Author: southwerk

I am a 53 year old teacher. I have double major in Speech and Criminal Justice resulting in a Bachelor's degree from Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and a law degree.

Three Hours On Tarmac Not Enough for the Airlines!

On By southwerkIn business ethics

From the Associated Press story – Senate passes broad aviation bill:

(One of the list of laws passed was the one below) –

Make it a federal law that airlines can’t keep passengers trapped in planes on airport tarmacs for longer than three hours without giving them the opportunity to get off. Airlines also would have to provide passengers with water.

The provision is nearly identical to rules already adopted last year by the Transportation Department. But the provision’s sponsors said putting the passenger protections into law makes it more difficult to roll them back in the future.

“We don’t know what the next president will do,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

Maybe we should just stand on the tarmac until they are ready to leave?

Airlines oppose the three-hour limit, which they say has led to more flight cancellations and more inconvenience.

Airlines do what? They oppose a three hour limit on trapping passengers in a plane on the ground?

Let me get this straight – Airlines are so hopelessly incompetent that unless we let them hold Americans in captivity in the belly of an airliner for hours at a time, they are going to take it out on all the rest of us by cancelling flights and imposing “more inconvenience?”

What would “more inconvenience” look like? Are they going to hire a mime and an accordion player to entertain during the hours of entrapment?

It takes a lot of chutzpah to admit in public that keeping your clients trapped for more than three hours at at time is sometimes necessary for your business to function at its best.

James Pilant

An American Tragedy

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.

More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.

This is from a Reuters article entitled –

Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes

All over the United States, cities, counties and entire States are sinking into bankruptcy. A working America beset by ten percent unemployment has little tax paying ability left to pay for roads, schools, police and fire. But the other beneficiaries, corporations and banks are doing well. On  the whole, large corporations are having a great year. The upper class, those over a quarter of a million dollars a year are doing very well indeed. In fact, statistically, they are not experiencing a recession.

Why aren’t these organizations paying taxes?

Can you tell me?

The upper half of the nation is booming. Profits are great. Banks are paying out enormous bonuses.

Why can’t we tax them?

Look, if you haven’t noticed, a middle class that has had an 8% increase in real income over the last thirty years cannot be squeezed for more taxes.

If you are going to tax go where the money is.

It would be wrong to ask banks and other corporations to pay taxes if they didn’t get any benefits. That’s not a problem. The roads, bridges, the educational system, the sacrifices of soldiers, the day to day protective work of firemen and police, not to mention the constant payments made by millions of Americans, make bank and corporate profits possible.

They owe this nation and they owe it big.

I don’t want to be relieved of my tax burden. I want the people and organization who are not paying taxes to pay their fair share.

James Pilant

CSR statements are easy; sustainable procurement is harder (via Fair For All)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I have written before about my doubts as to China’s coming status as the number one economic power. These kinds of articles and posting tend to reinforce my beliefs.

My great thanks to “Fair For All.”

CSR statements are easy; sustainable procurement is harder As Dell and HP have discovered this month, it’s a lot easier to write a CSR policy than it is to ensure that it is carried through. Their plight is not uncommon and is the unfortunate result of treating CSR as a public relations function, focused on appearance and not on substance. To be credible, CSR needs to be built into the operations of a business, which r … Read More

via Fair For All

Map of Foreclosures Nationwide (via ReReno’s Blog, Reno/Sparks Real Estate)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Here is an interactive map of the foreclosure crisis in the United States. If a picture says a thousands words …

James Pilant

Map of Foreclosures Nationwide Would you like to see what’s happening in foreclosures in your area? NPR has an interactive map showing foreclosures on a county by county basis. Click on the image to view the interactive map. … Read More

via ReReno’s Blog, Reno/Sparks Real Estate

Why Has Google Been Collecting Kids’ Social Security Numbers Under the Guise of an Art Contest (via Huffington Post)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Bob Bowdon has an interesting essay at the Huffington Post.

(from zdnet)

Here’s the opening –

It turns out that the company sporting the motto “don’t be evil” has been asking parents nationwide to disclose their children’s personal information, including Social Security Numbers, and recruiting schools to help them do it — all under the guise of an art contest. It’s called, “Doodle-4-Google,” a rather catchy, kid-friendly name if I do say so myself. The company is even offering prize money to schools to enlist their help with the promotion. Doesn’t it sound like fun?  Don’t you want your kid to enter too?

What could be wrong with filling out a few entry forms?

What’s wrong turns out to be Google wants the last four digits of the child’s Social Security number. It also wants to know the child’s birthplace. With those two pieces of information, working out the whole Social Security number can be done in many cases. Google’s form also contains a waiver that the data can be used as Google sees fit.

Is this ethical?

No. I cannot figure out how having the last four digits of a social security number and a child’s birthplace serves any purpose in a contest. I believe that you can identify with great precision competitors in a contest based on their names, schools and addresses.

Is the purpose here, commercial use of Social Security numbers? I don’t know.

From Bob Bowdon –

In fairness, we have no evidence that Google will use or sell this information for marketing purposes. For that matter, it’s possible they could throw the data away. (Care to guess the odds?) But to be absolutely clear, there’s no evidence Google has done anything with this information at all, nefarious or otherwise.

Exactly. We don’t know. It is possible that this just made sense to the person drawing up the contest. Still, it is a lot of information to ask for and I would’ve thought this thing would have gone through legal before they put it up.

Here’s Bowdon’s closing comments –

So in closing, three simple ideas for you, gentle reader, to take away.  (1) City of birth, when coupled with year of birth, can be correlated to social security numbers, so don’t give it out just because a box appears on a form. (2) No public contest should ask for any part of a social security number, especially involving kids. (3) For internet searches, have you tried Yahoo! or Bing lately? You just might find what you’re looking for.

To Celebrate The #Jan25 Revolution, Egyptian Names His Firstborn “Facebook” (via TechCrunch)

On By southwerkIn ethics

The power of an open internet was felt in Egypt and has caused waves of change throughout the Middle East.

Naming a little girl Facebook is a meeting of the new media with old traditions of honor. The old and new combine changing forms until they are indistinguishable one from another, technology and custom.

James Pilant

To Celebrate The #Jan25 Revolution, Egyptian Names His Firstborn "Facebook" Cultural relativity is an amazing thing. While American parents worry about their kids being on Facebook, Egyptian parents are naming their kids “Facebook” to commemorate the events surrounding the #Jan25 revolution. According to Al-Ahram (one of the most popular newspapers in Egypt) a twenty-something Egyptian man has named his first born daughter “Facebook” in tribute to the role the social media service played in organizing the protests in Tah … Read More

via TechCrunch

ethics (via prof write @ usc)

On By southwerkIn Teaching1 Comment

This is a post in an ongoing class about teaching writing. The ethical problems discussed here are not too far from the problems of teaching business ethics. I know I have more than a few college students reading my posts. I think those students will take particular pleasure in this essay.

How do you teach ethics? If I have any advice to offer, it would be this: never teach ethics as if choices were a matter of point of view – teach ethics as if the choices were a matter of validity. If you teach ethics while mentioning different philosophies, students tend to take away the idea that morality is a matter of opinion.  I recommend ( and do) teach ethics as to which moral system is most appropriate while discussing the moral reasoning behind that ethical code. The idea is that a student will take from the class the idea that different ethical choices are based on human reason.

If morals are a matter of opinion, money ranks as a rationale with God, honor and country. If morals are a matter of validity or a matter of reason, rationales are weighed and considered.

James Pilant

After reading Katz and Ornatowski, and after our discussion in class on Tuesday, I’ve been struggling to figure out what it means to teach ethics—in writing classes in general and in professional writing classes in particular. Flipping through Locker’s textbook, I see the hard-core instrumentalist approach (basically, don’t lie on your resume or CV). “Ethics” doesn’t even appear in the index. I’m still waiting on my copy of Peeples, so I haven’ … Read More

via prof write @ usc

George Carlin Predicts The Demise Of Social Security (Warning- Strong Language)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Here is George Carlin explaining why our society works the way it does.

He was an eloquent man.

James Pilant

Ethics Roundup 2-20-11

On By southwerkIn business ethics
Picture by Greg Kendall Ball

The Crane and Matten Blog have a wonderful article up. It’s called Baron-zu-Googleberg. And it’s a morality tale. I’d go read this one just for the sheer fun of it.

From the post –

One of the funnier incidents in cypberspace is the facebook page on this (‘If Guttenberg has a Doctor, I want one too!’) or the new keyboard designed for PhDs a la Guttenberg – with all keys removed except the ‘c’ut and ‘v’-paste ones…

From Ethics Blog, a reflection on leadership –

We are most likely not heads of state, but we are all to some degree leaders. Can we be both feared and loved? I think it is possible. As parents we try to find the delicate balance between authority and love. Such balance can also sometimes be found in the military. We read and hear of stories about commanders who were both feared (court martial is always a possibility if one does not obey orders) and yet loved by their men who sometimes would even risk their lives for their leaders.

There is a new Chuck Gallager blog post and it is fascinating. Apparently, he had a blog post which another person had issues with (I want you to read the post for all the play by plays.). So he published his old post with the new comments entered into the appropriate places. It is a very ethical and intelligent way to handle the subject (and more than a little time consuming). I’m impressed.

David Yamada in his blog, Minding the Workplace has a great deal to say about the ongoing events in Wisconsin –

Governor Walker’s attack on human rights is unlike anything I’ve seen in the U.S. during my adult lifetime. He is using the state’s budget woes as a pretext to justify denying workers the right to bargain over their compensation and benefits. Hard bargaining at the negotiation table in the midst of tough economic times is one thing, but moving to deny workers a collective voice is pure thuggery.

Washington’s Blog has a truly fascinating post – Don’t Let Wisconsin Divide Us … Conservatives and Liberals Agree about the Important Things.

In fact, most Americans – conservatives and liberals – are fed up with both of the mainstream republican and democratic parties, because it has become obvious that both parties serve Wall Street and the military-industrial complex at the expense of most Americans.

 

Decision Not to File Charges Against Countrywide Excec Mozilo Upsets Blogosphere!

On By southwerkIn business ethics6 Comments

From the New York Times article by Gretchen Morgenson.

Mozilo (From the LA Times)

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have dropped their criminal investigation into Angelo R. Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation.

The closure of the case after two years of inquiry follows last October’s settlement by Mr. Mozilo of insider trading allegations made by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Regulators had contended that Mr. Mozilo sold $140 million in Countrywide stock between 2006 and 2007 even as he recognized that his company was faltering. Countrywide and Bank of Americapaid $45 million of Mr. Mozilo’s $67.5 million settlement, and he was responsible for the rest.
I was very unhappy about this, finding it difficult to believe there was no criminal conduct on his part.
But I am not the only one upset.

“All of these senior people got huge payouts and left behind the carnage, which has hurt many hundreds of thousands.”

From 4closureFraud.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost by investors while millions of borrowers have lost their homes. Few of the people who ran the institutions that contributed to the disaster have been found liable.

Women Born Transsexual

Is it not clear to anyone by now that it is men like this who, even with the penalties levied against them, are still sitting pretty with large bank accounts as American’s are still losing their homes? Tell me it was the American people’s fault for signing into hefty monthly payments….go ahead, I dare you.

The Tumultuous Times

Mozilo’s settlement with the S.E.C. was for a bit over 10% of his estimated net worth of $600 million. It was surely a good deal for him if he could avoid admitting guilt and, especially, escape being criminally prosecuted for fraud.

House of Bread

Last week, California’s new AG fined Mozilo roght around $6 million, if I recall, and I opined that were he to have forgotten his checkbook, he could likely pay the amount using change found in his car.

Foreclosureblues

Un-fucking-believable. It looks like the rich and corrupt can get away as long as they pay. Since this comes from the Eric Holder-led DOJ, I wouldn’t be surprised this was done to keep all those Democrats, who received sweet-heart deals, out of court records.

Scotty Starnes’s Blog

Countrywide Exec walks away with your money and no criminal charges

Your Daddy’s Politics