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A fellow blogger said something very kind about my work and I went and looked at his. I like it. It’s reflective and intelligent. Below is a paragraph that I not only like but I have wondered exactly the same thing!
So, just maybe, you can take a minute and go see what a struggling fellow blogger thinks.
James Pilant
Paycheck to paycheck?
One of the strangest phenomenon I see in dealing with wealth in this country is the bizarre dichotomy between the view of what is enough for “them,” and what is enough for “me.” In a Koch brothers interview, one of the brothers pointed out that if you put a 30K workers salary on an international scale that put the worker in top one percent of the planet’s income earners. Apparently this made him feel that Americans should be content and maybe consider themselves a little fat and happy.
On the other hand we have this from the short selection below where a man struggles from paycheck on an annual salary of 450K.
There has to be some kind of conflict between these two points of view.
When people run businesses they don’t come in neutral in regard to how the feel about what is and is not an adequate income. What does a person who feels that 450,000 dollars a year is a week to week struggle do in regard to paying the workers? And what does it say when a multi-billionaire can statistically analyze away income inequality by simply increasing the sample size to encompass the entire planet?
If you believe that 30k is a worthy and fully adequate income, what kind of business ethics are you likely to practice? Are you more likely to sell payday loans? – attach some new fees to your banking practices?
If you believe that 450k is so little money that you have to struggle paycheck to paycheck what kind of business are you likely to run? I have to acknowledge here that I have no concept what that would look like mentally but it is still troubling.
Income inequality is a wound on this country driving us apart and it by its very nature is an ethical problem that drives business wrong doing.
James Pilant
The short passage below is from the Guardian – http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/25/wealthy-americans-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-income-paying-bills
Marguerita Cheng, a certified financial planner and CEO of Blue Ocean Global Wealth, has a client in the Washington, DC area who makes $450,000 to $600,000 a year but lives paycheck to paycheck. He spends a lot of it on keeping peace with his ex-wife.
Close to half a million a year sounds like a lot, but he has to pay $8,000 per month to his ex-wife and both of their kids are in private high school. Four years of private high school cost $150,000.
“He basically uses his bonus to cover the private high school tuition,” Cheng said. “I understand that this is an extraordinary situation. I’ll share a saying that my dad taught me: ‘Money may not buy happiness, but it can buy peace.’ In this situation, sometimes you have to do what you have to do to keep an ex-spouse happy.”
Cheng’s client is not alone. Many Americans struggle to make-ends meet on six-figure paychecks – which by some are considered “upper income” or even rich.
Since the late 1970’s Exxon and other big oil industry players have worked to extensively research, and cover-up, their knowledge of the effects of fossil fuel emissions on global climate change. Previously considered industry leaders in climate study and innovation for sustainable industry, Exxon executives used money and power to hide unfavorable research findings and began fostering belief in climate denial across the nation. These encouragements took place via big think tanks, lobbying and ideological organizations to help create confusion and division regarding the legitimacy of the existence, and consequences, of climate change. Exxon officials knew that if the public understood the dire and irrevocable effects of fossil fuel emissions on the planet that a call for more regulation and control of those industries would be made and Congress would be forced to act. Furthermore, they knew that the fossil fuel industry would be made obsolete as more technologies surfaced. Knowing that such a dominating industry in America’s foundation could cease to hold such power and prominence led Exxon and other big oil to hide their dirty secrets. Rules do not apply when Congress and the Nation take your money and bend with cowardice at every beck and call. This is a world where the truth is often for sale, even at the expense of an entire planet’s well-being. Though some believe businesses should not be regulated by the government, the importance climate change and Exxon’s illegal and unethical activity should be addressed by government officials.
As scientists began studying global climate more, the consensus that climate change is real and caused by human activity grows. The public outcry has become a mumbled rage, as those who believe and understand try desperately to show others the obvious facts of modern scientific work. Though money, efforts and awareness is raised, not enough people individually participate to affect large enough impacts, make necessary changes and reverse the damage done. This perpetuates the problem because of the concept of the tragedy of the commons; in this case the tragedy is the idea that if what one does has effectively no impact, then why do it at all? Strides such as recycling, littering, buying “green,” and other helpful micro-actions have all the appeal of a grassroots movement, but not enough buy-in or momentum to achieve the next level of success. These advances in being environmentally friendly are sometimes seen as the next generation of hippies, or pretentious hipsters, especially as the perception of the cost of helping the environment is seen as more expensive or too expensive. The price of common household cleaners, makeup or food that has the label of “Green” or “Environmentally Friendly” are about one and a half times the cost. This price extortion also extends to solar panels, electric cars, and architectural design.
Companies equipped with extensive, cutting-edge knowledge like Exxon could have been working to help combat negative connotations, and reduce the costs of alternative sourcing for energy and other consumer-driven industries. Further, there should have been a well-thought out, earnest initiative working to educate the public instead of turning people against each other.
The revelation of scientific truths has been complicated by a hostile environment for amicable conversation as Big Money’s rather successful attempts at squashing facts by pitting science and religion against each other. For what was once a middle-of-the-line topic, we now see a sharper, more dangerous divide as climate change believers are often painted as scientific atheists and climate deniers as religious enthusiasts. This polarization of fact and dangerous generalizing is disturbing and leaves many moderates forced to pick between fact and ideological beliefs. Such extremism leads to dangerous rhetoric, and leaves no room for solutions-based dialogue.
The distasteful, immoral behavior by Exxon has infiltrated our people at every level, and damage may be irreversible. Even if by miracle we are able to correct life’s likely annihilation, the impact on the thought process of the general public may be considerably more difficult to change, especially as the “dumbing down” of Americans continues to be the brunt of current popular culture. Reversing the framework for underdeveloped thought processes of generations will be no easy task.
Perhaps one of the biggest concerns raised by Exxon’s maneuvers is this: Exxon was allowed to become the chief innovator and industry leader while conducting their own research internally, which while respected at the time, ultimately led to a complete lack of accountability of disclosure of findings, some important to the future of life’s survival. This was the breeding ground for the massive cover-ups, and is ethically repugnant.
Legally, this case is a law or ethics teacher’s play day, especially if charges are filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which I fully believe charges could and should be filed. I previously was taught by a biology professor, whom I very much respect, that would speak of his days as a biologist in Big Oil, and why his conscience forced him to leave the large salary behind. His story is not unique, but to hear him tell it in person was an experience a young student will not forget. It will be interesting to watch the Exxon’s Climate Change Story unfold in the coming months, especially as more congressional leaders and presidential candidates begin to chime in on the topic, which thrusts it to the forefront of the average citizen’s mind.
Despite the potential for new and breaking news coverage, the Department of Justice will have its work cut out, if an investigation is approved. Other government agencies that have been struggling with climate change validation include the Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Weather Service among other branches and sub-branches. These government organizations collect data, work to find ways to adapt human life, raise awareness, and incentivize the public for change though programs such as ENERGY STAR or tax rebates. Each agency has a stake in correcting misinformation and raising awareness. Each agency spends our tax dollars to help combat what a major corporation and industry did to continue their profitable business despite turning their backs against their fellow Americans and their fellow human beings across the world. We spend our tax money to help correct these atrocities while we remain dependent on these outdated, outmoded energy sources as corporations like Exxon continue to participate in tax breaks and are incentivized and subsidized by government programs created by our publicly paid, publicly elected officials during deal makings that are not in the best interests of constituents. These type of merry-go-round antics are why America needs more pressure from world organizations. If we wanted to make our country great again, as one presidential candidate urges, we should consider becoming a leader in climate issues and sustainable technologies.
As government agencies form and begin working together, more conferences are held nationally and internationally to help bring ideas and people together. Social media and alternative news sources are gaining influence, so perhaps legislative and societal change will follow the shrieks of the people over the money of Big Industry. Exxon’s cover-up has been exposed. This summer the Pope spoke all over the world, including in the United States’ Congress, about the importance of climate change. Right now the 5th annual World Climate Summit is being held in France. Weather authorities say that the most intense El Niño ever is sweeping the globe. These types of changes extends beyond what Exxon can control, buy or otherwise cover-up. These are the actions of the dawn of a new era. Now it is do or die.
The Ethics Sage latest post deals with price gouging in prescription medicine. He discusses the social responsibility of business and goes into some detail about his preference for a free market solution.
I am more and more convinced as time has gone by that the pharmaceutical companies have failed in serving the public and that some kind of government intervention to prevent price gouging and selling prescription medicines for other than their FDA approved uses is going to necessary.
However, the Ethics Sage is worthy of reading. You should put him in your favorites, visit often and perhaps, even sign up as a follower.
Below is a selection from his latest essay. I recommend you visit his web site and read it in full.
James Pilant
Recently a group of 118 oncologists came out in an editorial in the Mayo Clinic medical journal to support a grassroots patient effort to push for fairer prices from drug companies. According to the editorial, many cancer patients are bankrupted by the high cost of care even for insured patients for treatment that costs $120,000 a year. The proposal is to get it down to $30,000 in out-of-pocket expenses – more than half the average U.S. household income. According to the editorial, the drugs are so high that as many as 20% of oncology patients don’t take their medication as prescribed. I believe it may be better to mandate catastrophic insurance coverage. Under Obamacare, if you are under 30 or obtained a “hardship exemption” you qualify for a high deductible, low premium, catastrophic plan. What about those over 30 who are more in need?
Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed works. These are the words spoken by Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. We could say this is the mantra of greedy CEOs of pharmaceutical companies. In a 2014 survey by Fierce Pharma, a news outlet for the industry, the average pay of the 10 top CEOs of big Pharma was about $30 million. None of the companies were in the Fortune top 100. Celgene was number 369, the highest in the industry. The CEO of Celgene earned $36.61 million. This seems out of line given the relatively small size of most pharmaceutical manufacturing companies.
“If you don’t like the money, you can find another job,” A college administrator once told me.
There was no concern about the process of de-professionalization of college teaching. There was no concern about an adjunct salary slightly above a fast food worker. There was no concern about the likelihood of having to rely on the charity of food banks and government services when you possess a terminal degree.
Do something that pays more. That’s the answer to any complaint, anywhere in the society, anytime. Such is the prevailing conventional wisdom.
If the free market produces just and perfect results and it must by the nature of its neo-religious believers, than the status and pay that you receive must by the very nature of a competitive society be just and honorable.
It isn’t. It is neither just nor honorable, and it is not based on any known concept of fairness. It is simply a matter of the strong taking from the weak in pursuit of a set of policy objectives.
This process takes its toll on those of who try to work in this profession. I tell my colleagues that just as soon as the students understand our actual salaries and our relative importance to administrators and legislators, they are going to treat us with the same contempt we receive from them. They’re going to wonder that since they paid good money to be taught, why a glorified fast food worker should have any authority to question them as to their understanding of the subject matter. For after all, if your salary is the primary indicator of your value, we’re only worth a fraction of the likely salary of our students while our lack of salary is a clear indicator that our work has little importance and that in a capitalist society, we are over-educated failures.
Why do we hold on in the face of the contempt of the politicians, the beltway media, the “very serious” people and every sort and breed of businessman? Because we care about our students. Because when we teach we feel important and empowered. And that feeling is legitimate because as teachers we are in a real way, the creators of our nation, the shapers of the next generation, and the architects of a democratic society.
It is highly likely that in the times to come, history books will discuss education in the United States in this period as the last candle light before the darkness, the last time in which significant academic freedom existed before college and universities became testing centers based on a purely standardized set of programs dictated by corporate needs.
Read below the thoughts of one teacher as she struggles to teach in a difficult environment. –
http://academeblog.org/2015/11/09/and-this-is-why-i-teach/
I’ve often said that the classroom is my “happy place.” The one place where I can be present; where I can forget about Wisconsin politics, committee meetings, campus and departmental bureaucracy, and just do what I love. It’s that time of year where most of us are exhausted. Where we have students who may just now be realizing they’re failing a class and asking for extra credit. Where we’re already burnt out and we’ve still got 7 weeks left in the semester. Where we’re counting the days to finals week because we are all so tired. I’m in that space, too. I’ve been there before. But I am grateful, and always will be, to the students now and in the past who remind me why I teach. Who remind me how much I love doing my job. And who have clutched me out of the depths of sadness, especially this semester.
(This is a guest column by Casey Dye, a colleague.)
Women, since the 19th century, have seen a dramatic increase in the quality of life in most parts of the world. Oppression of women in the form of equality began to subside as women continued to prove they were not inferior to men on an intellectual standpoint. Women were once looked at as property, then as females who couldn’t own any property, to being able to own their own property and have the ability to have their voice heard. The culture of domesticity has faded from today’s society almost entirely, and leaving women to venture after their dreams. Many of these dreams included the furthering of the power of the women’s voice whether it be a movement to end the drunkenness of the American man (Prohibition), or the ability to vote. With the right to vote came the possibilities of a woman being able to divorce their drunk abusive husbands and save their children. From here women began to take control of their lives from who they married, to where they worked, to what they wore. Fashions began to change to create more sensible attire for women in the work force. More than fifty years after the American government freed the slaves they gave women the right to vote showing this was no easy task, but with this new freedom women are now able to enter the public sphere for the first time. This continued to chip away at the idea the women belonged in the home. Social reform through freedom of press and speech for women, along with the increase in capitalism, gave them the opportunity to prove their equality rather than just preach it. Now women hold leader positions in fortune five hundred companies and in those circumstances are getting paid better than most men.
To say women’s fight for equality is over is far from the truth, but for as far as they’ve come they have just steps to go in hopes for true equality. I for one believe in this movement whole heartedly. My mother is a strong independent woman who raised me with respect for women. With this message being passed along we might see true equality in our lifetime.
McGraw Hill has decided that slavery wasn’t all that bad. According to their new textbook, millions of “workers” were brought to the southern United States.
Here’s a passage from an article on this unfortunate choice in nouns:
Roni Dean-Burren was also disturbed by the language, and posted about the book online. Her comments went viral and the publisher swiftly decided to rewrite the section.
The offending passage was in pages titled Patterns of Immigration in McGraw-Hill Education’s World Geography book. A colorful map of the US was adorned with a speech bubble which said: “The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.”
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/05/mcgraw-hill-textbook-slaves-workers-texas
From the 16th through the 19th centuries, more than 12 million blacks were brought to the United States in what is called by less neutral observers than McGraw Hill, the Holocaust of Enslavement.
Why not write American history so it’s easier on our feelings. Let’s feel good about ourselves! Why talk about slaves as if they were slaves? Let’s just bend a noun a little bit and they become workers. After all, they did work? Of course, millions were murdered, tortured and raped, and some may feel that calling them workers might imply that they weren’t murdered, tortured and raped. But weren’t slaves often treated kindly by their masters? Weren’t slaves valued members of their “families?”
I teach business ethics. Every day I read the words of people spouting incredible nonsense and lies. But the sentence, “Weren’t slaves often treated kindly by their masters?” occupies a special place in my heart. You see when you slap the words, slave, master and kindly into a single sentence, you are just talking nonsense. Slaves are not legally human beings. They are things like cattle or sticks. Masters are owners with the right of life and death over these possessions. That a throat isn’t cut on a particular day doesn’t mean it won’t be cut later. That a slave’s chastity is respected for a few hours or a few days does not indicate safety from rape.
Slavery is a crime.
The people who captured the slaves were criminals. The people that shipped the slaves were criminals. The people that bought the slaves were criminals.
What McGraw Hill should have said was this –
The African Holocaust between the 1500s and 1800s brought more than 11 million slaves from Africa to the southern United States to be used on agricultural plantations. Millions died on the journey and afterwards of mistreatment and disease. The Africa Holocaust in terms of numbers ranks as one of the greatest modern crimes against humanity, and is a stain on the history of the United States.
You don’t write textbooks to make people, even Southerners, feel good about themselves. You write the truth. People can’t make good decisions about the future if they don’t understand their past.
It is elementary business ethics that a historical work be accurate. If you are in the business of selling textbooks to build up national myths and legends and feed national self-esteem, you have embarked on a perhaps profitable but immoral pursuit.
And here we come to a basic issue in business ethics. Who deserves the loyalty of the company? If the shareholders and their profits are the only concern of a corporation, then the textbooks should read anyway the customer wants. Slaves were treated kindly, the Wild West was peaceful, the Great Depression not that big a deal, etc. etc. But if the company even a corporation has an ethical backbone, then the customer is not always right. Facts are facts and history is not just a matter of opinion.
James Pilant
THE MINUTIA OF RECORD KEEPING?
This snippet below is from the Guardian –
In a conversation with NBC journalist Chuck Todd on a range of criminal justice issues, Lynch said on Thursday that she does not support a federal mandate to report people killed by police.
“One of the things we are focusing on at the Department of Justice is not trying to reach down from Washington and dictate to every local department how they should handle the minutia of record keeping, but we are stressing to them that these records must be kept,” she said at the Washington Ideas Forum, hosted by AtlanticLIVE and the Aspen Institute.
Here’s what I think.
Whether or not a police department kills someone is not a part of the “minutia of record keeping.”
If we as a people acting through the federal government cannot demand that law enforcement agencies tell us when they kill people, what powers do we have? Are we somehow getting into their “business” when we ask law enforcement to tell us about the minutia of record keeping concerning police shootings?
The only good source for shootings by law enforcement in the United States is the Guardian. Look at it here. I shouldn’t have to go to a private web site to find criminal justice statistics.
Okay, I’m not a neophyte. I understand the drill. If we actually collect the data, it isn’t going to look good. I already know part of the story from previous research. Some law enforcement agencies have a lot of shootings while many agencies never kill anyone at all. And if that isn’t bad enough, who gets shot and why also varies dramatically from place to place. If you’ve been following the news, once again, you know who I am talking about, the mentally ill. They get shot by law enforcement regularly and under widely varying circumstances.
If the feds require law enforcement agencies to disclose their killings, the world of policing will come under a lot of scrutiny. It is in the interest of many departments not to have their shootings publicized. Why?
In the United States, policing varies dramatically. Some police departments do it right. They don’t get much publicity because competent, professional police departments tend to have fewer PR disasters. But there are “rogue” police departments where there are a lot of shootings, a lot of excessive force and regular charges of corruption. I suspect that a culture that encourages shootings has a downside in other parts of policing.
If the numbers are publicized – if every police shooting is scrutinized, there are going to be changes. As long as police departments are measured only by local or state standards, change is slow and haphazard but if every department is held up to national standards, many people will be surprised at how poorly many of these agencies stack up.
And that is why the feds should require mandatory reporting of law enforcement shootings, to bring national scrutiny to a national problem. This isn’t some book keeping issue. It is a vital issue of what kind of justice we believe in. When law enforcement kills, there is no trial, no peaceful resolution. These kinds of shootings should always be matters of necessity.
James Pilant
The GM Settlement
This is what it comes down to. After 124 deaths, General Motors in a deferred prosecution agreement pays the government 900 million dollars. GM has also set aside 575 million to cover private complaints.
If GM complies with the agreement, all criminal charges will be dropped in three years. The government says that pursuing criminal charges would have been difficult –
Bharara hinted that criminal charges would be difficult to bring in the GM case. This rationale pervades the White House. President Barack Obama, who for years taught Constitutional law at the University of Chicago, made the same weak excuse, telling 60 Minutes in 2011 that “some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn’t illegal. That’s why we had to change the laws.”
Wrong. Fraud is always a crime. Filing false statements under oath, transferring money by wire and mailing documents signed under penalty of perjury constitutes fraud.
David Cay Johnston writing for Al Jazeera is exactly right. What GM did was a series of crimes and they could have been successfully prosecuted. President Obama’s claim that “some of the least ethical behavior … wasn’t illegal” is simple nonsense. I’m an attorney. I can see massive fraud from a considerable distance. The level of deception here is massive. GM sold a defective product that had an often lethal problem to millions of American without warning when it knew the scope of the problem. They did it for years, and the trail of memos and other communications would have added up to a staggering case in which I have no doubt the defendants would have been forced to plead because there was no hope of acquittal.
Justice is supposed to be served by a 900 million dollar fine. How much money did GM make off of concealing this defect? Is there any relationship between the money made and the penalty collected?
In the Old Testament, it is said that blood cries for justice from the ground.
Will that blood be silenced by 900 million dollars? Will the families be made whole by GM’s funds? And is justice served by a fine? Or is this more similar to a medieval knight cutting down a mere serf and paying a small fine for the inconvenience?
When did giant corporations gain immunity for their crimes? When did justice become a routine profit and loss calculation in the accounting departments of these great multinationals?
Today 124 people lay dead at the hands of a major company. Tomorrow, it could be you or your spouse or your child or a parent because why shouldn’t they do it again and again and again?
They made money. I have no reason to believe that GM lost a dime on this transaction. I’m sure they profited. So, why not kill again?
Haven’t you read Milton Friedman? A CEO’s duty is to maximize shareholder value? Here’s a quote –
It can be said that Friedman called for ethical behavior. I’ve never thought so. The word, conforming, is not obedience and “basic rules” are subject to interpretation. It could be argued that GM violated the basic rules of society. You can claim they violated the law and “ethical custom.” But do you really believe that? The law, embodied by the Obama Administration, says that fines are adequate and GM will go on making cars and huge profits in spite of ethical custom. The “basic rules of society” appear to be little more than tissue paper to be discarded when used.
Our current administration talks a good game –
But with this settlement, the administration has told the corporate world that this bold statement is nothing but PR, nothing but empty words.
We Americans, we who build and sustain this nation, we who follow the law deserve better.
James Pilant
Cool Ones and Lame Ones
There is a town where a boycott has been launched at a coffee shop.
It’s not surprising that the West Asheville community is protesting and boycotting the coffee shop — especially the female members of it, who learned on Twitter that they’re not human beings so much as “an endless supply of hot young pussy,” or that “there are no ‘special’ girls,” merely “cool ones and lame ones.” The lames ones, according to the Holistic Game blog, “could help themselves immensely by reading a few classic novels and working out a little [but] they get attention regardless, so the motivation to better themselves isn’t present.”
So, let me get this straight. Two men create a successful business selling coffee but at the same time take to the internet to brag about how they use their business to pick up women for casual sex.
This is a failure of business ethics. But bragging about picking up women wasn’t enough for these two entrepreneurs they also had to explain that what’s important about women are some of their component parts and whether or not the “experience” they provided was good enough to be chalked up as another story to be told online.
Just wonderful.
Maybe this is one of the grey areas I hear so much about? I am told that business ethics is full of morally ambiguous situations where educated minds can differ. That is just nonsense. Most business ethics problems are simple and straightforward tales of good vs. evil.
Do you find much moral ambiguity in this one? Two entrepreneurs build a business, use business to get sex, post online about the women in a thoroughly disgusting and denigrating manner – business suffers. Where’s the moral complexity here?
How about the other stories today?
We’ve got a former hedge fund manager increasing the price of a lifesaving drug by a mind numbing amount, a food distributor sent to prison for 28 years for shipping contaminated food for years and we have an automobile manufacturer evading air pollution standards for millions of its cars by manipulating the software. Does any of that strike you as morally ambiguous?
James Pilant
P.S. If you go to the Salon article in full, they have links to the web sites the men posted on. I don’t recommend it. The phrase, “degrading to women,” does not capture the full flavor of their writings. These are not gentlemen.
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