Tag: Andrew Gates

Andrew Comments On “Law Prohibiting Price Gouging In Oklahoma (via 40/29 tv.com)”

On By southwerkIn business ethics

On my regular commentators, Andrew, would like to add his thought to my previous post, “Law Prohibiting Price Gouging In Oklahoma (via 40/29 tv.com).”

I like the spirit of this law. It prevents unethical businesses from profiting from the misfortune of others.

Here’s a hypothetical situation. If Company “A” and Company “B” are both hardware stores in the same town when an emergency hits. Company “A” is owned by an unethical man who ratchets up his prices to make a buck off of the emergency. Company “B” is owned by an ethical man who keeps his prices steady (perhaps out of a sense of duty to his community, who knows). Now say I am a resident of this town. In the aftermath of this emergency, if I hear that Company B’s prices are lower than Company A’s, then I will prefer to do business with Company B. Thus, ideally, ethics will win out over greed.

This hypothetical only applies to situations where healthy competition is established in each market. If you live in a small town where there is only one hardware store or one grocery store, then the residents are at the mercy of the store owner.

So it seems that this law will definitely help out the small town folks, and I see nothing wrong with it at all.

Andrew is good commentator and I appreciate his thoughts. I have urged him to write his own blog or to write full articles for mine but he prefers his current role.

If you write some interesting content, I am likely to post it. I get to choose when and my editorial decisions may not make much sense to you but I will try to do my best to be fair.

James Pilant

Andrew Gates Comments On The Essay, “$250,000 And Poor”

On By southwerkIn business ethics

This is a comment from Andrew Gates who as always has some useful points.

James Pilant

Andrew Gates –

All I could think of while reading that article is “are these people serious?!”

I think the problem is that the accounting firm doing the study just assumed that many of these “burdens” were necessary for a four person family with a large income. Not having time to keep our houses immaculate is not just a burden for the upper class. I think thats a burden that families of every class (especially ones with children) face. The difference is that lower and middle class families FIND the time to keep their house in relatively livable condition.

Dry cleaning tab?! Are you serious? I guarantee you that our men and women in the armed services must keep their uniforms to a higher standard than corporate executives. How do they do this? They learn how to iron and starch a shirt after coming home from their watch. Something tells me that corporate executives probably don’t work as many hours either.

$4000 for kids activities? Ok, I understand that some childrens activities can be expensive. I am the oldest of 6 children. My father was able to allow all of us to play baseball, football, and/or soccer with our counties recreation department for just a few hundred dollars a season. I suppose the upper class children are too good to get their baseball uniform dirty with lowly middle class children?

Yeah, its SOOOOOO hard being them.

An Interesting Discussion On Modern Ethics, Education And Hope For The Future: Ed Deep, Steven Mintz, and Andrew Gates

On By southwerkIn business ethics

(Bank Of America Next WikiLeaks Target – Bank Digging For Dirt
by James Pilant on Tuesday, January 4, 2011 at 10:39am)
The title above is the Facebook subject that began the discussion. I include it for perspective.

Ed Deep What Bofa is doing is pretty much PR 101, trying to state that the misconduct or “problem” is a person thing, not a corporate policy.
There are several problems, though. The executives from the bank are not recruited in Mars. They are recruited amongst ourselves. Their actions are reflexes from the acceptable conducts amongst ourselves. Our culture, the way we live in society. My take on this is: We must make clear that there are moral values, ethical conduct and moreover, there is the regulation from the market authorities and there is the Law. And there is punishment. There should be no witch hunt, but we can not forfeit fixes, malfeasance, unorthodox solutions or other euphemisms for crimes that are listed. For the crimes not listed, there is our values. A clear message from society that these practices are not condoned will change the attitude. We must educate our children to have moral values and ethical behaviour. Can not allow anyone else to do it. Much less the “media”.
Wednesday at 6:31am

Steven Mintz Ed: Well said. I fear, however, it’s almost too late too teach our children moral and ethical values because of the unethical, irresponsible culture in our society that permeates throughout. Also, who is to teach it? As a university professor I’ve seen instructors shy away from the topic and even have a counter-productive slant on what is ethics.
Wednesday at 6:41am

Ed Deep It is never too late.I would not give up. Humankind have gone a long way since slavery and serfdom as an example. Even Aristotle though slavery to be moral, so there is always a future. There will be a new Renaissance, a revolution of the mind. Never dispair. -Keep Reading ..,>