Category: business ethics

Zombie Ants and the Body Politic (via The Conflicted Doomer)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

This is a sort of quiet well informed and literate outrage. I don’t see a lot of this kind. It’s a great pleasure. The lead in, discussing zombie ants, is one of the most original I’ve seen. I would read it just for that story if nothing else. But there is more, I was unaware of the situation with the California librarians. (I have a soft spot for librarians having grown up hanging around the stacks of books. I have maintained an interest in  librarians ever since.)

Good writing. I am happy to have an opportunity to share. I’m going to return and have a look from time to time.

James Pilant

My thanks to The Conflicted Doomer!

Zombie Ants and the Body Politic May 14, 2011 What an interesting news week it’s been.  Early in the week, I read a couple of articles about a fungus that infects and takes over the nervous systems of certain ants in the jungles of Brazil and Thailand. The fungus then causes the ant to behave erratically, wandering the jungle for over a week until it finds the “perfect place” on the un … Read More

via The Conflicted Doomer

Reliable News about the Fukushima disaster (via Upgrade the Lighting)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

I fully agree with the author. Fairewinds has been the best source of information about the disaster that I have been able to find. I am a subscriber to the site and I recommend you sign up as well. It’s intelligent and full of information usually backed up by photography and films. I visit regularly.

James Pilant

Reliable News about the Fukushima disaster Reliable sources of information regarding what is going on at Fukushima have been difficult for me to find. I am appalled at the lack of focused attention this situation is receiving in the lamestream media.  TEPCO seems more interested in protecting itself than the Japanese people or the rest of the world.  Their official information may be supplying bits and pieces of the truth to the public, but  I don’t trust their analysis  of those facts. I … Read More

via Upgrade the Lighting

What a Week! (via Life’s a Story and All the World’s a Page)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This is a good business ethics story. It has the usual elements, offers, counter offers, money and opportunities. We read these in business ethics. It always boils down to the end of the story – do they take the money and do the right thing? Or cast themselves into darkness?

Here we have the right thing. That’s nice. Sometimes the hero should win.

James Pilant

What a Week! Oh! What a week it’s been! I received a job offer which will take me to St Louis, (tried calling you Jason!) got a counter-offer that would take me to China and Japan, and have tried to keep my spinning head on day-to-day work and family life. My boss was not happy with my reluctance to accept or consider a counter-offer.  It was tempting but once I accepted the other company’s offer, I felt conscience-bound to stick with that commitment.  She di … Read More

via Life’s a Story and All the World’s a Page

John Ensign Ethics Report: Hot Off the Press (via NotionsCapital)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

You should probably read the report and get your fill of the seamy side of capital hill. The combination of power and sexual access is intoxicating. It is hard to do the right thing when there is just so much money and so much temptation. That, of course, is not an excuse.

James Pilant

Special thanks to NotionsCaptital.

John Ensign Ethics Report: Hot Off the Press Adulterous Nevada Republican John Ensign resigned his U.S. Senate seat before the Senate Ethics Committee issued a report that would have led to his expulsion. The last time the U.S. Senate expelled a member: 1862. The Ensign ethics report is out, so add it to your summer reading list. Some may think it’s not a romance novel, but Mr. Ensign’s web of deceit involved a long-term affair with His Neighbor’s Wife (an employee and spouse of an employee … Read More

via NotionsCapital

Italy’s Great Nuclear Swindle (via Aletho News)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Seldom has a politician been so up front about his contempt for the masses –

From the essay –

On April 26th, the 25th anniversary of the catastrophic Chernobyl accident, Berlusconi held a press conference with French president Nikolay Sarkozy in Rome. At this press conference Berlusconi made his radioactive intentions clear for all. “We are absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is the future for the whole world,” he said. He went on to detail how recent polls showed that the referendum to block nuclear power for decades to come could pass at this time and that by temporarily suspending Italy’s return to nuclear program the issue would be revisited when the Italian voters had been “calmed down” and returned to the realization that Nuclear Energy was the most viable and safe way to produce electricity. He went on to explain how the “leftists and ecologists” had manipulated the emotions of the Italian voters after Chernobyl and penalized the Italian people who have to pay higher electric rates than France that operates 58 nuclear power plants. Berlusconi explained that the “situation in Japan had scared the Italian voters” and that the “inevitable return to nuclear power in Italy” would not be abandoned nor would the collaborations between Enel and Eletricite de France.

You see voters have no wisdom and judgment. When they err by disagreeing with you, for instance, their failure to realize that nuclear power is “viable and safe,” that can be fixed. If you have the media, you just patiently convince them of your point of view. You don’t worry about their judgment because there is nothing that cannot be fixed by good PR.

It would be difficult to find more open contempt for the democratic process or the facts of the situation. If nuclear power is going to be safe, there is some work that is going to have to be done. If that isn’t obvious based on the last twenty years, where have you been hiding?

James Pilant

The Radioactive Dictatorship of Silvio Berlusconi By MICHAEL LEONARDI – CounterPunch – May 13, 2011 Italy’s democracy is in tatters as Silvio Berlusconi and his ruling right-wing coalition work to block a citizen’s referendum that would repeal the decision of the Berlusconi government to return to nuclear energy production on the peninsula. Italy has not produced nuclear energy since 1990 and recent polls indicate that more than 75 % of Italians … Read More

via Aletho News

Confronting “Grazing” At The Supermarket (via Kevin Benko)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Here we have an analysis of a moral conundrum. Is it okay to take something of small value? Even if it is very small in value? The analysis here results in a finding of “still wrong whatever size.”

I agree with that.

But follow the line of reasoning and see if you would have worked through it the same way. It’s interesting.

James Pilant

I was shopping at a local Wholefoods for a few items when I noticed someone in the store “grazing” at the bulk foods. Grazing is the term that is commonly used to describe the act of theft, or shoplifting, by eating the store’s food while shopping. I suspect that the term “grazing” is used to justify this particular act of theft and attempting to delude oneself that their theft is not, indeed, theft. I confronted the individual, a man who seemed … Read More

via Kevin Benko

Dose rate reduction actions (via Mark Foreman’s Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Removing top soil from school grounds to reduce radiation is a positive step. It does however provide a small harbinger of the enormous cost this disaster is going to impose in Japan for as much future as humans can reasonably foresee.

Generally nations recover from floods, chemical spills, rock slides, etc. and dare I say it, combinations of tsunami and earthquakes. Japan may recover economically but the damage to the land is permanent unless you look at history in terms of periods like the Jurassic.

It is questionable business ethics to promote PR that claims such disasters unlikely or impossible. It is questionable business ethics to subvert the government into downplaying or covering up incidents at your nuclear plants. It is questionable business ethics to pretend certainty when you don’t have any.

I expect giant corporations to lie, exaggerate and steal if at all possible. (Small corporations are much less likely to have these faults and are in many cases, excellent examples of morality and patriotism.) But permanently destroying the landscape has to considered unethical in an extreme sense.

James Pilant

Dose reduction actions It looks like the Japanese have started to take actions to lower doses and dose rates. One action has been the removal of the top layer of soil from school property. Due to the fact that children are still growing they are regarded as being more sensitive to the induction of cancer by radiation. I hold the view that this is the reason why no person under the age of 16 is allowed to become a radiological worker, also up to t … Read More

via Mark Foreman’s Blog

Nothing Personal (via The Local Crank)

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

Apparently being Un-American is not a matter of disagreeing with an energy company. A major corporation, Conoco Phillips, has discovered what makes an American and what does not.

Their conclusion runs as follows – If you oppose government subsidies for oil companies you are Un-American.

Conoco Phillips under intense questioning before Congress refuses to retract or apologize for this statement which by the way is in one of their press releases.

I would imagine it only makes sense to the company. They apparently consider the well-being of the company, profitability, to be an American value.

I believe that large multinational corporations believe that the United States serves to advance their interests and has no other purpose worth noting. Their adamant refusal to pay taxes, their attacks on public expenditures, their desire to speculate rather than creating value, their contempt and hatred for American workers and their unceasing efforts to turn the government into a subsidiary all point to a certain state of mind.

A bystander might consider a company that preaches free enterprise at every opportunity and yet makes a considerable portion of its profit from government subsidies might be at the least considered hypocritical or at the most, Un- American.

James Pilant

Nothing Personal ConocoPhillips thinks people who criticize their continued consumption of tax subsidies in the face of record profits are “un-American,” but they don’t think you should take it “personally.”  That’s fine, because I happen to think ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva is an ignorant pissant who runs on all fours, lusts after little boys, howls at the moon and pisses in the corner.  But don’t take it personally, Jimbo. … Read More

via The Local Crank

The Not So Secret Code of Character (via Attacking the Page)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I found this essay to mirror some of my concerns. I try to point out to my classes (I teach college) that identifying with and having sympathy for criminals and wrong doers is usually wrong and when not directly wrong, questionable.

I remember my shock when asking my students who their heroes were and one young lady said the Hannibal Lector character in Red Dragon. After a long pause during which I tried to collect my thoughts, I pointed out that this might not be a good choice. I have also pointed out to my students that you hang pirates, that pirates do not sail in endless circles in the Caribbean on a kind of Carnivale Cruise Line vacation but sail to kill people and take their stuff. They find this a strange thought.

I tell them that your moral judgment has to be turned on all the time to be effective and that it requires considerable effort to do so after having been conditioned to root for the “hero” in thousands of television shows. As with all teaching I wonder how much I get across.

This a good article which takes the side of moral responsibility.

James Pilant

My thanks to Attacking the Page.

From the article –

Basically, codes are the rules we use to govern the way we want to live. Our codes of honor, ethics and conduct make up our conscious. They give us a moral compass for orienteering our way though life. Right or wrong, we all have a philosophy by which we live. And so should our characters.

Codes are all around us: computer codes, genetic codes, building codes, zip codes, Morse code and bar codes. The military has codes, professionals have codes, even pirates have codes (though I hear they’re more like guidelines than actual rules.) So what is a code? According to the online Free Dictionary a code is… A systematically arranged and comprehensive collection of laws. A systematic col … Read More

via Attacking the Page

Human Rights and the Endowment Effect (via P.a.p.-Blog | Human Rights Etc.)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This article refers and provides a link to the endowment effect. I had never heard of this economic theory. But now having read about it, I find it both fascinating and convincing. I appreciate the author bringing this idea to my attention.

I did not stop at reading this particular post, I explored the site reading a good number of posts. I very much enjoyed what I saw. I think you would profit by a similarly detailed look.

James Pilant

Human Rights and the Endowment Effect (source) Why do we say that people fighting for their rights are in fact fighting for the recognition of their rights? That people have rights even when the law doesn’t recognize these rights? That, in other words, people have moral rights that precede their legal rights? And that these moral rights can be used to evaluate and, if necessary, create their legal rights? At first sight, such statements imply the dubious ontological claim that moral … Read More

via P.a.p.-Blog | Human Rights Etc.