Jon Talton writes a new post entitled: BP: Not ‘Beyond Petroleum’ but just beyond peak; Market cap blues. It’s magnificent. You should give it your utmost attention.
Category: business ethics
Executive Compensation – Thoughts From The Business Ethics Center Of Jerusalem
Asher Meir writes about Executive Bonuses in Failing Companies.
AIG and its executive compensation are discussed –
Chris MacDonald Discusses Food Labeling
Chris MacDonald discusses the Business Ethics of the lowly hot dog.
Watch the “Hot Dog Song.”
Is This Really An Economic Recovery?
He begins his article with, “Consumer confidence and spending is up, as are new home sales. Good news, right? Clusterstock has 25 questions to put to people who think the economic recovery is real.”
Let’s hear from a real expert:
Credit Card Reform?
Credit Card Reform?
The Senate passed a law that will force credit card companies to reduce fees for debit card transactions.
I have often said that these institutions simply cannot be fought by individual card holders. A single human being is but an insignificant statistic to a corporation of this size. Only the government can stand up for you on these kinds of issues.
In a true free market society, credit card companies would have to compete. The competition we see in this field is not price based but based on the successful amount of fine print allowing extra fees and penalties. You win by apparent price advantages when a whole reading of a document many pages in length is necessary to give you an idea of the real costs. This isn’t capitalism, it’s the law of the jungle, it’s the consumer as prey animal like a rabbit to a wolf.
Take a look at what I’m talking about. –
Blow Out Preventer On BP Rig Would Have Cost 1/2 Million
Blow Out Preventer On BP Rig Would Have Cost 1/2 Million
That’s right folks. According to the Houston Chronicle, a blow out preventer on the rig would half cost an astronomical 1/2 million dollars. Oh the horror! I can see the giant multi national corporation British Petroleum teetering into bankruptcy and, God knows, what do you think?, $300 dollars a barrel for oil and gasoline so precious we have to trade pure gold for it?
A half mil doesn’t even come close to an executive bonus. A half million is chicken feed, chump change, pocket money, etc. and they wouldn’t spend it.
In 2003, the Department of Interior’s Mineral Managements Service reversed a Clinton era decision to require the preventers. All Hail! Hosanna to the free market. We all know that companies confronted by the real world will do what’s best for the public because it’s in their interest.Isn’t that the Friedman doctrine? A perfect world run by perfectly coordinated self interest. Don’t you love it? It works perfectly. In the financial world, in coal mines, with baby cribs and now with off shore drilling we find that impersonal market forces drive the highly intelligent, hard working corporate boardroom elites toward the best possible decisions.
Or it could be such total blithering nonsense that only a self interested business buffoon could take it seriously. Just maybe?
Now, a fairly large proportion of America’s sea coast is being or about to be struck by an oil slick larger than an average European nation. I’m thrilled.
I don’t know if a half million dollar preventer would have averted the crisis, but I do wish someone had tried it.
James Pilant
Read Americans For Financial Reform’s Call To Action
Read Americans For Financial Reform’s Call To Action
Americans for financial reform want to change the predatory financial system that has done so much harm to our country. Please take a moment and have a look at their “call to action.”
Take a look at The Young Turks as they do a phone interview with the director of AFR.
Matt Taibbi’s Blog
Matt Taibbi’s Blog
Matt Taibbi is one of my heroes. He tells it like it is and if he feels the need for a few obscenities, he puts them in. And why not, he writes about the financial crisis and analyzes the irresponsible behavior of the financial sector and the government. I have trouble talking about them without using obscenities and I sometimes do.
If you don’t have his blog on your favorites, you’re missing out.
Watch –
Social License
“Social License” is a term straight from the textbooks of the squishy soft science of sociology. However, it is an interesting and important concept. Social license is the willingness of others to tolerate your activities. An example might be the willingness of the neighbors to tolerate your bizarre lawn decorations. Presumably your lawn jockey although tasteless and ugly will be found tolerable while a Greek statue of the 5th BC will feature nudity and drive the local religionist into convulsions and conniption fits and send them straight to the city for new municipal rule banning art. See, you lost your social license.
Of course, social license has more serious ramifications for the society at large. A good article in Slate discusses these implications. There is serious discussion here of how the perception of behavior determines whether or not organizations are able to continue in the face of social consensus.
It’s a good read, I recommend it.
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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