of individuals)? Is it not unethical until we say it’s unethical? Until then it’s perfectly fine?

Ethics. Corporate accountability. Individual accountability.

Now back to my laptop, Latte Grande, and consumer bliss.
Yeah...I saw you here yesterday.

Unethical in some countries may be ethical in some

In the recent issue which raised question about the unethical behavior of Yahoo Inc. who helped send a reporter to prison by revealing Shi Tao identity to the Chinese government. Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2005 following Yahoo's release of the information. The company is currently being sued of its action by the World Organization for Human Rights USA. This law is 217-year-old U.S. law to punish corporations for human rights violations abroad, an effort the Bush administration has opposed.

Yahoo has been heavily criticized by human rights organizations for its activities in China and its willingness to censor information or work with authorities in countries where dissent is not allowed.

In 2004, after the Chinese government ordered the country's media not to report on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, journalist Shi Tao used his Yahoo e-mail account to forward a government memo to a pro-democracy group. When China's Internet police -- a force of 30,000 -- uncovered this, it pressured Yahoo to reveal Shi's identity.

Who would you put at fault at such place when it comes to such a situation?
Companies that do business in other countries have to follow the laws of that country or their employees could be subject to penalties. The Chinese government pressurized Yahoo to do so. In China, governments are not required to tell a company why they want information.

But this incidence damaged the yahoo image a lot as people now take yahoo unsecure and capable of violating the privacy by revealing the personal information.

The Practice of Diversity in India : Pros and Cons

Diversity is very vastly exercised in the Indian subcontinent in terms of thought (mostly political), culture, perspective, gender, and most importantly 'race'. There are many pros and cons of India being a diverse nation. With reference to gender, there are many impositions to a female quota in any company or institution, which has been providing a positive impact and hence, has helped in uplifting the previously undervalued talent pool of the country. With the female share of the workforce compulsorily regulated to be at least 20% in any organization, there have been very successful emerging businesswomen in the industry such as Kiran Mazumdar of Biocon, Sudha Murthy of Infosys et cetera. This would be one of the many pros of extensive diversity in India.
There are also many cons that are associated with diversity, which mainly includes unethical exploitation of certain privileges provided by the Indian Government for certain races of people in the economy. For instance, during university admissions or company job recruitment sessions, there is usually a minimum cut-off for a candidate's academic aggregate of marks. This is most often say 90%. However, for certain particular races, this cut-off is lowered down to around 55%. A candidate can place himself in this "privileged" category by producing a government-endorsed certificate. Most of the times, this document is easily approved for a person from any other race, with the help of a small amount of lobbying. Hence, this loop- hole is well exploited and practiced extensively leading to unethical eligibility for a particular position.
So, what I want to convey is that, you really have weigh out all the possible pros and cons of a particular diversification and then conclude on the level of partiality, which is supposed to be enforced between the categories.

Death Toll: War in Iraq

Easter night became a memorable milestone of the war in Iraq. Last night the death toll since the beginning of the war reached 4,000. Of these soldiers, almost seventy five percent were in the Army. Each casualty causes a ripple effect among family and friends of the deceased. Will these deaths benefit the greater good of all U.S. citizens?
Chaplains in the U.S. Military carry immense burden on death throughout war: conducting memorials, hand writing notes to families, consoling grieving soldiers, etc. However, they are not the soldiers carrying weapons and fighting in combat. Chaplains are faced with difficult questions about war whether at home or overseas. Of any government employee, they have one of the most involved roles of dealing with death everyday.
The grim reminder of an ever increasing death toll has caused many people to reconsider the cost of war. Why is our country making such a large sacrifice, and is it at all worth it in years to come? My brother is a Marine and is currently stationed in Iraq. I can only imagine what it would be like to lose a family member. But, deaths stemming from war have happened since the beginning of time. Is the history of sacrifice a justification for our actions?

Negative impact of agricultural foreign aid on developing nations

I found a recent article on the BBC News website that discussed the impact foreign aid (specifically from the U.S.) has had on Haiti’s economy. Haiti is one of the world’s poorest countries and the “farmers in Haiti have become the accidental victims of U.S. imports and international aid.”

The valleys of Haiti used to produce enough rice to feed the entire country but in the 1980s, Haiti was forced to drop import tariffs in return for loans from the IMF and World Bank. Now the country can’t compete with imported, domestically subsidized food (including rice) from the U.S. Because of the cheap imports, Haitian-grown produce is out of competition and its agriculture industry has collapsed. Unfortunately, agriculture provided the primary source of employment in the past.

Agricultural subsidies have been the subject of much debate over the years and subsidies given to farmers in larger, richer, developed countries have ripple effects on poorer, developing nations. I think that developed nations like the U.S. need to consider the impact that their agriculture subsidies have on the rest of the world and try to strike a sort of balance. Particularly in the area of farming, I see a need for real “free trade” so everyone can fairly compete in the world market. So many developing nations have the means and desire to farm in order to make a living, especially since success in this area can lead to a higher standard of living over time (via increased investments, developments in technology, etc.), but they won’t be able to if their goods can’t compete.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/cooking_in_the_danger_zone/7302535.stm

Peace and Prosperity

I am from Taiwan. We just elected our new president this weekend!
Ending 8 years of Democratic Progressive Party rule, New President pledge to improve the economy and open ties with China.
The relationship between China and Taiwan has been an critical challenge for every Taiwan leaders. Although both countries want to cooperate in many ways, political disputes like Taiwan's sovereign status has tied the cooperation between these two countries for a long time. Although Taiwan has independent government for almost a century, emotionally, China still insist that Taiwan is one of the territory of Mainland China.
Open ties might benefit both countries in term of economy and many other ways. However, how can two parties with so different opinions work together?
Sincerely hope our new president have enough wisdom to solve the dispute and bring Taiwan to a peace and prosperity era.

Globalization Hits Home

The globalization readings this week brought to mind my own experiences with this issue. My company makes materials used in making electronics. Greater than half of our business is in Asia.

We’re currently building a new plant in an Asian country. It’s a logical place to build a plant and given the magnitude of our business in Asia, it’s understandable for my company to want to build there. It’s interesting that we don’t expect our cost basis to reduce much; this country is a relatively expensive. It is simply a matter of being close to our customers; a fundamental business need.

In my two trips to this country, I’ve enjoyed the culture and the people. They are very hospitable and professional. Nevertheless, I can’t help but be disappointed about our move there. In the long term what do you think is going to happen to our US operations and jobs? The answer seems obvious.

What are the ethical responsibilities for companies to their workers when moving their operations from one location to another? How much is the company’s responsibility and how much the worker? I feel like I am making an investment in my future with this MBA program (partially funded by my employer), but what about workers for whom that isn’t possible? As a manger of people and also being involved in building this new plant, what are my responsibilities to people who report to me? How candid should I be verses the company’s position?

I feel fortunate to be employed at my company. It actually has been pretty candid about the new plant and the implications. I’ve mimicked this with my subordinates and would use this as an example in the future in a similar position. My company also provides an educational benefit and a very competitive salary and benefits. In the end, we can only provide options to people. It’s up to the them to act on the options.

As for companies with less noble intentions - that is a tough one. I do believe in free markets, and the freedom for companies to largely do business as the see fit. But you do have to be honest with people and provide them with the options in the first place (competitive salaries, benefits, honesty). There needs to be a balance.

EPA Says Carbon Caps Won’t Harm Economy Much.

I read a Wall Street Journal article from last Monday’s paper entitled, “EPA Says Carbon Caps Won’t Harm Economy Much.” This article described the Lieberman-Warner Bill which would control greenhouse gas emissions of power plants, factories, and oil refineries over the next two decades. Apparently, companies that exceed there EPA limit can purchase excess credits from other companies and still remain legal. This bill if passed it would also increase the price of gas and electric.

If you look at this problem from a Simon point of view then there is no need to reduce emissions now because in the future someone will develop something to eliminate the pollution from emissions. While this may be true, I don’t think that closing our eyes and hoping for the best will fix the problem. We should do as much as we can now to prevent further environmental impact.

I was also troubled by the ability of a company that exceeds their allotted amount of pollution to purchase credits from another company which have excess. It does not seem fair that a company can actually break the law, pollute our air further and simply buy their way out of trouble. Everyone should be held to the same standard. Of course there are repercussions since the company has to buy the excess but if the credits are always available then why would they change practices. It almost makes this new law worthless since probably most companies would rather pay for the credits then change infrastructure in order to comply.

My reflection on Globalization..!!

As Globalization is contracting the world into a smaller place to live, businesses are finding “Outsourcing” as an effective way to leverage on the competencies of other nations. India is today a major hub for BPOs, KPOs & LPOs (Business, Knowledge and Legal Process Outsourcing respectively). The prime reasons for this are high number of University Graduates in India, English as a common language at work and readiness of the employees to work in shifts at night, thus enabling a 24 hour work cycle. On one hand where such jobs has enabled the youth to earn handsome salaries early in their career, it has also posed problems related to employees’ health and safety, issues related to ethical hiring in the industry etc. The employees are suffering from what is called as the “shift-work-sleep disorder” which implies that an individual works when the body wants to sleep at night and tries to sleep when the body is expected to be awake. The industry in witnessing unethical practices like poaching the employees of a company by offering more salary and lack of security on clients’ information/accounts. So there is a need on the part of the host countries to ensure that they have sound guidelines, labor codes, web-security systems and employee friendly policies before opening themselves to these jobs. Globalization exhibits a Give and Take relationship in business. So it is really necessary for the businesses to ensure that they are internally ethically strong to support this wave of globalization in order to experience a balanced give-take ratio.

Pittsburgh green story

On March 19’s class, we talked a lot about environment pollution. I think of Pittsburgh – a very good example of environment pollution improvement.

Pittsburgh came to be - and came to be dirty because of location, location, and location. Two navigable rivers met in the middle of a forest, and combined to form a third river. This was an irresistible meeting point for settlement, trade, and industry. It was an added bonus that this meeting point was at the center of the 'Pittsburgh seam' of coal. While the natural advantages of geography and geology initiated development, Pittsburgh's growth soon attracted man-made transportation networks to import resources from its hinterland and spread finished materials through the Midwest. As the city boomed into an industrial metropolis - the Iron City, the Steel City - through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the smoke only became worse, and Pittsburgh became known, nationally and even internationally, for its dirt, grime, and filth.

Air pollution was a serious problem associated with steel production. Coking leads to large emissions of carbon monoxide and air toxics such as benzene. In October of 1948, a particularly severe stagnation episode occurred.

Donora lies thirty miles south of Pittsburgh, on the Monongahela River. In lasting 4 days twenty people died in Donora, and 7,000 additional individuals were ill. Pittsburgh residents woke up to the severe impact on their city of the smog emanating, which explained the rise of a federal environmental policy in the 1950s and 1960s. The mayor of Pittsburgh, along with the city elite, had begun to identify actions to improve air quality. Actions included reducing the use of bituminous coal as part of a smoke ordinance (Tarr, 1981). Natural gas was piped into homes for heating. Diesel engines began replacing coal-fired engines in locomotives and riverboats.

Today, while steel is still a component of the region’s economy, it is no longer so dominant. Coal continues to play a major role in the region as the primary fuel for producing electricity, and both the coal and electricity are used locally and exported. The rivers are still used for transport, but are not as central in that role. Oil production is virtually gone. Pittsburgh has developed a more diverse economy, in particular by making a push in high-technology areas such as robotics.

Lincoln Electric (LE)

Some of us participated in the recent 3/15 case competition. I want to share my contribution because this reflects my personal ethics around respect for differences, from micro to macro. Prahalad’s article resonated with what I was trying to articulate in my desire to generate creative recommendations.

I do not want to minimize the two other students’ contribution from Accounting and Economics. Theirs were the central core of what the judges wanted. Mine was also important. My major contribution was the importance of HR management as a strategic partner in our team’s recommended strategies. What follows is a smaller part of what I addressed.

(For those not in this loop of the case study presentations on 3/15, the Lincoln Electric (LE) case challenge was to argue whether or not this company should expand to the Indian market. LE already has a firmly established presence in Western and Eastern Europe, and China along with one or two locations in quite a few other countries. They also have started construction in S. India for a manufacturing and educational center.)

LE has had enough significant failures in global expansion so I argued for two strategies. The first was to invest in research using a “positive deviance” model. This approach looks at individuals or small sectors in the company who “get it right”, in this case, their history of global expansion. This research is expected to discover processes that blend the best of LE’s processes to generate competitive information on their social capital going forward.

The second strategy, equally important, was to go into India as “new learners” and gather research from multiple forum groups within the local community as well as academic, business, trade, political, and farming communities, etc. The recommendation was to use the two research projects to co-create new processes to set the stage for LE’s success in India.

As mentioned by Prahalad, I wanted to stay away from “old and tired” solutions. I wanted to generate inclusion and involvement as successful strategies to co-create future successes. But I missed the economic importance of the BOP market potential and thought his argument against dominant assumptions was powerful. Think of dollar store chains, Target and Walmart.

I also liked Maitland’s longer range perspective around how systems correct themselves as well as, on relative merit, how cultural perspectives vary from time and place. What he did not do is address the importance of hindsight and reflection of the many gross inequities of the past that have devastated or dramatically delayed a culture’s economic progress, resulting in lost opportunities for the whole. These results can be apparent for years, decades, and centuries.

Holding of paradoxes makes ethical thinking difficult. Our competitive advantage over others in the animal kingdom is our ability to reflect. Well, maybe it is also a competitive disadvantage when used to interfere with natural processes? Back to: “it depends!”!

Thoughts on issues discussed in the class

I had several thoughts about justice, and development vs environment issues.

Dr. Silver said “we” need to admit, apologize, then to find ways to solve that. I asked myself after the class, “Is late coming justice still justice or still good justice?”; “how could the finally coming justice help”; “how late is the late?”. In daily life, we hear news about criminal/law cases which go through the courts for several years or more. The final judgment may give someone an apology, a sinless claim. How helpful that could be to people involved in the case long time ago? Yes, it’s definitely good to have a just result than nothing, however we may also consider improve the justice system to make it better.

Another thing in my mind was about the conflict between “Development” and “Environment”. I admit that we have only one earth, and we should care about it. However, I also think this issue should be treated probably differently at different situation. Development should come first, for developing countries and less developed countries. Considering some places in the world where people still couldn’t get enough food and clothes. They need to develop the economy first, with that money they have the ability to care about environment. For that, they just need determination. The situation should be different in developed countries, like USA. If options are available, highly-polluted industry could be shut down or improved.

Layoffs vs. Cutting Services

On Wednesday, Governor Minner implemented a hiring freeze on state positions and requested an additional five percent cut from agency budgets for fiscal year 2009, bringing total agency reductions to eight percent. The Governor commented on not laying off state employees at this time, but did not guarantee that alternative would be excluded if revenues continue to dwindle. The Governor is clearly "putting people first" as Jeffrey Pfeffer stated in Chapter Nine on Employment. She publicly demonstrated her support and value for the State’s workforce, especially when facing hard fiscal times. There are costs associated with laying personnel off (unemployment insurance, potential Medicaid eligibles, loss of income tax) and the State of Delaware is the largest employer in the State; however at what point is it a disservice to the citizenry of Delaware to have programs and services reduced at the cost of not laying personnel off? There are 17,500 state employees, yet there are 853,476 citizens that benefit from the State. The State’s leaders are faced with an ethical dilemma. Is the livelihood of one individual or hundreds of people more important than the services provided to the 853,476? I believe it would depend what services were reduced or eliminated, how the change would directly impact me and how the change would affect the majority of the citizens of Delaware. Friedman might argue that this would be a great opportunity to look toward privatization of government services, which could avoid lay offs and prevent loss of services.

U.S.A the country of freedom???

What does freedom mean? I agree with Cambridge dictionary definition. (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=31057&dict=CALD)
To me, it doesn’t see that the companies in this country (and probably in many others) are not free to decide what they want to do with their money. My opinion is that companies should be able to decide who they want to hire or fire, considering the diversity or not. Sometimes is not important to a company to have diversity, or even if it is, they should be able to choose to have it or not.
People and companies do not have to treat others nicely or kindly, as soon as they treat them with respect. To me, you don’t have freedom if you are not able to choose who you want to work/talk with.
People and companies can not pay for the past. If you don’t want to hire/like people from different color, religion, nationality, physics aspects, age, gender, etc… it doesn’t mean that you don’t respect them. You and a company should be able to have preferences. Is not because you didn’t hire or you didn’t want to talk with someone (in the case of the bank client and the Indian work) that you are being disrespectful and you have to be punished. This options to like or not someone can not be interpreted based on previous (historical) events.
I am going to show some examples to support my view. First: I realized that anybody or any company here wants to talk with/work with/ hire me, BECAUSE I am Brazilian. I understand that this is an option, an opinion, that I would try to show that I am not different or minor because of my nationality, but I have to accept their freedom to have this opinion and not complain or try to change it in the justice forcing them to like or hire me.
Second, if you have your own company, why you can’t you choose who to hire? You don’t need to hire the best employees to your company (you should, but you don’t need to). So you have a believe, an opinion, why can’t you apply to your business? Why can’t you be free to have in your company just people like you or with the same believes or/and characteristics?
To me, being respectful does not mean to be friendly. Accept the others, does not imply that you have to work or talk with them.
What I am saying and supporting here is not that people should always look for diversities and dislike them, but they should have the freedom to choose their preferences without being punished because of that. Therefore, I am in doubt if the companies here feel this freedom.

Disney, the kind and gentle giant?

When thinking of Disney, most Americans would probably conjure up a host of friendly images; a corporate image that Disney has actively been promoting for many decades. However the Disney Corporation is far from being the friendly benevolent organization we would think.
Whilst doing research on sweatshops, I came across an article on Niagra Textiles Ltd in Bangladesh. Niagra Textiles produces garments for the Disney corporation. At Niagra workers are expected to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week with at most, a single day off per month. They are paid as little as 11 cent (US) per hour and are often physically assaulted when not working fast enough.

( The article at http://www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/niagra/niagra-bangladesh.pdf goes into more detail as to the plight of the workers at Niagra.)

The most distressing part of the article is that the workers are not asking for consumers to boycott Disney. They desperately need their jobs as they have no real alternatives fro employment. Rather the workers want companies like Disney to put pressure on their employer to improve their working conditions.

Whilst reading the article I was wondering what the underlying ethics were of a company that promotes a family friendly image yet behind the scenes be part of what can be described as a violation of basic human rights. And while the workers ask us not to boycott Disney, is it ethical on my part to buy a baby blanket from a Disney store knowing that it was possibly made by a woman that was denied maternity leave?

Clearly the workers are not even afforded basic liberties. While we do need to consider the right of Disney to be able to be as economically successful as it can, it should not be done by exploiting their workers. Basic human rights and need to be observed and shouldn’t be trampled upon to achieve economic goals.

Economy development or environment?

I just want to continue today discuss at this question....If economy development is conflict to environment, how should we do?

My opinion is, if we "start" to think it is a trade off or conflict between economy development and environment, then the most of time, environment will be sacrificed. Since the problem we have to deal today is always serious than the problem we have to face tomorrow.

The underling solution for today question, I think, is that we should place more value on environment, so that we won't "easily" trade our environment to the short-term economy benefit.
And I also believe, when we don't sacrifice our environment, we will automatically figure other ways to solve our current problems. Might take longer, cost more, or more complex, but we should be able to figure out!

Bush Outsmarts Everyone...Yet Again

Last week the EPA announced new ozone standards in its efforts to maintain momentum in increasing the quality of our air as mandated by the Clean Air Act. These new standards were introduced toward the protection of wildlife, parks, and farmland as required by the law. The EPA’s standards fell short of those recommended by EPA scientific advisors.

In what is seen as an unlawful intervention, President Bush overturned the EPA’s guidelines and imposed less strict standards.

Interestingly enough, prior to Bush overturning the new standards, the EPA’s analysis estimated costs of the new standards to be from $7.6B to $8.5B, and estimated benefits valued at from $2B to $19B.

If you want to give Bush the benefit of the doubt, which benefit should we give him:

-On a cost-benefit analysis method, it appears that there is a potential $10B net benefit (which includes preventing cases of bronchitis, aggravated asthma, hospital and emergency room visits, nonfatal heart attacks and premature death…as well as protection of wildlife, parks…)

-In applying a Jeffersonian model - let’s say the don’t load up the earth with nasty-deadly stuff that will effect your offspring, and their offspring, and then their offspring greater than yourself standard - I think we agree that Bush also falls somewhat short (little bit?).

So just what model is our innovative leader applying to this scenario, and what would Thoreau say?

Citius, Altius, Fortius (may be, may be not!)

The Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) is being adopted well by the ongoing anti-Olympic campaign making its reach faster, higher and stronger than the excitement related to the Games itself.

The recent Wall Street Journal article: ‘Olympic Sponsors Face Balancing Act’ highlights the potential problem of the Olympic sponsors on their association with the Beijing Olympics 2008. Do they support the Chinese government in conducting a grand Olympics? Do they withdraw their sponsorship to support the ethical issues raised by the Olympics protestors? They seem to be taking the ‘hands-off’ approach for now.

Most have chosen to concentrate on the spirits of the games and stay away from politics. Some like Lenovo has supposedly followed the news regarding the recent violence in Tibet with concern and regret but choose not to muddle up business with politics. The private nature of the some executives of the sponsor firms’ claims of lobbying the Chinese government and International Olympic committee to improve human rights issues has not helped.

The protestors have decided to hit the sponsors where it hurts the most. As per the article, the protestors would launch a ‘Turn Off/Tune In’ campaign to make people ‘Turn Off’ Olympic sponsors’ ads during the Games, and ‘Tune In’ to the daily broadcast of Mia Farrow from a refugee camp in Darfur. How strong this campaign would be depends on whether these sponsors really think the benefits of sponsoring would be higher than the cost.

Let’s face it, ethics and morals are not the primary concerns of most of these sponsors. They want to save their company reputation and adhere to acceptable business ethic. I guess if majority of their target customers support the cause of the protestors; probably, it would not be worth tapping the Chinese market while raising threats of losing the present stakeholders (customers, suppliers, distributors, employees etc.) worldwide. However, if majority of their stakeholders feel that it has a more positive feedback of their association with the Beijing Olympic, they would go ahead, and why not?


Reference:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120570507375240027.html

What is the cost of environment pollution?

Occasionally I saw this news “Justices Take Up Battle Over Exxon Valdez” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/washington/28scotus.html?

This 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was caused by the negligence of the ship’s captain, Joseph J. Hazelwood, who company officials left in charge of the ship despite having been informed that he was an alcoholic who had resumed drinking.

My first concern is what a corporation can do to protect itself from employees who violate explicit company policy, like a no-drinking rule....

My second point is that it make sense to hold this corporations criminally responsible eventhrough it is their employee commited the crime. when bad things happen, someone needs to be punished. We have the same intuition about punishing people who commit crimes.

But should the additional $2.5 billion in punitive damages be approved ? The company has been punished enough by $3.4 billion in criminal fines, cleanup costs and compensation payments. What total criminal fines the company should pay? Is there any standard can be hold to decide the cost of environment pollution?

At Least They're Trying to Be Good

I've fallen behind in my posts and I'm certain that most of the class has been holding its breath while waiting for another word from Jeff. Okay, maybe not, but since I have missed a class I wanted to touch back to a point from a few weeks ago and then post another comment about environmental ethics. The point I wanted to re-examine was the notion of just systems. I think we were discussing the idea of being blindfolded in a "veil of ignorance" in order to determine a fair set of rules. I know this was a while ago, and we've since moved on, but it is really interesting to me and I'd like to explore it further when it is time for the class presentation. What got me thinking about this topic again was the constant appearance of the global financial crisis on the head of most of the newspapers that I have come across. There are rapid changes being made to financial policy in order to avoid an economic recession or worse. If the economy can be controlled so quickly when times are desperate, is it not possible to keep this kind of control when times are not? Can the federal government take a more active role in every stage of the economic cycle to benefit the country and/or global economy?
It brings me back to the question about a just system. Who is ultimately responsible for the outcomes of a bad system? Is a recession a fair punishment for poor performance in our country? A slap in the hand for making false promised to potential investors or a financial timeout for those who did not responsibly examine their own net value? This is probably not the case since there are more stakeholders being affected than just the mortgage and credit market in the United States. There are also thousands of factors that contribute to economic downturns (I hear one of which, is simply saying the word "recession" out loud). If we cannot repair the broken system, I think it is best to smooth out the bumps whenever possible. This is my sense of a just system. It cannot provide a happy life for everybody who lives within it, but it can react to minimize negative outcomes wherever possible.
This is a gross oversimplification, but I'm still getting my feet wet in applying philosophical concepts. I'm just thinking bail outs (such as the Bear Sterns acquisition by JP Morgan) mark the underpinnings of a just system. When written rules fail to prevent the unethical treatment of the economic system, it is good to see that there are ways to preserve order.
It's tough to stop writing these things once you've started, isn't it?

You Tube at Work Place !!

This weekend I came across a Wall Street Journal Publication about restricting video watching at workplace. In an internet framed environment of the present world, I was wondering that how feasible is it to stop the employees from using portals like “You tube / Face book/ and similar ones” when they have already formed a kind of addiction to such services? No doubt that the internet viewers today cannot spend a single day without accessing Google and its other services. But the point is that the businesses are now finding it hard to support these facilities on the limited amount of bandwidth and heavy online traffic. You Tube today is not only a means of entertainment but has also been a trusted source of information when it comes to skimming visual examples out of a large reservoir.

If the companies now realize that the employees should not be able watch videos not related to the work that they perform, they should implement this restriction in a strategic manner so that the employees do not feel deprived and less empowered. The "stakeholder theory" suggests that the welfare of the employees should not be forgone at the cost of company’s profits. The possible options can be to use a permission based access, create a free time zone of about an hour when the access is open to all, conducting an internal audit before deciding what to block and what not. It costs money to any company that needs to add capacity to the existing network or even block online videos. Further the question is that how ethical is it on the part of the employees to steal an hour out of their total time at work for watching the online content. Given the limited bandwidth and time of work, I think it makes sense for the companies to impose a selective restriction on video watching at place of work.

Ref: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120459386857809135.html?mod=djem_jiewr_BE

Mining in my Backyard

The case study of the pipeline in Chad/Cameroon parallels a situation impacting my family in Wisconsin. Over twenty years ago my parents purchased land and built a vacation home on a serene lake in Northern Wisconsin that is naturally beautiful and home to various species of wildlife. In the past decade, an iron ore company out of Texas, which is owned by a friend of Vice President Cheney, has purchased thousands of acres along an iron ore vein that runs immediately behind my family's property. In the last two years, the mining company has held meetings with the adjacent towns and property owners along the impacted area promoting the idea of mining and all the wonderful benefits of this opportunity. RGGS Land and Minerals, Ltd. is proposing to mine the iron ore, which will take upwards of 25 years, but will significantly benefit the local economy by bringing jobs to the area. The downside will be pollution (both water and air), changing the landscape (imagine a huge hole 22 miles long), impacting wildlife, increased traffic and noise from the machinery. There is also a Native American reservation nearby and mining may affect their water supply. While the potential to mine a fifth of the iron in the United States sounds appealing, I would prefer that it did not occur “in my backyard.” How can natural beauty compare to profitability? Is the impact of mining the iron ore worth the impact to the environment which will never be returned to the previous state? While the prospect of job opportunities in a small town sounds ideal, the potential impact of the housing/land market could offset any economic gain? If mining does come to fruition, my parents will sell their property and I believe others would follow suit. Finally, since the mining company is holding meetings, citizens are being provided a one-sided viewpoint of mining. The Department of Natural Resources and other environmental groups should be providing information to ensure that citizens have a non-biased opinion and are not steamrolled into siding with big business.

http://www.northwoodswild.org/newspro/viewnews.cgi?id=EEVpEykupkVsqrWqSE

The Mortgage Meltdown

The headlines of a recent Wall Street Journal article read: "Fed Races to Rescue Bear Stearns in Bid to Steady Financial System. Though seeing a large financial institution like Bear Stearns in such a financial quagmire is never pretty, I think what irks me more is that my tax dollars are bailing them out when the average homeowner who is in danger of losing or have already lost their homes to foreclosure have never even been offered a safety net -- let alone a rescue by the feds.

I recall listening to an interview on the television recently, where a reporter had a lengthy conversation with the CEO of Bear Stearns. Schwartz was so arrogantly certain that the risks his company was taking in the mortgage lending market was the right thing to do, that he bullishly insisted that his company would continue investing in these markets as aggressively as they were in other investments. He ranted about how solid their balance sheet, income statement and cash flows statements were. He even indicated that their cash reserves were so solid they would be able to withstand any fiascoes down the pike relative to the mortgage meltdown. Well--here's the fiascoes so I guess this was just a pack of lies!!

Many financial institutions rallied heavily in Washington DC during the late 1990's and early 2000's to change the laws involving credit and consumer debt. They helped lobby for the legislation that changed the laws around bankruptcy as well as increased the leverage and power of the credit industry in general, enabling these institutions to borrow heavily from foreign banks, charge outlandish interest rates on everything from credit cards to adjustable rate mortgages and create a nightmare for individuals smothering in debt with the bankruptcy laws.

I watched in horror as all of this was unfolding while I worked in management for a very large bank at the time and wondered then as I do now -- how President George W. Bush sleeps at night? He brazenly opened up the Saturday morning news smiling about his triumph in using more than $30 billion dollars of taxpayer money to save this company from its own mess, yet, doesn't seem to be able have a CLUE as to how to save the homes of thousands of American citizens who are losing the jobs and homes because of the careless arrogance of these companies.

To add fuel to the fire, last night's news indicated that the CEO's who head failing company's like Schwartz's, including the heads of American Express, and others, walk away with multi-million dollar parachute packages -- in the midst of the company losing billions of dollars. How can this be happening? What is going on today and why isn't there any way the American public (especially the American taxpayer) able to have a say in these matters?

I get very frustrated when I read about the excesses of the corporate elite at the expense of the employee, homeowner, investor (though the investor should be aware of the risks involved), and any other relatively large body of people with so little voice in these matters. I agree with Lou Dobbs --" Isn't anybody entitled to good government in this country?" Or have we all gone mad in our zest to please and appease corporations?

Now you see it, now you don't...

By now, probably everyone has heard about JP Morgan buying Bear Stearns at a huge discount. Specifically, the deal closed at Bear being acquired at $2/share. This is a precipitous drop for the stock as it was trading at $77/share on March 3, 2008, at $30/share on March 14 and closed today at $4/share. Though I am still trying to understand the overall ramifications of this “unprecedented event”, I can’t help but wonder about Bear’s employees. The possibility of losing your job is never comforting, but to see your employee stock options/stocks go from one extreme to another in a matter of days must be unsettling, to say the least. I’m sure everyone at Bear has been negatively impacted by this, but for the “average” employee who does not receive 5 figure bonuses, it must be especially difficult.

There are many factors that created this problem for Bear, from external market events that were out of their control to the direct decisions made by management. Therefore, I found it particularly interesting to read that last summer, when Bear was experiencing “10 days of a critical crisis”, the then CEO, James Cayne was incommunicado at a bridge tournament. This is just one example of his unavailability during times his leadership was most required. I’m not sure that if he were available, that Bear could have prevented the current situation, but it could have possibly helped. Furthermore, when he stepped down as CEO, he received a $34 million dollar “golden parachute”. Granted, during his 14 years at Bear, he had many successes, but problems of this magnitude do not occur overnight.

Invariably, it seems that the employees are the ones who are thrown out of the planes with nothing on their backs. This is another case where employees see their savings just disappear as a result of managements actions (United Airlines, Enron, WorldCom, etc). Well, so much for stakeholder or shareholder theory…

An Ethical Riddle!!

Debating about the issue of legal obligation vs. ethical obligation in the last class reminded me about all the calls I had to make to call centers of various credit card companies and cellular service operators. Monthly, their legal obligation is to bill the consumer with the rental fee and the usage charges for the service they had provided the previous month. They would, most often, break the ethical obligation and charge me a bit more than the actual amount. If you consider its overall impact on the entire billed amount, it wouldn't be that much, but the fact is that they 'con' the customers with this extra fee and when summed up, would result in millions of extra revenue to the company. They would reimburse this fee only to those customers who realize it in advance and call the customer care.
This scenario got me to think further, and reminded me about an article I read a long time ago regarding the newspaper and magazine business. These agencies make millions of dollars in posting advertisements in their journals that it is most definitely not necessary to charge an extra fee for subscription. By doing it, they actually are making millions more than the actual value of the material cited in their issues. A similar 'minting' occurs in the cable service too.
Apart from all these, the concept of ethical obligations, in India, is most often tested upon by job recruiters with one famous question.
Question : Imagine you are driving in a 2 seater car under a heavy blizzard and you come across a bus stop shelter in the middle of nowhere with 3 people stranded there. One being your best friend forever, the other being the woman/man of your dreams (whom you havn't really talked to yet), and the last being a very old lady. Now, you have only one umbrella with you, in which obviously only two persons can adjust in. The question is, what are you going to do?
There are many many possibilities in this scenario, but there is only one right answer. Post your answers as comments to this blog and I will post the right answer in the end. Im guessing atleast one of you guys would get it right.

How green we need?

I was reading the article in WSJ on Friday 2008 about Wal-Mart and GE’s opinions and comments about environmental issues at the ECO;nomics conference. They are trying to develop and use clean technology in their business, to reduce the damage to the environment. They pointed out the impetus for the company in doing all this isn’t just to please environmentalists, but to save money. I think this is good way of thinking about the pollution issues in business world. Previously, people always blamed the industry for only striving for money and productivity, but ignoring the environment. On the industry side, they have their cost-cutting and competition concerns, which are also understandable for them and for we customers. Now if technology innovation, environmental concerns can be driven by money, the situation may be easier.

However, I was also thinking about how green we want from companies, to which extent everyone would be satisfied, who should be involved to decide that and how? According to the stakeholder theory, companies should take everyone into account when making decisions about the business. It’s definitely not easy.

CO2 quota plan for companies and countries is a great start. Actually, there is a new business arising about trading the CO2 quota between companies which don’t use all and the ones need more. However, still countries and companies argue about how much they should get, and what should be based on when deciding the quota, for examples, developing countries vs developed countries, high populated vs low populated.

'Tis the season for taxation

In the spirit of the season, I decided to write a short note about taxes.

While diligently working on my taxes this weekend, rather than just going quickly through the forms (yet thoroughly, of course!) I took a closer look at how much was taken out of my pay at both the federal and state levels. In short, it’s a lot and it turned out that no matter how many times I calculated and re-calculated the data, I wound up owing the government more than I’d like to give.

As I was holding my pen, staring at my tax form, I reflected on where my tax money was headed and if I supported how it was being spent. I suppose I agree that I should pay taxes to some extent, but to whom should it go and how much should I have to pay? I’ll just take a look at Medicare/Medicaid.

I decided that in general, Medicare sounds like a reasonable program. It is in place with a primary focus on helping elderly citizens (65+ years) and other people that fall into very specific categories (like those who are disabled, need a kidney transplant, have ALS, etc.). I feel that these people have not done anything “wrong” and just need some help in paying for health care costs.

I am not so sure I agree with Medicaid and I find eligibility for the money falls into more of a gray area for me. Medicaid benefits those people in society who have low incomes and resources – they include low-income parents, children, elderly, and disabled people. Many of these individuals have probably honestly fallen on hard times and simply cannot afford health care costs. However, I am afraid that others are taking the Medicaid as a “free lunch” of sorts. I do not like the thought of my hard-earned money going toward people that are just skimming by, able to work to support their own health care costs, but unwilling.

There are many other programs that taxes support and I found an interesting little calculator that roughly shows you where your money goes: http://www.taxbreakdown.org/

As for the “how much should I have to pay” question, I am still thinking about that one…

Credit Card Spending

I read with interest an article in the latest Wall Street Journal about the increase in credit lending by Target. At the end of the 4th quarter, the company had $8.62B in outstanding loans, which was 29% higher than a year earlier. Other credit lenders such as Discover, Chase, Citigroup, Capital One, etc were either down in lending or only up modestly. The fear is that Target is lending too much, which either may be risky for itself or its consumers. Target execs say that the specifically chose to increase their lending because they identified more borrowers that they felt comfortable lending to. The industry analysis of Target is mixed. Some analysts say that Target has a track record of well managed credit loans. Others point to financial ratios that seem to point towards worrisome trends for Target.

All of this got me to thinking about a point made in the essay, “A Boat for Thoreau” by William McDonough. In relation to the environment he made a point about Intergenerational Responsibility. Decisions made today should be made in the interests of the 7th generation beyond today. While he made this argument in regards to the environment, we could easily extend it to debt and borrowing.

With this in mind, what responsibility does Target have to its consumers, the overall economy, and its shareholders? Extending credit to people who may already be living on the edge, especially in this current mortgage crises / recessionary economy seems questionable. What about the overall economy? Target isn’t as large as Walmart, but extending too much credit, and posing as an example for other retailers could lead them down this path too. Next thing you know, everyone is extending credit to questionable consumers. Last, playing with your shareholders assets, by extending questionable loans seems foolish. You already know what happens when credit crunches occur: look at the current mortgage crises.

In summary, I do not fault Target for extending credit to its consumers. It may be foolish, but I do not think they are unethical for extending this credit. As a shareholder (and I am one) I do have some ethical problems with them playing recklessly with my money especially in light of the current economy and track record of mortgage defaults. What could they be thinking?!

Make no mistake; I have big ethical problems with our current political and economic culture of deficit spending (gov’t, mortgages, credit cards, etc). It saddles future generations with a debt burden that may be immense. That is definitely unethical. That said it’s our responsibilities as individuals to effect the necessary changes to address this problem. This includes electing individuals to represent these intergenerational responsibilities.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120519491886425757.html?mod=djem_jiewr_BE

What's the difference?

A couple of weeks before we discussed Gov. Spitzer in class and we mulled over the ethics, moral and ethical, of the man in engaging the 'services' of the girl. Although it chanced my mind at that time I was hesitant to ask the question, when everyone seemed to be discussing the degree of un-ethicality (if that's a word!).
But i happened to come across a blog that reflected my thought, so i now feel encouraged to raise this question. What is the difference between paying for these 'services' and an adult film actor being paid for her 'acting'?
If anyone is thinking 'what kind of a question is this', please read on. I agree that Mr. Spitzer's character as a husband is questionable. He could also probably be charged with money laundering. He could also be charged with seeking the services of a prostitute, if it was just as illegal to pay or receive money for 'services' on camera.
As it turns out, the adult film industry is covered under the free speech act, which includes visual content! one of the exceptions to this act are obscenity the definition of which remains ambiguous, at least to me. So logically I am led to believe that if Mr. Spitzer performed the act on camera he would be in legal bounds (not moral).
So the ethical question here is the interpretation of the law. Is the law being interpreted differently by the authorities to benefit the adult film industry?

Inmate Care- State of Delaware Part II

Duane Williams, an inmate who was incarcerated in Delaware, passed away yesterday of complications stemming from Hepatitis C and Diabetes. He was mistakenly injected with contaminated insulin while serving a three year sentence for drug and weapon offenses. The nurse who drew the dose of contaminated insulin was employed by CMS. Although both the State of Delaware and CMS have acknowledged the recent death, neither party has assumed any responsibility.
CMS is a healthcare provider who is currently under contract with the State of Delaware. They are responsible for provide necessary medical care to inmates in correctional institutions. However, CMS is in business to generate profit. Is this in the best interest of both inmates and taxpayers? Any profitable company can increase net income by either increasing revenue or decreasing costs. The existing contract’s revenue is capped. Has CMS been forced to reduce costs in order to remain profitable?
Delaware’s prison health care system has been under scrutiny for the past few years. In 2006, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division conducted research on the existing conditions of this topic. Delaware acknowledged the need for improvement and agreed to progress in the right direction. To what extent did the health care system improve since the investigation?

It's Mrs. Spitzer's Fault! (what?)

Let's talk about ethical issues, not of Mr. Spitzer but of his wife. Should she be standing by her man with her head held high knowing that her husband did what he did. Dr. Laura Schlessinger thinks she is to blame as to why he cheated in the first place. This is an interesting article:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/11/dr-laura-blames-spitzers-wife-for-scandal/

Also, read the blog below the video to hear what other people are saying. I think she is doing the morally ethical thing but not the right thing. I believe she should not be by her husband's side in all of this but morally, she is showing the world that she "loves" him. Personally, I feel that she is staying with him through all of the turmoil just long enough so that she can angle the situation to benefit her needs. (ie-book deal)

As Dr. Laura suggests, she is to blame for not fulfilling his needs. How ethical is Dr. Laura being in making such a a comment on a widely watched news show? This entire situation is crazy and I am wondering what everyone is thinking:

Is it Mrs. Spitzer's fault that he spent about $80,000 on prostitutes?

Spitzer's Moral Obligation to Society

After our discussion last night in class regarding ethics and the scandal surrounding Eliot Spitzer, I had an additional thought on the subject of the morality involved in this case. Clearly Eliot Spitzer made poor judgments and without a doubt should be accountable for his actions; however, I think the biggest underlying concern of this case is that Eliot Spitzer was first and foremost an Attorney General – a person paid throughout his career to prosecute individuals for defying the law. As a professional who bases his career on the foundation of the law and preached on to others the basis of what is right and wrong, should be more susceptible and liable for mistakes made under such a principal.

The same idea holds true for any profession; take the police force for example. Police men and women need to follow the law just as normal citizens would; however, there is an assumed and unspoken higher level of regard for those men and women to follow the rules one is professionally paid to do. Police officers are held to more stringent standards than the average citizen. Obviously if an individual commits a crime, that person needs to be penalized in such a manner fitted to that crime; but in our society the people that have the power to control individual’s outcomes, need to follow those guidelines as well.

Additionally we need to assume that the majority of professionals choose their career with some passion for that field. I would like to think that people choose specific directions in life because they have the desire to better society in some way. It makes me think not only the obvious “what was he thinking” but also that he could act so far removed from his own principals.

Employment At Will

There was a very interesting article in the News Journal this week entitled “Bad habits can cost you your job”. This article described the situation in which some employers are firing employees for their behavior outside of work. This included such offenses as smoking, drinking, and being over weight. The rational these companies are using is that their employee’s behavior is increasing health care costs. I was surprised to learn from this article that 29 states have created laws to protect smokers from being fired because of their smoking habitat.

This issue raises the main concept of “employment at will” which we began discussing last night. Currently the law of “employment at will” states that anyone can be fired for any reason, legally. Therefore this situation creates the question that although this is legal, is it ethical? From a utilitarian point of view, this would be viewed as acceptable because firing the employees that increase health care costs ultimately benefits the company, other employees, and society. Friedman’s point of view would also corroborate this action because the decrease in health care cost results in greater profits for the stockholders.

My personal opinion is that this action is not ethical. Yes, it is true that statistically these people have greater health care costs but at the same time there are segments that are not included in this conversation. For example, a woman who has a premature baby can cost an insurance plan a huge amount of money; maybe even more than the average smoker. So then, should all women of child bearing age be fired?

Reference: http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080310/BUSINESS/803100311

Lobbying for a job?

I came across an article in CNN that relates to the discussion we had a few weeks ago in class about lobbying. The article tries to inform & explain that two of the top current advisers of Sen. John McCain’ presidential campaign were lobbyist for a European plane maker that beat Boeing to a $35B Air Force tanker contract. The author argues that there is a strong relationship between the fact that McCain has tried to referee in this bidding battle for years and the fact that the former lobbyists are now on McCain’s payroll.

Although it sounds a little too suspicious, McCain’s spokesperson argues that the lobbyist never lobbied McCain on issues related to the Air Force tanker contract. But Boeing’s stakeholders have already begun to accuse McCain of interfering with Boeing’s chances to winning the bidding. I think that if you are a advocate of reform and transparency like McCain claims to be, you should not only behave with unyielding integrity but you should avoid entering into situations that are “questionable” from a any third party perspective. Basically, if it looks bad, don’t do it and then you wont need to answer any questions. McCain did clarified later that he only intervened in the process just to make it a fair process for all companies involved and he was only looking after the tax payer’s interests.

Source: CNN

Real experience like Sinclairs..!!

The other day we were discussing about the Baltimore Sinclair company and how they managed to own to stations which were not allowed but they managed to do by making one of his employers as the registered owner. This registered owner was just on the papers but basically it was still owned by the Sinclair group.

I know a similar kind of case which I wanted to put some light on.
There was a law that one company could not acquire or merge other if both are running successfully because of the competency law which helps maintaining the competition in the market.

There was a company (Named A) in India owned by one of my uncle which was doing really well. He wanted to come up with another company and they were legally not allowed to open another same type of company if it was running successfully due to the law and restriction. The director of the company A came up with a pretty much same idea which was adopted by Sinclair.

He opened a new unit B on the name of one of his employees. Later the new company started taking lot of operational loan from company A and never paid back in papers to company A, though both are owned technically by a same person so it did not make difference really but financial papers.

Slowly the debt piled up in the balance sheet for company B and this was all done purposely. Later the new company B had to declare bankrupt due to debt and was unable to pay the loan back to company A, and the original company A was allowed to legally take over the bankrupt company as they owe a lot of money to that firm and he was made the owner of the both the firms legally.

Obionservations from this week's readings

My blog for this week is about as unenthusiastic as it has ever been. I acknowledge that some of the passion of expressing my thoughts is primarily based on the enthusaism that comes from that which I read, feel, see and/or sense from topics I cover. However, this weeks readings, especially Chapter 9, left me with more questions than answers.

Two of this week's readings captured my attention, however. The first was the article by Peggy McIntosh on, "White Privledge and Male Previlage...," which I first read and wrote extensively on during my undergraduate course work for a Women's Studies class. She captured my attention then and now due to the candid way in which she expressed her opinions about her'unspoken' privilages in society and I really admired her for her candidness.

I have had many debates with colleagues at school and at work regarding her stance. It was my belief then, and now that McIntosh conveyed in this article what many white people would like undoubtedly to suppress: That almost every social, economic, religious or historic outcome which takes place in this society, with respect to human interaction and coexistence, is dictated and determined by how it impacts the predominant group in our society; that,
1. white privilage permeates through everything we do and has a negative or positive impact
2. determines who wins and who losses and how
3. is contingent upon whether this group is willing to defer some of that privilege in order to advance the subsequent privilage of other groups and enable them to rise -- in otherwords, even the playing field for the rest of society.
4. or reject the opportunity for advancement of other groups (despite power, money, position, etc.) and pretend that white privilege has no impact at all.

It has been my experience that we continue to muddy the waters, downplay the facts, change the rules when they no longer fit the outcomes of the predominant players and ignore the unwritten rules of the game instead of dealing with the basic center of our conflict.

Interestingly enough, I did manage to enjoy reading the second article on, "Working at Walmart," by Barbara Ehrenreigh. Ironically, I ordered and received her book called, "Nickled and Dimed," about a week ago and intended to read it during spring break.

The irony of her article is that she too has been able to use white priviledge in a way that would never have worked for any other group in that she is able to pass herself off as a poor wage worker of the lower classes in order to analyze their activity for her book. How has it worked? No one can dispute that she was able to get a job (any job she wanted) due to this privilege, Would it have been so easy for an African-American, an Asian, a Hispanic to walk through the door of Walmart (any hotel or even choose to work for a bakery, at will)?

I draw a parallel between the two articles in that though they came to the same conclusion (white priviledge does matter) the difference between her research and that of MacIntosh is that, MacIntosh uses her article to make a point that she acknowledges how her privilege helps her in self-pursiuts while Ehrenreich uses hers to reveal some of the harsh realities of being poor in America. Those of us who have comfortable homes, drive nice cars and work for higher wages or salaries probably had no idea how hard it is (or do they care?) for the the working-class and the poor.

I must admit, that even I had no idea how hard and uncertain things are for our fellow citizens and probably would never had known had my business not taken me in a direction where I now come face to face with poverty and human suffering. Sure, we may want to sit back and say things like, "these people need to get more education, find better employment, return home to parents, or stop being lazy." The fact of the matter is that many of the working poor today are continually former employees of large corporations who have been laid off and downsized over the past few years. More than one million people lost their jobs in 1999, and more than 101,000 have lost their jobs since the start of the new year. I guess my point is, that we all must be careful of how we analyze things and come to the solutions we do in this life. Neither privilege or opportunity will save us from a society where corporate greed, corruptness, unchecked government power and employee/employer relationship demise are the only topics of discussions we can look forward to.

Our jobs may be our safe-net today, but we could very easily wind up like some of the people cited in Ehrenreich's article. I viewed the articles with renewed strength in my belief that whatever path my leadership takes me in my career, I will always remember to plan wisely.

Sticks and Stones

I found it interesting last week when Samantha Power, an unpaid advisor to Barack Obama, was fired from his campaign because of the remarks she made to a Scottish Newspaper reporter. In the interview, Power called Hillary a “monster” and went on to talk about how desperate she is becoming with her advertisement campaign. Honestly class, she was fired from a job that was unpaid.

There is a viable reason as to why she was fired. Obama prides himself on running a clean, professional campaign without any of the petty political tricks and name calling. Fine. But what bothers me is that Power said in the interview, “She is a monster, too - that is off the record…” Off the record means off the record, yet the world found out. Maybe that reporter has ethical problems of his own? Also what bothers me is that Power issued a statement of apologies and made it clear that it was a mistake and wrong. Where I feel this situation went ethically astray is that Power’s reputation is now tarnished and possibly ruined because of a simple name calling. The world does not know, or does not care that Power has won the Pulitzer Prize and currently is a professor at Harvard University in the Kennedy School of Government.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is what I used to say when I was a child but after looking at this situation, I am not so sure. Ethically speaking, I think that society is at blame for reading too far into this story. What would the historical philosophers say now about how our society over-exaggerates what they heard from someone else? In business ethics, you need to hear what was being said before you can react; you cannot take someone’s word for it as our society has done to Samantha Power.

Reference: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/03/07/2008-03-07_barack_obama_forced_to_decry_advisers_mo.html

It's not what you know, but who you know...maybe

In the current issue of Fortune Magazine, I read an article on the success of Goldman Sachs (coincidently, ranking #10 as America’s Most Admired Companies). The new CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, is tasked with continuing the positive momentum. The article mentions that Goldman has outshined its competitors the “way few companies ever do”. Specifically, while other companies confessed to billions of dollars of losses amid the collapse in the mortgage market, Goldman’s revenues famously grew, jumping 22% to a record $46 Billion as profits hit a record $11.6 Billion”. Furthermore, their 2007 bonus pool of $20.2 Billion dollars could buy Bear Stearns. Needless to say, they are doing well in a time others are desperately looking for cash.
What I found interesting was that, as one competing money manager stated, “how can you be right so much?” This was especially interesting since some of Goldman Sachs alums are in powerful positions (Hank Paulson- Treasury Secretary, Joshua Bolten- White House Chief of Staff, Jon Corzne- NJ Governor, Robert Zoellick – head of World Bank, etc..) Goldman has the potential access to information that others do not; therefore, they can make better decisions. Is this wrong (insider information)? Their competitors could also have access to this information as well, through their own alumni association? So is Goldman just better at what they do (with or without this information) or is there something more to it? When individuals can benefit from incentives that are in the eight figures, I just wonder how much skill and intelligence really factors into it.

Article: http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/02/news/companies/mclean_goldman.fortune/index.htm

What does Halliburton, KBR, & the DOD have in Common?

Here we go again. Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), who was a subsidiary of Halliburton until last year, is the largest contractor in Iraq with over $16 billion in contracts. It has been found that KBR is exploiting a tax loophole by setting up offshore-skeleton companies in the Cayman Islands to employ its more than 10,000 American employees working on overseas contracts for the U.S. government, allowing them to avoid paying payroll taxes to the U.S. government. Payroll taxes are aimed at the Social Security fund and Medicare. This practice is also allowing KBR to avoid paying unemployment taxes to its state of incorporation – Texas.

KBR acknowledges that they have set up the offshore offices to reduce their tax obligations. The Department of Defense (DOD) is aware of KBR's methods but has done nothing about it. Their position is that KBR’s tax savings are passed on to the US military.

It is no wonder that they are the largest contractor as they are able to outbid everybody else due to their lower cost structure. While the DOD rewards KBR’s behavior, they are depriving other taxpaying companies a fair shot at contracts. When considering the DOD position, one must also consider that Vice President Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defense prior to becoming Halliburton’s chief executive, after which he became the Vice President.

A glimmer of hope: Of the many contractors working overseas for the US government, only one other - besides KBR, is exploiting this unethical loophole to avoid paying their fair share. It apears that all the other contractors pay all required payroll taxes for their overseas employees, giving KBR a major advantage over these competitors.

Source: Boston Globe; March 6, 2008; Farah Stockman (check out article: www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2008/03/06/top_Iraq_contractor_skirts_us_taxes_offshore/?page=1)

"Hoist by one's own Petard"

Yesterday in the news I read that NY Governor Eliot Spitzer hired $1000/hour prostitutes and was caught on an FBI wiretap at least 6 times. Mr. Spitzer is known for serving as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force. In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island. Spitzer said then, “This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure, it was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.” What's the phrase they have out there, "hoisted by his own petard"? Should Spitzer resign his position and be prosecuted for these crimes? Not only did he have an affair (wife, 3 kids), but also he broke the law that he swore to uphold (Soliciting a prostitute, illegally wiring money across state lines). The same laws he prosecuted others for breaking. A small twist in the story is that Gov Spitzer is a prominent Democrat and a Super Delegate for the Democrat Electoral Board who has pledged his votes for Hillary Clinton. No doubt there may be pressure from her campaign and friends to keep him around until the Democratic Convention with the election so close. Would that be ethical?