Tag: business ethics

Three Moral Codes

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

If you had never had read a book on business ethics published in the United States, you might assume that the first thing they would discuss would be American codes of Conduct or at the very least our informal codes of conduct. The fact is they don’t discuss it at all, and I think they should.

Our teaching of business ethics would be more effective if we didn’t imply that all moral beliefs are basically relative to time and place – and spend so much time implying that the moral minimum is all that is necessary. Most human beings believe in higher values and have a strong sense of morality.

If we start with a baseline of common American morality, our teaching will be more effective.

American do have some common beliefs about morality. Our informal codes are things like you shouldn’t overcharge or be rude to customer or damage the environment. I believe using some polling data you could with a little research generate a generalized American sense of morality.

That would be a nice start but there are two more codes common in this nation. Many Americans belong to one religion or another. Current data says that — 43% of the Americans polled identify themselves as Protestants and 20% identify themselves as Catholic. These religions have highly developed moral codes.

If you wanted to talk about Protestant codes of conduct you could use the one advocated by the Lutheran Church. The Lutheran World Federation publishes these basic premises:

Dignity and justice

Each and every person is created in God’s image, is gifted with talents and capacities, and has dignity, irrespective of social status, gender, ethnicity, age, ability, or other differences.

Compassion and commitment

Inspired by God’s love for humanity, we seek to show care and compassion toward people who are suffering—the poor, the vulnerable and marginalized, and minority populations and faiths, who experience discrimination, violence, and hardship in different contexts.

Respect for diversity

Differences among us express the richness of God’s creation.

As a global communion of churches we value and seek to understand our differences in culture, history, and context.  

We also cherish the way in which these have shaped our theological understandings, our perspectives on moral and ethical questions, and our practice of ministry, mission, and service.

Inclusion and participation

We are committed to being inclusive and enabling the full and equitable participation of women, men, people of all ages and people with disabilities.

Our commitment to inclusion encompasses church life and society, and the decision-making processes, activities, and programs of the LWF itself.

We understand that power dynamics, cultural norms, access to resources, and other factors create barriers to participation and we work to overcome these.

Transparency and accountability

We are a responsible steward of the resources and responsibilities that God has entrusted to us.

We are committed to transparency in our aims, processes, decisions, and use of resources. We strive to being accountable to the people we serve, including our member churches, partners, and donors. 

If you wanted to start with a code of ethics this would be a good one.

Now, the Catholic Church has a huge set of teachings on business ethics clearly implied from their voluminous teaching on social issues. From time to time Popes issue encyclicals on social issues. They are not small documents and the first dates to 1891 and the most current one was published in 2015.

To summarize very, very briefly, there are four core elements:

  1. The Dignity of the Human Person
  2. The Common Good
  3. Subsidiarity (there is a lot on this)
  4. Solidarity

So we have informal poll driven moral rules, that we can derive from general behavior and beliefs. We have a culture with a code of ethics associated with Protestantism and we have Catholic Social Doctrine.

None of these are hiding but you seldom (never) see them in business ethics text books.

Maybe it is time that changed and we start discussing some basic rules of morality before we get into our examples and case studies?

If we are going to talk about business ethics, let’s start with rules of ethical behavior.

James Pilant

—- The Lutheran World Federation’s web site contains a good deal more information – and is generally a good read.

—- The Faith Initiative Home Page has voluminous amounts of data on Catholic Social Teaching and I heartily recommend it.

The Piper Cub

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

The Piper Cub

A program I often watch on YouTube is “The History Guy.” His theme is exploration of little known historical stories. The one that I link to below is about The Piper Cub.


Generally writing about business ethics is similar in a way to policing, that is, police very often see people at their worst. I, writing about business ethics, often see businesses, corporations and owners at their very worst.

 
Policeman have to be careful not to become jaded believing that every human being is a crook and a scoundrel. After reading thousands of articles about misbehaving companies, it is difficult at times to give companies the benefit of the doubt. One can begin to believe that every business owner is a crook and a knave. 


Here is a story of a product and a company that did much good. I’m sure there are thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of stores like these. But here is a company that made an innovative and successful product which was an enormous benefit to consumers, the public at large, the American military and a nation at war. 


So, once in a while, I like to talk about positive business ethics and the importance of not just doing what’s right but going beyond the needs of just the moral minimum, not breaking the law. This is a good example. 


Piper Aircraft built an inexpensive airplane that was suitable for training new pilots and an inexpensive new plane for those new pilots. When the war started, the plane became part of the war effort and a little less than half a million pilots were trained on the aircraft over four years. So, it is known in some circles as “The plane that taught America to fly.” 

A company made an innovative product that helped American win a war. That is a business ethics success.


James Pilant

The History Guy tells the story of the Piper Cub.

The United Airlines Edition

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics19 Comments

The United Airlines Edition

United Airlines has acted outside the norms of business ethics. They have done so in a manner the requires the guilty be punished.

Let me list some links so you can get a grasp of the actions of what calls itself an airline:

United Airlines passenger forcibly removed from overbooked flight

Passenger dragged off overbooked United flight

Man Violently Dragged Off Plane After United Airlines Overbooks Flight

Or my favorite –

Video shows man forcibly removed from United flight from Chicago to Louisville

I’ve thought about this since I first saw the headlines and I gone from rage to lamenting the sorry spectacle of human stupidity.

The Fire Everyone Edition

Here we have what purports to be a business overbooking flights and using the way the contract is worded to get rid of the unwanted passengers. You notice I don’t call them customers. It’s obvious that the “airline” doesn’t consider them to be that big a deal. Maybe the words, victims, suppliants or some other word the implies a human being considered as nothing more than temporary way to turn some coin might be found to fit.

I suppose the company might have been within its contractual rights to drag everyone off the plane using whatever force it considered reasonable. Maybe the passengers are lucky that didn’t occur to the leadership at United. It’s possible the the company would have considered the unhappy publicity a small price to pay for compliant and obedient passengers in the future. I don’t know.

What I do know is this – somebody has to be fired. In fact, a lot of people need to be fired. This sorry spectacle shows what happens to people when corporations can use the law to enforce their whims. The company took a simple civil dispute and converted into a tragedy. It appears they dragged a doctor off a plane and injured him for not giving up his seat and attempting to assert his rights under the law of this nation.

What we see here is raw power on display.

Did they intend to explain to us who really matters and who doesn’t? It doesn’t matter. The lesson is clear. If you fly United, be obedient and servile or they can drag you from your seat and throw you off the plane like garbage.

Fire everyone. That’s one it is going to take for the lesson to take hold. And what lesson it that, you might ask.

We’re Americans, a proud people and we don’t have to obedient to any company’s whims, and they shouldn’t be able to harm us for standing up for our rights.

I think that’s important. Don’t you?

James Pilant

The Emily Yoffe Edition

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

The Emily Yoffe Edition

i_00i_248_tnWhat’s good business ethics? There are a lot of ways to talk about business ethics but let’s simplify. When you buy something, take it home and it works perfectly right out of the box, you are experiencing a form of good business ethics. Unfortunately not all products come in neat boxes or can be unpackaged in a physical way.

Such is writing. We absorb a lot of writing every day. I read at least two hours every day and on most days a lot more.

This morning there was a lot of amazing things on the web. I spent close to thirty minutes reading about the Guardian’s expose on the John Doe investigation in Wisconsin. And there was a lot more. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume and power of the business ethics issues presented today.

And then I came across an article in the online magazine, Slate, “The Woman Who Taught Me Prudence.” 

Here’s a paragraph –

There’s another thing, too. As we were becoming friends, I had just become a mother and was still trying to figure out how to put that together with the vagaries of freelance journalism. One of Marjorie’s great subjects was the intersection for women of family and work—she was writing brilliantly about the dilemma I felt I was figuring out badly. One day, stuck at the veterinarian’s office trying to corral my miscreant beagle and my 3-year-old daughter, a Washington talk show appeared on the waiting-room TV, and there was Marjorie. She looked glamorous and was dropping bon mots, and I felt the sharp sting of jealousy. I hated myself for it, especially since I knew that Marjorie’s success was earned. How well I knew this was demonstrated by the fact that before I undertook any writing of my own, I would read something by Marjorie. Not to copy her voice, but to help me find my own, to be inspired by her tart precision.

This is good writing, very good. Follow my advice and go read the whole thing.

So today, instead of or in addition too, writing about various horrors perpetrated on the American people and this is important. I’m going to let it take a back seat to writing about the glory and wonder of doing it right.

Emily Yoffe wrote well today.

James Pilant

 

The Epic Failure Edition

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

The Epic Failure Edition

I am referring, of course, to Wells Fargo.

hmlbr17Today we begin with a business ethics post from the blog, Lead Today. If you read yesterday’s post, you will note that both Mr. Keating and I are on the same page on this issue. Of course, as one business ethics blogger has complained, I’m shrill. Perhaps Mr. Keating my be considered more measured in his approach. In any case I was delighted with his take on the Wells Fargo Ethics disaster and I’ve included the first four paragraphs from it. However, you really must go and read the whole thing. And please like it and rate it, etc. Give the guy some attention for a fine piece of writing and a willingness to talk ethics in a business climate where people give you knowing smirks while occasionally rolling their eyes when you say words like morality or accountability. 

There is then a post about the loss of black teachers followed by some excellent writing from Eslkevin’s Blog. Next, a writer ridicules mainstream economics, a sentiment I very much share. There is a quick link to a clever post from “Hello Kitty, Some Blog,” a site I visit often. 

And we close with a remarkable business ethics disaster, the F-35A. Did I say remarkable? Really I’m thinking “legendary.” It’s going to make the Sgt. York Air Defense system, the M-16 and the F-111 into minor footnotes in the Pentagon’s long history of financial and military disasters. 

James Pilant

As usual, Please LIKE, Please Share and please subscribe.

 

This is Steve Keating writing in the blog, Lead Today

i_00i_145_tnWe have been presented with two options to choose from. Either the executive team at Wells Fargo is as corrupt as an executive team can be or they are the dumbest group of people ever to run any organization. 

5300 Wells Fargo employees were terminated last week for creating millions of fraudulent accounts to meet what has been described as nearly unbearable pressure and demands to add new customer accounts. Progress at some branches was reviewed as many as 4 times a day. The pressure was relentless. 

Nothing, not morales, not ethics, not even those little things called laws could slow down the relentless push to meet the Wells Fargo corporate initiative known as “Gr-eight Initiative.” Wells Fargo has a goal that every customer should have eight separate accounts with the bank.

Apparently goals are more important than anything at Wells Fargo. In order to meet the goals of the initiative employees opened new accounts for current customers without the customer’s approval or knowledge. This required forging signatures, creating fake email accounts, and moving customer’s money between these accounts without their knowledge, sometimes causing a customer’s real account to go into the red.

….

The loss of black teachers

i_00i_258_tnRizga focuses on the story of one teacher, Darlene Lomax. But the story she tells is about the widespread shedding of black teachers, women and men who were the backbones of their communities. In Philadelphia, almost 20% of black teachers are gone; in New Orleans, 62%; in Chicago, 40%; in Cleveland, 34%. School closings have been concentrated in historically black communities. Black teachers have been disproportionately displaced by “reform.”

There’s still hope according to Eslkevin’s Blog! (I think so, too. jp)

(This is really a good piece of writing – this is another one you really should go to the original blog and read the whole thing while browsing all the other writing there. jp) 

i_00i_286_tnI say all this because, as a journalist in this crazy year of our lord 2016, on a good day the temptation is to tilt toward cynicism. It’s our job to rake the muck and expose the trolls, to cast light on the wrongdoing and the failings in our society, but it’s up to others to set them right. Today, at this site, Bill Moyers writes about the greatest failing, the true disaster, of our time: the scourge of growing inequality, economic and political. He describes it as “a despicable blot on American politics,” as the very wealthy convert their financial might into political power to guard that wealth while exacerbating inequality further. The statistics Moyers deploys are chilling. Consume enough of them and you’re liable to feel a bit gloomy. But like those undergraduates, Moyers (very distinctly a post-graduate of our difficult political world) holds onto the hope, as today’s piece suggests, that Americans can still fix our world, make it a better place.

Paul Krugman Wrong

i_00i_281_tnThe only economic analysis that Krugman and other mainstream economists accept is the one that takes place within the analytic-formalistic modeling strategy that makes up the core of mainstream economics. All models and theories that do not live up to the precepts of the mainstream methodological canon are pruned. You’re free to take your models — not using (mathematical) models at all is, as made clear by Krugman’s comment on King, totally unthinkable —  and apply them to whatever you want – as long as you do it within the mainstream approach and its modeling strategy. If you do not follow this particular mathematical-deductive analytical formalism you’re not even considered doing economics. ‘If it isn’t modeled, it isn’t economics.’

That isn’t pluralism.

That’s a methodological reductionist straightjacket.

 

British fat cat gets average annual wage in 45 minutes

New American Fighter may need to be rescued by older fighters should it enter combat. 

The 16-page memo,first reported by Tony Capaccio at Bloomberg and then by others, details just how troubled this program is: years behind schedule and failing to deliver even the most basic capabilities taxpayers, and the men and women who will entrust their lives to it, have been told to expect.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is the most expensive procurement program in Pentagon history. It’s been plagued by schedule delays, gross cost overruns, and a slew of underwhelming performance reviews. Last month the Air Force declared its variant “ready for combat,” and most press reports lauded this as a signal that the program had turned a corner. But a memo issued from the Pentagon’s top testing official, based largely upon the Air Force’s own test data, showed that the Air Force’s declaration was wildly premature.

Below is the memo referred to above. Frankly, this is an upper class version of a lower class male frothing at the mouth administering a obscenity laden diatribe that would make an old sailor blush. This is a rain dance of hatred written in officialese. 

013a
Better than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter?

 

 

Let me utterly simplify its conclusions – The plane is not as good as current serving aircraft. 

That’s an incredible statement particularly when discussing 400 billion dollars worth of plane. jp

(The document shows perfectly in tests but it looks like it doesn’t always appear when the site is accessed – my apologies. jp)

Five Business Ethics Predictions for 2017

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics1 Comment

Five Business Ethics Predictions for 2017

What is going to happen in 2017? I have some hopefully educated guesses which I will share. So, here is my five guesses for what will happen in the new year.

  1. Many more heads are going to roll at Fox News

!!!50053mThus far, the Murdochs have tried a middling approach to the aftermath of Roger Ailes, replacing some of the more objectionable of Ailes allies while retaining many others.

It isn’t going to work. The leadership that allowed the business ethics disaster at the network is still dominated by many of the same people. Geraldo Rivera implied in his latest Facebook post that the network still had work to do while Greta Van Susteren was emphatic that there was a failure in leadership.

It is quite likely that that the coming shakeup will not take place until after the election  but it has to happen sooner or later.

And don’t get confused, the sexual harassment charges may have started this thing but what’s driving it now is the use of corporate funds for settlements and black ops not to mention an apparently highly aggressive surveillance of employees across the corporation that is driving the need for action.

2. Corey Lewandowski and CNN will part ways

!!!i_00i_055_tnThis business ethics disaster is one for the textbooks. It will be studied in later textbooks as a cautionary tale of what can go wrong with both the hiring and employment process.

A quick recap for those who don’t follow the news cycle – Lewandowski was signed as a commentator by CNN in spite of the fact that he had just been bounced as Trump’s campaign manger and has a still active non-disclosure and basically a no criticism clause in his contract with Trump. Since his hiring, he has been an enthusiastic cheerleader for the candidate almost to the point of comedy.

Will they can him after the election or before? After. The network is far too devoted to making Donald Trump and his supporter happy in the pursuit of its demi-god, ratings, than to take any risks.

3. Criminal charges will be filed against some of Volkswagen American executives

Twenty Minutes of Action

Since the feds managed to roll one of Volkswagen’s employees, we can expect some of his fellows to grab a deal while they can while the others form a defensive circle of deniability. But these are big, big fish. This is a multi-year, multi-billion dollar fraud against all Americans but not just that, they tricked several federal agencies and made the them look like incompetent fools. Steal from people, kill people, okay – just another day at the office. But make the feds look silly and blood must flow.

Of course, Barack Obama, the consummate corporatist may yet overrule his angry prosecutorial warriors but his term is about up and he has many fights on his hands. We’ll see.

4. Wells Fargo will fire or allow some top executives to resign

g099Oh come on, did you really think any intelligent person buys the idea that thousands of low level employees concocted an enormous conspiracy to create false accounts for thousands of unsuspecting customer for more than five years? All by their little selves? Not a chance.

Someone upstairs at Wells Fargo decided to impose clearly impossible goals on the employees and still yet, even in the world of the American corporation, the word, accountability still gets said. It is said timidly, perhaps only whispered but it is still a presence.

The monumental stupidity of the harshly imposed goal system is going to claim some actual villains – probably before the end of the year. Watch for the executives resigning to “spend more time with their families.”

5. The Dakota Access Pipeline will be permanently cancelled

i_296Three federal agencies turned a big thumbs down on the damn thing before it even started. Only the Army Corps of Engineers got the thing going and how do they look now?

Their esteemed corporate pipeline company proceeded to turn a probably manageable public relations situation into repeated disasters. Of course, I suspect that in North Dakota stepping on the Native Americans and extolling the virtues of pipelines is normal for both government and industry, so unleashing the dogs on protesters and charging a presidential candidate with defacing a dozer blade with spray paint made good local sense. But to the rest of us, well – Hicksville on the plains.

The Army Corp of Engineers now knows that the company they went to bat for, can’t manage its way out of a wet paper bag. I have to admit the vision of bulldozers sent out like commandos on a strike mission to destroy Native American burial sites before the state and feds knew what was going on – looks just like a plot from a Billy Jack movie.

Here’s Billy Jack dispensing justice:

 

Where’s Tom Laughlin when you need him?

So, that’s my five.

Please Like, Subscribe and Share AND if possible – tell me what I missed. Do you know of some looming business ethics tragedy? I want to know.

James Pilant

Business Ethics Blog Posts 9-10-2016 The “Secret Eyes Everywhere” Edition

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Business Ethics Blog Posts 9-10-2016

We start with a post from “Secret Eyes Everywhere” about what you should do if you think Wells Fargo embroiled you in its system of forced enrollment for bank  accounts, credit cards, etc. It’s very good advice. Lynn Stout takes on the banking idea of virtue and demolishes it – very nice work. David Yamada in his blog, Minding the Workplace gets reflective on us. “Hello Kitty, Some Blog” has some more on induced earthquakes and we have two good posts from the blog, “The Net Economy.” Last we have a post from “A Philosopher’s Blog,” a site I talked about at length about a week ago. 

Best Wishes!!

Please Share, Subscribe and Like — Not just me, but these people are my colleagues and in my mind I see them as soldiers in the good fight and we need as many good hearted souls as we can get in these difficult times. Show some support!

James Pilant

i_00i_216_tnFrom Secret Eyes Everywhere, Your Customer Service Advocate–

Get all of your accounts listed

According to The Los Angeles Times,  the bank has 90 days to provide federal regulators with a plan to compensate all its customers. Go into a branch or call the customer service line and get a full list of all your accounts in your name. Should you close any or all accounts, be sure to get a receipt showing the account was closed. If there is something on them you don’t understand, be sure to raise hell about it to get it resolved. If a refund of fees is not given, do the next step.

Seek legal assistance (please go to the web site and read the rest! If I include all the good parts I’ll be posting the whole thing instead of an excerpt. jp) 

Lynn Stout writing for The Net Economy

i_00i_010_tn(If you read anything today, go to the link and read this. jp) 

In the wake of the 2008 crisis, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein famously told a reporter that bankers are “doing God’s work.”

This is, of course, an important part of the Wall Street mantra: it’s standard operating procedure for bank executives to frequently and loudly proclaim that Wall Street is vital to the nation’s economy and performs socially valuable services by raising capital, providing liquidity to investors, and ensuring that securities are priced accurately so that money flows to where it will be most productive.

There’s just one problem: the Wall Street mantra isn’t true.

From Minding the Workplace and the invaluable David Yamada! 

i_00i_070_tnOn this Saturday morning, I’m enjoying some reflective moments that midlife sometimes invites — or requires. And although I don’t have the means to do a demographic survey of this blog’s readership, my best intelligent guess is that a good chunk of you have crossed the 40 year mark. I thought I’d collect a group of previous posts that enable some of that healthy reflection, especially for those who identify as being in midlife, but also hopefully useful to anyone who wants to live meaningfully. In these posts you’ll find some of my own commentary, as well as recommendations of books and articles for further inquiry. (He has a wonderful list – please follow the link to see. jp)

From Hello Kitty, Some Blog –

From one of my very favorite blogs, Warrior Publications! 

Mounted Lakota warriors, their horses resplendent in traditional regalia, charge a line of law enforcement. They gallop headlong, push back the police, pull up only at the last moment, and then circle back for more.

The scene could be the Battle of the Little Bighorn, circa 1876. But it’s not. Here, along the banks of the Missouri River, just beyond the boundary of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota, indigenous land and water defenders are standing together to block the Dakota Access Pipeline, which threatens their land, water, ancestral burial grounds, and future generations. They are part of a decades-long struggle to assert and reclaim indigenous lands, jurisdictions, and sovereignties. And they are doing so on ground that has given rise to indigenous resistance for centuries.

For the average American, it’s easy to mistake the resistance at Standing Rock for a one-time re-run: indigenous warriors emerge from the wild, put up a brief, fierce, but ultimately tragic fight before succumbing to progress and providence. Cowboys and Indians II: Pipeline edition.

From the web site, The Net Economy.

!!!i_00i_142_tnIn a post-scarcity society, everyone would be guaranteed an income that yielded a standard of living significantly better than poverty, and this guarantee would be unconditional. The move from a near-poverty benefit subject to eligibility conditions to a livable, guaranteed minimum income would require both an increase in productivity, such that a smaller number of workers could produce an adequate income for all, and some fairly radical changes in social attitudes.

It seems clear enough that technological progress can generate the necessary productivity gains, so what is needed most is a change in attitudes to work that would make a guaranteed minimum income socially sustainable.

And another post from The Net Economy

!!!i_00i_055_tnYet, ordinary people have not accepted this self-evident, ‘common sense’ knowledge shared by trade experts. They have not only challenged trade expertise by mobilizing counter-expertise (for instance, economic analyses that refute the Commission’s numbers), but they have also mobilized many people in order to make their epistemic claim more vociferously: what the trade experts hold true is wrong, false knowledge. The quarter of a million protesting in Berlin had posited: No, we do not believe that the world is going to be better off due to the TTIP; each and every family will not be 540 euros per year richer; and, no, we do not think that the regulations coming out of the TTIP bodies are going to respect the environment.

Trade experts are not seen here as neutral arbitrators of public policy but rather as representing a particular stance as to public policy or public interest.

From A Philosopher’s Blog –

!!!i_00i_097_tnMy adopted state of Florida was just hit by a category one hurricane; my adopted city of Tallahassee sustained considerable damage. A week after the storm hit, there are still people in the city without power. There are also people who suffered considerable property damage. Fortunately, there seems to be only one death attributed to the storm here.

I was rather lucky; though my power was out from Friday to Monday, my house sustained no damage and I was well-prepared. I also had the good fortune of leaving the city on Sunday morning on an already scheduled program review at St. Francis University. While I normally dislike airports, it was great having access to AC and electricity again. While I waited for my first flight out, I enjoyed the cool air and recharged my laptop.

The Fox News Regrets Edition

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

The Fox News Regrets Edition

i_050Two who spoke out in behalf of Roger Ailes express regret.

It’s a banner year for business ethics disasters. We have Corey Lewandowski’s hiring at CNN. I haven’t written about it yet because the saga continues to carve out new terrain in ethically challenged comments and decisions. It’s like the Greek Tragedy of Oedipus, you don’t want to write about it until he blinds himself and a lot of people die. I’m waiting for the unfolding disaster’s climax.

We have Wells Fargo’s decision to fire a bunch of low level employees for upper management decision making. After all, it’s the American way to pass the buck from those responsible to those that weren’t. If they wanted job security, the little people should refuse to perform the unethical acts upper management threatens to fire them for.

And then, of course, we have the major media companies giving Donald Trump several billion dollars of free air time because it was good for ratings. Perhaps some modern day William L. Shirer will rise to the journalistic challenge of documenting this business ethics disaster?

But high on the list has to be the lawsuits, the investigation and the firing of Roger Ailes.

015bThe Business Ethics Debacle at Fox News

The revelations of immorality at Fox News are both shocking and seem to be never ending. If the charges are true we are talking about the misuse of funds, corporate espionage and sexual harassment of a particularly long term and degrading kind.

When Gretchen Carlson filed her lawsuit a few weeks ago, several of her fellows at Fox criticized her decision to sue. Among them were Geraldo Rivera and Greta Van Susteren.

Both now express regret.

Rivera published on Facebook a statement which includes the following –

The man we knew as the blustering genius who invented our mighty Fox News Channel is a deceitful, selfish misogynist, if the charges against him are true. And if they are true, then his shame and banishment are well earned.

Like virtually all my colleagues at Fox News, I was totally blindsided by his sexual harassment scandal, which is why I responded to Gretchen Carlson’s initial filing of her lawsuit with extreme skepticism. The man she described in her pleadings was unknown even to those of us who thought we knew him well.

And Susteren wrote on her Facebook page  –

I read Geraldo’s FB post in which he said he regretted not believing Gretchen Carlson’s claim of sexual harassment.

We all regret it – I made my regret self evident in my GretaWire posting about 3 weeks ago which ended with this: “Gretchen, you go girl.” That said it all.

Both Rivera and Susteren were critical of Fox management in their Facebook posts although Rivera implied mistakes were made while Susteren directly said that mistakes were made.

From Rivera’s:

50181mManagement’s role is to keep the playing field level, professional and fair. As society evolved from the “Mad Men” era of the 1950-60’s, giant steps have been taken to protect subordinate employees from harassment and unwelcome advances, particularly by superiors. Sure, there is far to go, but as the seismic response to Gretchen and the other purported victims makes clear, the news business will no longer tolerate boorish conduct by anyone, however powerful. Strict policies including sensitivity training are in place. Perpetrators do so at tremendous peril to their careers and families.

To all the victims of sexual harassment, direct and indirect, I am sorry for what happened to you. As the father of three daughters, including one in the news business, I urge all who have been offended to reach out. Similarly, if you see harassment, say harassment, even if the alleged offender is an old friend.

From Susteren’s:

0019mBut I have regrets beyond Geraldo’s and beyond not believing a civil complaint written by lawyers.

I regret that Roger Ailes was not supervised by those in a public corporation who had the duty to supervise him. This included his seniors, the CFO’s of both Fox News Channel and 21CF (and its predecessor NewsCorp), the Board of Directors and what I assume this public corporation had, outside auditors. Checks written that were suspicious should have been spotted.

Is all this sincere? In these kinds of cases, I let time tell me what’s really going on. Usually in six months or a year, you have a pretty good idea who meant what. Of course, that is a belief based on long experience. Often what appears in the news is not what it seems in just a few days. 

But if sincere, these Facebook posting suggest a dramatic decline in Ailes influence on his former colleagues.

James Pilant

As usual, Please Like, Subscribe and Share!!!

(I don’t think you guys understand the thrill of having people like your work. When I’m looking at other people’s blog and I’m impressed – I make sure and hit the like button so they know. It’s a big deal. There is no money at all in this – approval from our peers keeps us writing. jp) 

The Matt Lauer Catastrophe Edition

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics2 Comments

The Matt Lauer Catastrophe Edition

A failure of competence or a collapse of journalistic ethics or both?

!!!i_00i_207_tnIt has to be difficult for anyone with any knowledge of journalism to watch the Matt Lauer disaster entitled the “Commander in Chief Forum” without suffering immense pain. 

What did he think he was doing? He had a week to prepare. Did he use any of it? 

Basic journalistic ethics when faced with a “forum” between two candidates would indicate that you should offer both candidates similar treatment. It absolutely doesn’t have to be equal in every way but there should be level of similarity between the two sets of questions so that we have an impression of fairness. We didn’t get that – not even close. 

Why? No one knows. The web and the media are running all kinds of ideas. I’m not very interested. This is a failure of business ethics. We have an election to determine the leader of this nation and one candidate was clobbered for the umpteenth time about the private e-mail scandal to such a length of time that all the rest of the questioning had to be limited in time. The other candidate was given soft balls so soft and pudgy, it was difficult to believe what you were seeing. And when Trump lied about matters of public record, our intrepid interviewer just when on with another soft ball question. 

i_00i_197_tnOne commentator said that she had not believed that Trump could be elected President until she saw this program. 

I fully agree. Clinton was asked difficult questions as if to knock her off balance early on while Trump was simply allowed to hold forth on his ideas even when they didn’t make logical or political sense. 

What NBC news should have done instead of relying on a saccharine morning host was to have found someone in the news division willing to do their homework and demonstrate some journalistic integrity. 

They didn’t and the ethical failure is more theirs than Matt Lauer’s. It’s their business to know who to deploy and they sent their second or third string in. 

And they may have wanted to softball Trump and continue to profit from the ratings he generates while being afraid of provoking the wrath of the often mercurial candidate. 

I don’t know but if this is the kind of interviewing and questioning the candidates are going to get in the debates, who wins is anybody’s guess. Softballing one candidate and being tough on the other serves to level the playing field. 

i_00i_113_tnWe used to have journalists. Where are they now that we need them?

James Pilant

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The New York Times

Like Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump has had a few controversies related to the military. You might recall him feuding with a Gold Star family, or mocking Senator John McCain of Arizona for being captured in Vietnam, or likening his prep-school attendance to military experience.

Mr. Lauer evidently didn’t recall any of that. He kicked off by asking Mr. Trump what in his life had prepared him to be president, the kind of whiffle ball job-interview question you ask the boss’s nephew you know you have to hire anyway.

Trevor Noah Rips Matt Lauer for ‘Terrible’ Job on Trump’s ‘Blatant Lies’ The Daily Show 9/8/16 – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdprE6tQJek

Network Privately Admits Interview was “Disaster”

One executive, speaking anonymously, was blunt about it: “Disaster.”

The day after Lauer’s back-to-back interviews of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, several high ranking sources at the network said they hear the criticism and agree with at least some of it.

Even his internal defenders acknowledge flaws in the forum’s production.

Lauer was widely criticized for failing to fact-check or follow up when Trump falsely claimed that he was opposed to the Iraq war when it started. Some viewers thought Lauer held Clinton to a higher standard than Trump. The Clinton campaign agreed — it blasted off a fund-raising email on Thursday afternoon titled “Matt Lauer.”

But this was not merely partisan warfare. Prominent journalists were sharply critical of NBC. And several people who were sitting in the audience told CNN that they were frustrated too.

 

Authoritarian Farce

Trump played his usual tricks. When he was quizzed about foreign policy, he changed the subject to trade. When he was pressed for solutions, he talked instead about President Obama’s failures. When he was asked about atweet in which he had blamed military sexual assaults on the integration of women, he acted as though he had always believed the problem was insufficient prosecution. He also claimed, contrary to fact—and undisputed by moderator Matt Lauer—that he had been “totally against the war in Iraq.”

Trump said at least two newsworthy things. First, he bragged that Mexico’s finance minister had just been ousted for setting up Trump’s meeting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. “The people that arranged the trip to Mexico have been forced out of government,” Trump said. “That’s how well we did. And that’s how well we’re going to have to do.” This boast tells you two things about Trump. It tells you that he measures success by the discord he sows in countries he visits. And it tells you that he likes to humiliate these countries.

Second, Trump claimed that in the classified intelligence briefing he received on Aug. 17, he learned “that our leadership, Barack Obama, did not follow what our experts” had recommended “in almost every instance.” That’s quite a claim, since the briefing was prepared by James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence. The session was classified, so Clapper and his briefers can’t rebut Trump in public. This tells you how Trump would treat classified information as president: He would lie about it for political gain and dare the intelligence community to violate the law by exposing him.

A Waste of Time

The moderator, NBC’s Matt Lauer (who proved himself unready from Moment 1), grilled Hillary Clinton on her emails—entirely appropriate, but then two of the veterans in the audience also grilled her on the emails. (Were the questions screened?) By the time Lauer got around to asking her about the Iran nuclear deal and she started to explain the deal’s context, he interrupted and urged her to make her answer quick. He did that a couple of times.

Lauer put some challenging questions to Donald Trump as well, asking, for instance, what in his experience made him qualified to be commander-in-chief. He replied, “I built a great company, I’ve been all over the world, I’ve dealt with foreign countries. … I have great judgment, I know what’s going on”—saying (and being asked) nothing about his company’s four bankruptcies, the fleecing of vendors, or the fundamental difference between running a business (where there’s a clear profit-loss tally) and running a country (where there are competing views of what the goals should be).

NBC’s Commander In Chief Forum was a failure

There were no questions about Trump’s recently fired campaign manager and hisshady, likely illegal financial ties to a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine. There were no questions about Trump’s insane posture on nuclear weapons, or his intention toreinstate torture as official policy of the United States, or his enthusiasm for committing war crimes. Lauer did ask, however, if Trump felt he was “prepared” to be commander-in-chief. Trump, you’ll be shocked to learn, said yes.

 As for Hillary Clinton’s portion of the forum, it wasn’t handled much better, nor was it any more enlightening. There were the requisite questions about Clinton’s email server, which resulted in the Democratic presidential nominee spending several minutes discussing the particulars of email headers used in official government communication. After burning his first few questions on email protocols, Lauer prodded Clinton to respond “as briefly as you can” to a question from a veteran in the audience about her threshold for using military force.
Unfair and sexist. 
But on Wednesday night, Trump got some help. Clinton and Donald Trump were making dueling appearances in New York in a live forum hosted by NBC’s Matt Lauer to address subjects including national security, veterans’ welfare, and sexual assault in the military. Here, Clinton was called upon once again to defend her emails, her hawkish foreign policy record — and ultimately answer for her femininity.
In the aftermath Lauer has been widely called out for what many saw as an unfair, sexist approach to moderating.

The Irish Apple Edition

On By southwerkIn Business Ethics

The Irish Apple Edition

Where we discuss what should and should not be done in regard to national borders and taxes.

Apple, the company, exists and does not exist. It exists very firmly in reality if you wish to buy its products or contract for services. It has no legal geographical existence for tax purposes, that is, it cannot be taxed because it has no locality at which it can be taxed. 

Apple in this way is almost identical to the character in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Hotblack Desiato, a rock singer, who is “dead for tax reasons.” Corporate amorality has reproduced Douglas Addams humor. 

It’s fascinating. Modern tax avoidance methods allow multi-nationals to suck up subsidies and the countless benefits of organized societies from education to roads without so much as paying a dime in support. If you were at a safe distance in a society where the tax burden hadn’t been shifted to middle class incomes, it would probably be funny. You’d think, “What kind of silly people would allow that nonsense?” But we are the people whose elected representatives allow and facilitate this kind of “globalism.” 

This is truly wretched business ethics. There is an implied social contract under which we cooperate for the common good and Apple chooses to abuse all of us by evading its responsibility. 

I never get to be consultant or even work very much in the field. And this is because I write these kinds of posts. What is wanted is a general denunciation of workers stealing from their employers or a long winded diatribe aimed a worker sloth. Writing that gets you jobs. Writing that international business acts in many ways as parasitical pirates makes businessmen uneasy about their own morality and beliefs and if there is anything they loath it is doubts about there own worthiness. In their own eyes, they are doing “God’s work” much like the Wehrmacht. 

But tax avoidance is a legitimate subject for business ethics and many, many companies are evading their most basic responsibilities. 

James Pilant

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From the Blog, Random Public Journal

!!!!!!i_00i_00i_152_tn
The Iris Apple Edition

Years of Irish wheeler-dealing directed towards attracting business from multinational corporations has produced an at least morally bankrupt near zero rate of corporate tax. While on the books Ireland has two rates for corporation tax – 12.5% for trading income and 25% for investment income, special deals negotiated by the government with the bigger fish in the Irish pond has resulted in companies like Apple paying no more than 0.005% on declared wealth generated in Ireland. In the last few days the European commission has called last orders on this shady dealing and has called in almost €13 billion in unpaid taxes from Apple.

Ireland – of all European member states – could do with this money. In over a decade of failed state “leprechaun” economics Ireland has found itself in a deep dark hole. Social welfare and spending cuts have ensured that more Irish people emigrate or die as a direct result of these decisions. Lower levels of real employment, zero hour contracts, a housing crisis, and levels of homelessness as high as the years of the Great Famine have brought Ireland to its knees, and yet the suits in government are “outraged” that Europe would dare to help them with their money problems. What they have done instead is take the side of the corporate giant and keep up the policy of screwing Irish people.

From the Guardian’s Matthew Gardner –

!!!i_00i_145_tnThe international tax system is only as strong as its weakest link. This is the clear message that the European Commission sent on Tuesday when it announced that Apple will have to repay as much as €13bn ($14.5bn) in back taxes due to illegal Irish tax breaks it has received.

Tax justice advocates across the globe lauded the decision as a big step toward tax fairness. Unfortunately, an immediate critical response from US lawmakers, coupled with a slick and disingenuous public relations play from Apple CEO Tim Cook, suggests that American taxpayers will probably continue to pay the price for Apple’s tax dodging for some time to come. This is a shame, because the commission’s goal of ending tax haven abuse is one in which the United States should, and ultimately must, be a full participant.

The facts of the Apple case are straightforward: with the blessing of the Irish government, Apple created a byzantine network of subsidiaries to shelter its profits in an entity that was a tax resident of no country. As a result, billions of dollars of Apple’s income have flowed almost tax free through Ireland’s tax system. The European Commission estimates that in 2014, one of Apple’s Irish affiliates paid a tax rate of just 0.005% on its Irish profits.

From Dear Kitty, Some Blog!

Andrew Walker at BBC News

05Was this week a turning point? It has certainly been expensive for the biggest stock-market listed company on the planet.

Of course, Apple can afford that €13bn (£11bn) tax bill that may be heading for the chief financial officer’s in-tray. And who knows whether it will actually have to pay up.

Perhaps the planned appeal will be successful. But it certainly feels like a very important moment in the battle to get multinational businesses to pay what many governments – as well as ordinary people – think would be their fair share of tax.

It is true that this episode has not brought unity among the governments concerned. The United States in particular is livid about the way the European Commission has gone about trying to get Apple to cough up.

But despite the spat, there’s still a degree of underlying common purpose. It is driven in part by a recognition that voters, many of them at least, detest what they see as the devious behaviour of many multinationals and some wealthy individuals.

From Real-World Economics Review (My favorite comment. jp)

!!!i_00i_207_tnIreland (the government plus the private sector) has by far the largest net international debt of all EU countries (measured as a % of GDP). To an extent this is caused because the Irish state was pressured, by its EU friends, to borrow money from other countries to bail out (the creditors of) Irish banks. The large and fast deterioration of the Irish position in 2014 and 2015 might be caused because large international companies finance their Irish headquarters with inter company international debt. But whatever the cause – it is ridiculous that a country like Greece, which is in a much better state when it comes to its net international investment position, is pressured (among others: by Ireland!) to cut pensions, sell government assets and raise taxes – while the Irish government even refuses to collect taxes due.

Apple taxed at 0.005% rate in 2014

013mEarlier the European Commission said Ireland had enabled Apple to pay substantially less than other businesses, in effect paying a corporate tax rate of no more than 1%.

Ireland and Apple both said they disagreed with the record penalty and would appeal against it.

“Member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules,” said Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

The standard rate of Irish corporate tax is 12.5%. The Commissions’s investigation concluded that Apple had effectively paid 1% tax on its European profits in 2003 and about 0.005% in 2014.

Ms Vestager said that the tax agreement reached between Ireland and Apple meant that the company’s taxable profits “did not correspond to economic reality”.