It was a bad, bad week. The business iniquities, stupidities and damned incompetence were on full display. It didn’t just rain business ethics problems, it was more of a thunderstorm.
So, I have instead of trying to cover all that very wide ground, I have picked out a few topics I thought more interesting than the rest. We must begin with the wretched murderer, O.J. Simpson, a solid demonstration how powerful friends and money perverts the scales of justice.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/apr/13/oj-simpson-payout-estate-goldman-family-civil-judgment
O.J. Simpson was a remorseless murderer, spousal abuser and all around scoundrel. The Goldman family deserve every last dime of his fortune. That is simple basic ethics.
Taken directly from the article above:
“Enough is enough. Endless scrolling is rewiring our teenagers’ brains,” added Gena Kakkak, chairwoman of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin. “We are demanding these social media corporations take responsibility for intentionally creating dangerous features that ramp up the compulsive use of social media by the youth on our Reservation.”
It is not just the tribe, it is all of the United States and much of the world suffers because social media has no social responsibility and virtually legal limitations on what they can do. They have unleashed unfettered capitalism, grifting and savage manipulation across the planet. And made many billions of dollars in the process. The saddest thing is that for many of our ruling class those billions obscure any moral or ethical needs to act because for them money is only indicator of virtue.
For many in the United States, the community status of librarians, teachers and school administration has been a barrier to their attempts to shatter, destroy and diminish public education.
In order to deal with this “problem,” these individuals and considerable number of radical organizations have embarked on an organized take down of the listed professions.
Slander and libel have become valuable tools in this regard. Calling educators, “groomers,” was a first step in damaging the moral, ethical community status of these people.
But they are not stopping there, criminalizing behavior associated with books and curriculum – and once again, slandering and libeling teachers, librarians and administrators as purveyors of obscene materials (like “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “To Kill a Mockingbird”) are the next step. The goal is, of course, to get a few librarians and teachers thrown in jail or prison. These events will be used for fund raising and the encouragement of new laws allowing parental lawsuits and further criminalization of those professions.
That this is evil, immoral, unethical and unworthy of any decent human being is self-evident.
https://www.vox.com/24121372/college-tuition-enrollment-minnesota
Minnesota froze tuition at public colleges and for in-state students, whose families makes less than $80,000 a year, will start paying tuition and fees this fall after allowing for grants and scholarships.
Every state can do this. Let’s get rid of the specter and horror of student loans for the bulk of the middle class – and get people through college.
Directly from the article: Consumer Reports said sodium levels in the store-bought lunch and snack kits it tested ranged from 460 to 740 milligrams per serving, or “nearly a quarter to half of a child’s daily recommended limit for sodium.” The group found that sodium levels in the turkey and cheddar school versions of Lunchables contained 930 mg of sodium compared to 740 mg in the store-bought version.
We should not be feeding this stuff to children. It’s wrong.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/billionaire-brothers-bankroll-education-programs-000000351.html
Farris and Dan Wilks have been sending millions of dollars to encourage the belief that global warming is a natural phenomenon and destined by God. Among those receiving the money is our old friends at Prager U who suggested that those who advocate for the environment are just like the Nazis.
I have a real curiosity about this. You see those who denied the damage caused by opiates and tobacco, they made bundles of money and then successfully moved on to lines of disinformation but what will happen to these people after the first million die in the coming climate catastrophes? Or the first billion? Or just when the surface temperature in the middle United States hits the mid 130’s?
There might be some anger.
The Dark Secret Behind Grocery Store Rotisserie Chicken (msn.com)
This was a major disappointment. I was all excited about the “dark secret.” I was thinking maybe additives, contamination, you know, business ethics stuff. What I got was — when regular chickens in the meat section get close to expiration they get used for rotisserie chicken.
When I read the phrase, “dark secret,” it sort of implied that maybe Voldemort was cooking them or they were a by product of the Empire in Star Wars, or maybe they were Nazi or Commie chickens, you know, cooked birds with a strong political bent.
But no, they are just close to expiration before being cooked.
My thanks to my kind readers. Have a wonderful and fulfilling new week (hopefully better than this one).
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 