What Do I Stand For?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure1 Comment

First and foremost, I believe that a human being can be a businessman and still maintain that precious humanity. That would be my first principle.

I hope it is obvious that flowing from this basic belief is the second, that is, there are many, many reasons to do things and money is not the only one or the most important one.

Third, I am a firm advocate of leadership. Change does not happen naturally or inevitably, and many, many times in history, we have gone backwards. A successful effort toward human values is often destroyed or turned back by the forces of greed and evil. When someone plays that song from Les Misérable, “Do you hear the people sing?,” I always disgusted. No, they’re not. They aren’t reaching for anything. It’s like one of those empty disney films where one more time they tell us to be all we can be but not really. The people like everybody throughout history get tied up and focused on the mundane, the useless, the copying and pretending that passes for life. If people change, for there to be social change, someone has to lead; someone has to point out that change is possible.

We do not live in an era of leadership.

Fourth, I believe in capitalism. I like the idea of people developing and selling goods. I like the idea of competition. But history is clear, it is a lot easier, extremely easier to make money by theft, by lies, by monopoly, by adulterating goods and by bribing or gaining favors from the government. This is so obvious to me, so clear a lesson of history repeated over and over again ad nauseum, that when someone says all we have to do is unleash the power of the market place by getting rid of law and regulation I still find myself shocked.

I have lived during the age of Milton Friedman. I believe that the free market and capitalism are tools to be used in building a healthy society not ends in themselves and certainly not a principle to held with religious fervor. I do not believe in the utopia of communism. I do not believe in a utopia based on race, or education, or religion. And I absolutely reject the idea that all decisions will be made in the best way possible economically if we only let it function without interference. The idea that you can build an ideal society on the basis of greed because it will channel decision making into the best choices to make the most capital or money or value which will produce the best outcomes is no more practical than pure libertarianism where if we have no laws everyone will behave.

I am told that what I believe is called limited capitalism. That’s probably about right. I want to buy eggs at a reasonable or good price but I don’t want to risk death for the low price. I am willing to suffer an additional cost for the government to regulate eggs. (I know I went a little long on number four but it’s important to explain that particular issue.)

Fifth, I believe in personal freedom and privacy. I think those two items are linked. I am very opposed to the surveillance society, and the lack of secrecy and security for our internet communications. I believe an e-mail should be just as legally protected as a letter sent in the mail.

Sixth, I am a patriot. I believe America is a special place because of its people and its history. Because of that, I believe this vibrant, energetic and amazing people deserve government policies to protect jobs and insure economic security. I reject, fundamentally and utterly, the charge that Americans are lazy, over paid and unwilling to accept responsibility. There is constant refrain in the media about lazy, overweight, non-saving, etc. etc, Americans. Any examination of these issues will lead to the discovery that they are far more complex than any simple moral failing.

Those are the ideas I want to put in my columns. If you think I do please tell me and if you think I don’t I need to know that even more.

James Pilant

Chinese Slaves, Robot Shareholders And Bankers Who Gamble With Taxpayer Money

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure

A quote from Dylan Ratigan –

“For me, there was a radical break in September 2008. You couldn’t look at the system,–both its collapse and why it was collapsing– as anything that lived up to what I thought it should. It’s all predators. The economy is built around Chinese slaves, robot shareholders and bankers who gamble with taxpayer money. That doesn’t work.”

This quote is from an article on Alternet.

And this is the concluding quote from the article concerning his opinion on the continuing New Depression.

“There are no jobs, my man! Where are the jobs? People won’t stand for this forever.”

Internet Nirvana! Wow, Let’s All Go There!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, Government Failure, Privatization1 Comment

Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell let loose his thoughts on net neutrality.

Mr. Powell’s statements quoted from the article –

“The Silicon Valley netroot community, a very powerful community, a very important constituency to this administration, is strongly, almost religiously committed to this issue in a very coordinated way and that provides a lot of power and impetus to keep this issue moving and to push the more extreme versions of net neutrality,” Powell said. He later joked the Internet was “nirvana.”

Mr. Powell is a member of the Chicago School.

When he was appointed to the FCC in the 1990’s, he is notorious for his response to a question about the “digital divide.”

“I think there is a Mercedes divide. I would like to have one, but I can’t afford one.”

In other words, internet access is a luxury that you pay for, not a right you need to function effectively as a citizen, a student or a worker.

He was for internet neutrality when it served his purposes. But now he has discovered the nearly infinite amount of money, can be made from scrapping it, he wants it gone.

Could he have some interest in the demist of the net neutrality? Well, he is on the board of Cisco. The company could make enormous sums from the end of net neutrality.

It does seem that Cisco is, well, a little ruthless in its competitive techniques.

Now, about that “nirvana” thing. The Chicago School is passionate about turning every conceivable resource into a private purchasable good. That includes water!

You see, in his mind, if you can divide it up and make money with it, that’s the logical and intelligent thing to do. If you want to maintain equal access you’re equivalent to a religious loon seeking “nirvana.”

Equal access is democratic and people centered. There is no such thing in his world. It’s like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny as far as he is concerned.

And if you don’t see it his way, you’re just too stupid to grasp reality.

Now, the reality in his world is this, everything from politics to health care to love follows certain economic rules. These rules are dictated by nature. There is no dispute possible with their logic or power. The most effective way for a society to function is my maximizing choice, and if that choice is determined best by concentrations of economic power, than so be it.

See, the strange world we inhabit is not that world and therefore we are the mental peons he has so sadly to deal with day by day.

I feel sorry for him.

James Pilant

Hardship Withdrawals Reach Ten Year High

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure

These kinds of withdrawals indicate sever financial distress. They are an absolute last resort in most households.

Quoting from the article – To be eligible for a 401(k) hardship withdrawal, individuals must demonstrate an immediate and heavy financial need, according to IRS regulations. Certain medical expenses; costs relating to the purchase of a primary home; tuition and education expenses; payments to prevent eviction or foreclosure on a primary home; burial or funeral expenses; and repair of damage to a primary home meet the IRS definition and are permitted by most 401(k) plans.

Forty five percent of those seeking a hardship withdrawal this year got one last year.

It’s another sign that his economy is not getting better. It’s getting worse.

During the last great depression, the government created jobs and increased spending, developing enormous projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Hoover Dam.

America will not recover until there are jobs for every American who wants one.

James Pilant

Can Brad Pitt Kill Your Computer?

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics1 Comment

He might. Well, not him personally but looking for him on the web can. Mr. Pitt is what is known as a lure. You search for him on the web and you have a better chance to hit a malware site. For some celebrities the odds of hitting a malware site are as high as one in ten.

Celebrities are very popular lures but it can be any popular product or hot topic of the day. Keep you virus and malware protection software up to date and stay with reputable web sites if at all possible.

For more information and a list of the top 8 most dangerous celebrities to search for you can visit McAfee’s web site.

You Can WIN ONE Million Dollars!!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Government Failure2 Comments

Generally, you could never get me to click on an entry with that title but you are reading one of my entries and I hope you know that I will do better than the sidebar glowy bouncy advertisements designed to get you to part with something if only your name and e-mail.

I don’t want you to give me anything. But if you could win this million dollars, you would make me very happy, and it would be my great pleasure to meet you, once you’ve accomplished this.

Dick Smith is an Australian. He’s also what you might call, eh, um …, eccentric. Nevertheless the offer is genuine. (He’s also a billionaire.) He will pay you one million dollars to solve the problem of global population growth.

These are the qualifications –

How you can win the award

* be under the age of 30.

* believe in maintaining stable population numbers and a sustainable consumption of energy and resources that do not reduce economic growth.

* come up with and communicate successfully about alternatives to consumption-driven economic growth.

* get noticed in the media for campaigning on such issues.

What do you think? You want the money? Can you face that kind of intellectual challenge?

James Pilant

Earn $30 or More an Hour with These Two-Year Degrees!

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism1 Comment

So says the headline in Yahoo “Hot Jobs.”

Thirty dollars an hour is the national average. Those wages are going to vary dramatically from place to place, so is availability. The article is true in the literal sense, in other words, not really.

Is it ethical to sell, sell, sell, until there is no final customer available and you’re screaming your ad slogans into the wind?

If someone were to make us a good decent legitimate offer in the job or education area, would we be able to find it? I mean, after the bright colors, the incredible salaries, the “you can do it at home” stuff, is there any legitimacy left? Can we trust anybody?

It’s the distance, you see, the lack of contact, humanity.

Look, if I walk up to you and tell you person to person, face to face, that there’s a job, you have all the skills of humankind developed over ten of thousands of years to decide if I’m telling you the truth or not. As humans we relate to one another.

The first step away from person to person was probably a sign, then a newspaper ad, then a magazine ad and then radio, and, well, you get the picture.

It is true that we have now the opportunity to buy millions of different things all over the world (and be stolen from, lied to, or manipulated from as well) but sometimes I would just like to talk to another person when doing business.

“The Apartment” And Business Ethics

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Teaching

In 1959, the Apartment, was filmed. It starred Jack Lemon and Shirley MacLaine. It was nominated for ten academy awards and won five.

They filmed some scenes in New York and intended to make much of the film there but Jack Lemon became very ill after at all night shoot in Central Park. So, they filmed most of it on the lot in Hollywood.

It’s beautifully filmed (I like black and white) and there is a great deal of subtlety in the details of the background that add to the message of the film

Why do I use it in class? First, it’s a view of an America that has ceased to be. An America whose history has tremendous resonance for our own.

Lessons from the film. (Not in order of importance.)

1. There is no normal in America. Every year we think this is normal, that everyone should do this. It’s how it is and you can’t change it. Well, it’s changing anyway. The only normal is constant motion in the direction of a new normal. It’s an important lesson because some of my students feel like they can have no effect in this world and thus should retreat to a private world of friends kept at a distance and media individualized to kill time and give a brief, fraudulent feeling of fulfillment.

2. I want my students to see the changes in how women are treated and how they adapted. Women were relegated to certain jobs and they realized their only avenue to improving their lot in life was to marry well. Many of the women in the film are just temporary forms of entertainment for all intents and purposes.

3. One of the strangest qualities of the film, and the director himself pointed this out, the Jack Lemon character, for the most part, is the architect of his problems and yet we feel sympathy for him and identify with him. And again, the Shirley MacLaine character largely chooses her own fate and we feel sorry for her.

There’s a big lesson here – we often feel sympathy, often a sense of identification and sometimes, even envy, with the unethical. I tell my students about the time one of my students came to me with this story of woe that virtually demanded sympathy. And I felt that way, until I noticed a sentence in this long story of suffering. So, I stopped him and said, “You did what?” There then followed a not very effective explanation. You see, he was a criminal. He broke the law. He was in the mess because of his own decision making. He did not deserve my sympathy. Yet, I was confident that every student he regaled with his tale of suffering felt bad for him.

If we are going to practice ethics, we are going to have to be tougher than that. People who do bad things, who treat other people cruelly, who act without honor or scruples, deserve moral condemnation. That will not change because you’re related to them, because they are friends, really attractive or you like their story. Practicing ethics is tough and it means being tough on other people who do wrong.

If you know what should be done and let it have no effect on your actions, you are acting unethically. You have failed to act ethically.

4. The role of minorities in the film is important. I believe that if film goers in 1960 believed that the film was inaccurate in its portrayal of women and minorities, it would not have been a success. Blacks in the film appear twice in the film, once a shoeshine boy and then, a group waiting to clean the offices at the end of the business day. My eagle eye students found a black man working among the mistreated proles in the huge office background and, once again, at the Christmas party (same guy). It just goes to proves that when lecturing it’s safer not to let them talk!

If my students ability to find a minority in the background when I couldn’t was bad enough, they really got me on the Eastern Europeans. I missed the fact that his neighbors and landlady were of the same ethnicity His landlady and his neighbors are all immigrants and recent ones. (The film is only fifteen years after the close of the Second World War.) They were warm and kind to the Jack Lemon character although judgmental about his ethical failings. (I did not realize the importance of this until it was pointed to out to me. Now, in my defense, I did realize the importance of his neighbor, the doctor, but I didn’t get the big picture.)

I was never able to figure out whether the restaurant hideaway was Chinese or Japanese. It seemed like one of those ethnic groups running a restaurant with some kind of Tahitian background. But basically we can conclude from the film that orientals are okay as long as they are serving food.

Generally, how did the film portray the different groups. The white corporate types were greedy, licentious, petty, and lacked any self perception whatever. Blacks are in the background, soulless workers who pretty things up. Chinese (possibly Japanese) are allowed certain profession but corporate life isn’t one of them. The Eastern Europeans are authentic human beings. They are tolerant and kind but willing not just to make moral pronouncements but willing to call attention to them. They openly criticize the Jack Lemon character for his (not real) sexual adventures. They have a moral center. Aside from our two main characters, they are the only real human beings in the film. And to be blunt, our two major characters only arrive at human hood in the last few minutes of the film.

If there is no other reason to show the film, the movement of the main characters from caricature to humanity makes it all worthwhile.

The doctor is the moral center of the film. He issues the call to personhood to the sinner in the next apartment.

As in instructor, it’s a good choice because there is no difficulty in getting students to watch and remember the film. They enjoy it and it leaves its mark on them. That makes it more useful than many more “on point” films.

If you are going to teach, misdirection, implification and appeals to unconscious motivations are legitimate tools.

James Pilant

Using Film To Teach Business Ethics

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, ethics, Teaching

I use three films in teaching business ethics, The Apartment, Cinema Paradiso, and Sabrina (the original with Bogart) (What! You think I’m crazy enough to use the Harrison Ford version?).

A thoroughly excellent question might be raised by this. “Why, Mr. Pilant, do you use commercial films instead of documentaries or teaching films from your school’s underused library?”

My response, “They don’t work, that’s why.”

Watch the reaction of your class when you announce the title of the latest exciting documentary you have found. You will note that a proportion of the class have immediately decided that the CIA had found some new interesting way of failing to extract useful information but you’re going to try it out on them anyway. The rest of the class is glad they don’t have to do any work. Strangely enough, watching films is very difficult once you realize it is an active form of study requiring training and experience, but they don’t know that and wouldn’t believe you if you told them.

So, you have lost half the battle right there.

If the film is any way (down to the microscopic) controversial, a good part of your students will ignore or marginalize the message. But what if you have a great success, what if the class cries in unison, demands action and stops after class to tell you how great it all was. You didn’t do to well on that one either. People are embarassed about their shows of emotion, their passion dies away and that letter they were going to write isn’t going to be written. You gave them the same heart tingling experience of good cone of ice cream.

So, it is time for you to argue that if documentaries don’t work, that people tune them out, etc., why can’t they do the same thing with your academy award winning crap? Because they can’t.

They can’t tune them out. The wonderful thing about great films (and when I mean great, I mean the top of the top, the top 100, the absolute best) is you can’t ignore them. They get you down where you live. When your classroom watches a documentary, you can always pick out students who are going through it objecting to this, disregarding that. They are not going to let that film just do its work. They feel obligated by their politics or whatever to make sure that it doesn’t affect them.

A great film captivates. It pulls in the attention. I’ve seen it multiple times. All the students in the class with the same expression watching the same film.

Sometimes, it’s surprising. One of my most difficult decisions was whether or not to use Cinema Paradiso. The film has two choices of spoken language, French or Italian, so I have to use a subtitled film in class. In America, the phrase “foreign film” or the even deadlier phrase “not in English'” are usually enough to stop people from watching the film in the first place.  Because the class is used to my strange ways, when I tell them I am going to use a subtitled film, any objections are quickly murmured in the back of the class. (They have gotten to used to situations in which I explain something they know couldn’t possible be true or make any sense and then I make it work. It disturbs them.)

So, I show the film. At first, there is not the strong attention I get when I show one of my English speaking films but after  the scene where the Catholic Priest is removing all the kissing scenes from the town’s movies, they are caught and they never escape.

Film is not a logical medium. It goes around the frontal lobes and lodges its message in the emotional parts of our thinking like a cleverly thrown curve ball. So, my use of outrage producing or factual documentary material throws a few facts their way which will quickly be disregarded or forgotten. I have noted in my own life that if I read a book about the Spartans, I retain far more information and make far more observations than I do from the History Channel’s documentary.

Besides I want to change my student’s way of thinking and improve their methods of observation when watching films and television.

What’s more, I want to introduce controversial subject to them without running into the immediate rejection ideas usually get.

So, how to do it? Films. No just any films, but masterpieces, films that have resonated with audiences for many years. Why those? Because these films have demonstrated a staying power which indicates they have connected with our unconscious in some manner. Now generally speaking, we believe we like certain films because of the actors, the kind of film (Western, etc.) and because our friends told us we had to see it. Those are most of the films we see. But the ones we remember, the ones that play with our heads, the ones we think about, often years later, have an appeal to our whole mind, not just the conscious stuff (which for many people isn’t that a big a deal anyway) (Okay, look, if you spend your life slavishly duplicating the actions of your neighbors, doing all the things you are supposed to do and avoiding any difficult decisions especially moral and ethical ones, the only difference between you and a corpse is that your status is not properly defined.) I use those films.

The unconscious is where the action is. Consciousness is nice, don’t get me wrong. I try to spend a lot of time there. Nevertheless, many of my decisions (more than I like to think) and most of my emotions emerge from the depths of the mind, not the top.

So, to change my students way of thinking as painlessly as possible for them and me, I use films. Now don’t think for a moment that we do not discuss the logical, moral implications of the film. We do. There is a cerebral frontal cortex appealing part of the class. But reaching behind that is more important.

Look at the three films. What are the messages? The one message they have in common is that humanity is more important than business success. But in particular –

The Apartment – Love is more important than success.

Cinema Paradiso – Film can fill your life with wonder that morphs into action.

Sabrina – We can change.

Now, take a look at my students. (Obviously, this is a majority of my students, not all, but see how many you think reject all three of these.) 1. I’m going to have a meaningful emotional life just as soon as I have enough money(or I get the right job or after my education or after I move). 2. Films and television are just films and televisions. I am too smart, too clever, too worldly wise for my actions to be influenced. (The unexamined life.) 3. I can totally completely change my life anytime I feel like it. I have total free will. Now, salary wise and where I live, I’m stuck but my point of view and how I live, if I want to change, I can. (And on number 3, let me point out that I get to stand at the top of the classroom and observe them and their bullet and bombproof self concepts day after day.) Continuing point 3, when they watch Sabrina they just can’t understand why Bogart hasn’t already changed or they spend a great deal of time telling themselves that if only they were in his shoes, they’d know what was important, when the fact is that if they were in Bogart’s position you couldn’t blast them out with a tactical nuke.

Now, it’s time for the main question. What do you teach them with these movies?

The Apartment gives examples of the changing status of women, the treatment of minorities and the often petty nature of corporate life.

The unconscious lessons are that authority can be wrong, that individual action is important and that you can live as hero or heroine even in small matters. I could teach these as part of the conscious part of the class but what for? The ideas are now planted. I might water them a little but time and inclination are more important in determining the effect. (There are also thousands of tiny lessons relating to verbal matters, environment, emotional stances and ways of thinking.)

Cinema Paradiso shows how a business can become embedded in the life of a community and how that influence changes over time. I also find it useful for demonstrating small business decision making as opposed to corporate decision making.

The unconscious lessons are the effect of entertainment particularly movies and, most precisely, on children. The film recreates and recaptures the films of our childhood but much, much more important, it captures the emotional content of those films, the emotional content that redirected our lives.

Sabrina shows the upside and downside of self transformation, an American preoccupation. The film’s observations on class differences are delightful not to mention the interrelationship between the personal and the professional.

The unconscious lesson of the film is that we do not live our lives logically or reasonably. Far more interesting is the idea that even if you are short, fairly ugly, depressed and (in the film) unemotional, beautiful young ladies will still find you attractive. (Whoops! Sorry, that’s my lesson from the film.)

The big lesson from the film is this. You are not what you think you are. You never will fully get a grip on the mystery of you. You are a great unknown. You may look for meaning all your life in books, in experience, in profession or normality, and one day, one moment, it will hit you in the form of a child, a friend, an observation, or in the case of this movie, a young female. And if you fail to grab it, to realize the importance of it, to see what it means, you will walk, talk and eat and still be as dead as a stone.

That’s what I want my students to know.

James Pilant

Remember Challenger And The Ethical Failings That Killed The Crew

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism, Economic measurement, ethics, Government Failure1 Comment

On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger disintegrated at 11:39AM. The crew cabin flew free of the conflagration and fell toward the earth. The initial forces on the crew were in the area of twelve to twenty times the force of gravity. These forces are not sufficient to cause death and unlikely to even cause injury. There are oxygen tanks available on the backs of the seats. These tanks are turned off during flight and have to be manually turned on. Three of four in the command section were turned on. Analysis of the amount of air used is within the bounds of what individuals would breathe during the fall to earth. The crew cabin fell to earth for two minutes and forty-five seconds. There is no clear conclusion to the question of whether or not these astronauts were conscious up to the point of impact. If they were conscious what they would have been thinking is also a matter upon which there is no clear conclusion. The crew cabin struck the ocean at two hundred and eight miles per hour. This is equivalent to over two hundred times the force of gravity.

January 27th, 1986: That evening there was a telecon meeting between Morton Thiokol, Marshal Space Flight Center and Kennedy Space Center.

The four engineers from Morton Thiokol recommended canceling the launch because the temperature at the pad was too low. They noted that previous launches at low temperatures had coincided with damage to the o-rings protecting the joints in the rockets from the contractions and movements of the launch and flight. It was pointed out that if an o-ring failed hot gas would be expelled from the resulting hole in the rocket.

NASA placed pressure on the company to launch. Morton Thiokol cleverly developed a new way to make decisions removing the engineers from the process and disregarding their report.

It should be emphasized that the men who made the decision to launch were not bad men. They were upstanding members of the community with wives and family. They had legitimate concerns about their jobs and futures. Morton Thiokol was pursuing a new contract with the government for a one billion dollar contract for missiles. NASA was trying to get a launch done while under considerable pressure from the White House to get the thing up on schedule.

It is of course also to be noted that while these upstanding members were under severe pressure to make a difficult decision, it was not quite as serious a situation as falling for two minutes and forty five seconds at two hundred and eight miles per hour into the surface of the ocean less than a day later.

No one who advocated that the Challenger be launched over the objections of the engineers lost their jobs, were demoted or punished.

Morton Thiokol was liable under its contract with NASA for a ten million dollar penalty in the event of such a failure but was also liable for all damages that resulted from such a failure. NASA in a brilliant move released them from liability for the damages if they would immediately pay the ten million dollar penalty. (Losses from the Challenger disaster are minimally two billion dollars.) However, upon later consideration concluded that Morton Thiokol should not pay the ten million immediately but should take it out of later profits. However, there is no indication that any such money has been paid.

Morton Thiokol won the missile contract they were seeking and also continued to build the rockets for the shuttle, although there were able to charge a higher price.

The CEO was later quoted, which he said was taken out of context, as saying that the Challenger disaster had cost the company less than ten cents per share of stock.

Roger M. Boisjoly and Allan J. McDonald, the engineers who was principally responsible for raising concerns about the launch and were willing to discuss what had happened in the discussions between Morton Thiokol and NASA were shunned by colleagues and demoted.

Let us review.

No one who sent these astronauts to their deaths were fired, demoted or otherwise punished.

The company that built the malfunctioning units and whose officers had sent the astronauts to their deaths were rewarded with further contracts and improved profits.

Those that warned of the danger were demoted and shunned by their colleagues.

Their warnings had no effect. They might very well have smiled, said the shuttle rockets were the epitome of engineering perfection, and asked to be assigned to a new and promising project.

So, let us place ourselves in the position of McDonald or Boisjoly. You can object to the launch and save no one. Even if you directly participate in the decision to launch giving every possible assurance of safety when you know nothing of the kind, you will not be punished.

Goodness, this is not like your usual example in ethics is it? In the classical decision making example in the standard textbooks, you have an ethical decision which if you make you will lose your job, your income and have your future seriously damaged.

This is a real one.

You no matter what your training or experience can give an opinion based on hard evidence to your company of imminent danger based on your product and not only do they not care, neither does the consumer. When death occurs it is you that is penalized even with full national news focus on the subject and a commission of inquiry asking you whether or not you have been retaliated against. Your superiors chew you out using expletives and when found out claim they never even raised their voices. But nothing will happen to them. You rocked the boat. The company knows what you do not. They will not be penalized. You were right but you were right in the wrong way. You’re just not a team player. You don’t have the right attitude. Killing, maiming, destroying the prospects and impairing the future of your nation are not serious problems. The worst moral failing you can have is not playing well with others.

The worst thing about this little piece of history is what it says about the standards of morals and ethics at the highest level of government, media and industry. The story held to was that this was an unfortunate accident. Most people still believe that.

http://www.onlineethics.org/CMS/profpractice/ppessays/thiokolshuttle.aspx

http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/book/chptnine.pdf

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4165304