There was a time when corporate America wasn’t a dirty word. When companies took care of their people, paid a fair wage, and provided life’s necessities like health care and pensions. In return, as a people, we were productive. We strove to do our very best, we were loyal to our employers, and WE created the greatest economic super power of the 20th century. Somewhere along this path greed took over, and that is when we started taking sides.

In Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, the catch phrase was “who is John Gault?” This confuses many, but it is simple really. It is a euphemism for “I just don’t care anymore.” “I am so beaten down so why bother.” The anti- business side of the country sees the Rand philosophies as anti-people, anti-worker. The pro-business side of the country sees it as hailing big business and castigating the lazy worker, unions, and all of the entities “they” feel have destroyed our way of life.

My answer to this argument is why people are perplexed by me. Everyone is missing the point!! The point the book is making is that it is not government that will save us, and it is not corporate greed either! What will save us holds even more true today than when the book was written. The book itself was prophetic in what it foretold of the decline in American society AND business. It’s message is clear. It is up to all of us to work together on this. Stop pointing fingers at one another and get it done. The American way!!

So, with this in mind I want to highlight one of my favorite companies; Starbucks. Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, has this to say:

” I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It’s seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It’s seeing what other people don’t see And pursuing that vision.”

More importantly he has backed up his words. A few months ago he began producing and selling $5 bracelets in his stores, and online, with the idea that it is the responsibility of corporate America to help bring this country back. What a novel idea? Someone taking responsibility? How un-American???!!! NO. That is exactly what we are made of. THAT is MY America. The one I was always so proud of. Mr. Schultz is following the same principles as corporate giants Dagny Taggart and Hank Reardon from Atlas Shrugged.

The moral to this story is that we need to stop running around saying “who is John Gault?”, and get out there and change things. So, YES I support the Occupy Wall Street movement, and YES I support corporate giants like Howard Schultz. There is no confusion or dichotomy in my thinking. I am not all “left” or all “right.” I am for America, and our people, and hard work, and productivity, and working together, and helping one another. OUT with the corporate greed of the 80s and 90s and first decade of the 21st century. Let’s get back to working together. Time for corporations to treat their people right, and for loyalty to be given in return. It is a two way street.

What is the meaning of the title Atlas Shrugged? Atlas was us, America during and post WWII, and at some point we threw our hands up in the air and said “I just don’t care anymore.” Start caring or fail.

Her mother, unemployed and destitute, with two young children tried in vain to get food stamps. She wasn’t asking for billions of dollars in financial bailouts or free money to support a drug habit. She was asking for food stamps, to which she was legally entitled to feed her children. The system, in four states, let her down. She had moved to Texas, and in one final attempt had found rejection once again so she took her children, barefoot and hungry down to Health and Human Services. This time, however, she brought backup. A loaded gun.

Rachelle Grimmer, 38, and her two children stood in the office while she pointed a gun after being refused one more time because of red tape. A spokeswoman for the department stated that Grimmer hadn’t been rejected. “She had just received a notice that her case was closed, since she did not provide all of the necessary documentation during the department’s 30-day time frame and that she absolutely could have applied again.”  After a five hour standoff Rachelle shot her two children and then herself. She died at the scene, and her children are in critical condition. Earlier in the standoff little Ramie Marie, 12, had posted to Facebook at an office computer “may die 2day.”

She missed the 30 day deadline. Rules are rules. That is departmental policy. Of course she could have applied again the spokeswoman compassionately reminded reporters, and she was right. Those are the rules. We are a capitalist society. Suck it up. Follow the rules. Every man for himself, and that applies to all of us. Oh, wait. Not ALL of us. Only the poor, the troubled, the weak.  When the weak animals are captured and killed in Africa it is called culling the herd because it has gotten so big and out of control. I suppose that is just what we are doing too.

FOOD! A basic necessity. A loaf of bread, and cup of water. Shoes on their little feet. Are we not better than this?! What has become of our society that people from HEALTH and HUMAN SERVICES refuse to provide the very service they are tasked with giving. To drive a desperate mother to murder/suicide all because rules were not followed to the letter? Perhaps she was too hungry or had no way to get to the office or a myriad of other issues. These were starving children, and NO ONE cared! She could have applied again the spokeswoman cried. Really?! Seriously?! And what were her starving children supposed to do until the paperwork got put through and her food stamps were issued?

What have we become?! Where did we go wrong?! Our founding father’s are turning in their graves at the state of the state. My brother, who fought for our freedom and way of life is turning in his grave. Where is our “hope” Mr. President? I voted for you. I believed in you. Where is our “compassion” for fellow man Congress? WHY are people falling through the cracks, children starving, people desperate with fear?

The banks are fat and happy, and America is dying. My America. The one I have cherished all my life. I am disgusted! I am angry! I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of the way things are done here! I am sick of the top 1% of my America deciding what the rest of us have to “live” with. THIS is NOT MY America, and I don’t want her anymore if she is like this. We either stand up and fight or we die trying.

We feel good because the head of the cockroach called Al Qaeda has been cut off, but as any entomologist will confirm, a cockroach can thrive for weeks without it’s own head. And so it goes with this growing organism of hate and terror. Yes…Osama bin Laden is dead, but Al Qaeda is not, and there are millions in the wings waiting to avenge his death. The truth is, no single human being can be blamed or held accountable for all the evil happening in the name of some misguided set of beliefs any more than we can credit President Obama with single handedly ending the war on terror.

Good versus evil will exist as long as mankind inhabits this planet. There will be times of apparent peace, but conflict will always exist. The death of bin Laden will not end Islamic fundamentalism and terror any more than the death of Hitler ended attacks against Jews across the globe or the death of Habyarimana stopped Hutus and Tutsis from slaughtering each other in Rwanda.  These are figure heads that get the crowd going with their charisma, but it is the festering hate within us all that leads us to believe right versus wrong is always on our own side. Perhaps the celebrating going on across the country over the killing of bin Laden is justified, but let us remember that as we celebrate, those that despise us mourn much as we did on that fateful warm September day in 2001.

The people have begun to revolt in what seemed to come out of left field for most experts and pundits. Crowds began filling Tharir Square in a peaceful protest against the Mubarak regime, and until pro government protesters appeared there was little violence. All said, the protests have gone very well, and even the hard-line Muslim Brotherhood has been a very small part of the scene. What are they asking for? Democracy. And as Americans we always get behind people protesting for Democracy. We want people to have what we have, but the warning is out to both Egyptians and Americans. Our form of Democracy was hard won and is long standing, but is also part of our basic make-up. We have been well steeped in democracy for over 230 years, and we know the ropes in keeping democracy strong. But, let the warnings now be heard for both Egyptians and Americans. Beware of what you wish for…

Fighting for democracy is what we as Americans value almost above all else for the people of the rest of the world, and we stand beside you in your fight for self rule. What people too often forget, however, is history. The rocky road of democracy in the world is something we should not forget. We must remember how many theocracies, dictators, and otherwise frightening regimes were elected via democratic processes. The list is long.

Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was elected democratically. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was elected democratically. And we all know what happened in Iran after an overthrowing of the Shah by pro democracy protesters. Yes, democracy is a good thing, but only when it operates in a lateral fashion and not in a typical top down fashion as most do. The history books are full of oppressed people demanding democracy only to end up with a dictator destroying their lives and the country they love.

So the lesson here for Egypt is to tread lightly. We applaud your desire for democracy, but be careful not to put all your faith in a single person to lead you into utopia. Democracy is not easy. By its very nature it is subject to the dangers of “electing” the devious, power hungry, and self serving. Let us not forget Lord Acton’s prophetic words from 1887 “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” So do not walk away from the fight thinking you have won and the party can begin. NOW is when the real work begins or you will send your historic nation into the abyss.

Their names are Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping. No doubt you cannot pronounce the names, but I ask you to remember them. Now, before you get ready to stand on your moral high ground let’s take a look at what they did.

They were businessmen, and by fortune found themselves in the middle of China’s economic revolution running full steam ahead to a  mixed economy (market economy for those of you that only read western news sources). They each were involved in the milk trade; Jinping managed a milk production center while Yujun was a manufacturer. A lucrative business for an economically thriving society. So what went wrong?

These two businessmen, in a heightened sense of greed amidst a burgeoning “market”* economy, found a way to make their product appear more desirable to a consumer hungry nation. They manufactured, marketed, and sold what they called a protein powder, and they put this powder into the milk supply. This protein powder was actually made from melamine and maltodextrin. Melamine gives a false reading of high protein, but it is a toxic chemical that in higher doses can cause renal failure, and so it did. Six children died and almost 300,000 other people fell ill in varying degrees.

Wow, a bad business decision; an error in judgement; a greed driven parable that finds otherwise good people trying to keep up with the Jones’ or in this case the Li’s perhaps. It is nothing more than the antics U.S. business people find themselves doing, and we don’t execute people for that. Heck, if we did we would have to put half of Wall Street in front of a firing squad. Not to mention the leaders of places like Boeing, PG&E and hundreds of others. Medical insurance company heads alone would be quaking in their boots. Pharmaceutical CEOs would be heading for the border. Isn’t it great that we are so civilized?

Now let me knock you off your principled pedestal. The Chinese defense lawyers blamed the government for not paying attention. To quote one, “it’s the food supervision and inspection authorities that are responsible for this.” It was inferred that the greedy client was not to be blamed, despite knowing the harm it would cause, because it is someone else’s responsibility to catch them. This sounds a little familiar to me. Our own banking industry championed the same exact reasoning!! That’s strange.

Now, our Wall Street and former White House cronies didn’t kill six children, at least not directly. But, can we not indirectly blame them for hundreds of people that have taken their lives, thousands that are on the streets, and millions out of work? China makes an example of this type of crime.  An eye for an eye. Sure we could do this too, but don’t worry guys because we don’t execute our white collar criminals even if their actions are a catalyst. We are better than that. We reward them with bailouts and bonuses.

Don’t you just love capitalism?

*Although the west claims China is becoming a market economy, the most they can hope to achieve is a mixed economy. While maintaining a Communist government, a free market economy is not possible. China themselves only state their desire to be a mixed and not a market economy.

As an economist, I take this seriously. I realize the government is trying anything to get the economy back on track, but seriously folks in D.C. Did you really think that money would find its way down from Wall Street to Main street? A trickle down theory of economics is good, and has at times been successful; however, not when greed and corruption are rampant. This is where my common sense becomes inflamed. The government knew very well that corruption had caused the banks to crumble. Why then would they pour $700 BILLION into a corrupt institution?

Did we need a stimulus? Yes. Do we still need a stimulus? Yes, because main street is still suffering. Unemployment is quickly approaching 16% in places like Michigan, but even in California it is continuously creeping up. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics it rose again to over 12% in September. In fact, that is only “registered” unemployment and not actual figures. It does not account for those that are underemployed or are not eligible for unemployment compensation such as the formerly self employed. If we counted those workers the numbers would more than likely approach  at least the 20% – 25% level. As of the latest September statistics, long term unemployment (those unemployed more than 27 weeks) rose to 5.4 million people. Does this sound like a recovery? Does this resemble a successful stimulus?

Although I was not a fan of the previous administration, I am also one to give credit where credit is due. The decision to give a stimulus to the people, in the form  of a $600.00 check, was a step in the right direction. It was designed to “stimulate” consumer spending, but it did not do the trick and was therefore deemed a failure. That was also part of the design. The administration needed to be able to point to a failure of the trickle up theory of economics. The failure was in the fact that the amount was ridiculous. If anyone thought that $600 in a person’s hand was going to do anything but pay a bill or two they were sadly mistaken. Very few people ran out and went on a shopping spree with a paltry $600, and thus consumer spending continued to drop. See, trickle up doesn’t work so let’s try trickle down and give big business billions said the guys in charge. Whew, aren’t we glad they tried? Don’t we feel better now?

Why not try this President Obama? How about taking the beginning amount of $700 billion and divide it by the 250 million adults in the U.S.? MAYBE, even add another $700 billion to the mix, which is probably closer to the amount that will actually end up being poured into our failing economy. Divide all of that by 250 million adults and watch how they spend their $5,600 windfall. Yes, people will pay down a bit of their debt like they did with the $600, but they will definitely go out and spend some of that much larger check. How do I know this? Because it is human nature. Sociology 101 for a consumer nation, and especially with the holidays right around the corner.

Trickle down did not work. What do you say we give trickle up a “real” try, and watch our economy start to right itself with a genuine stimulus?!

BLS (Oct. 21, 2009), Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary. Retrieved Oct. 23 from

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm

The new film by Michael Moore, Capitalism, A Love Story, did not really say anything different from what I  have been talking about for many years now. While I am not necessarily always a fan of his tactics, he does have some very insightful things to say. Capitalism is failing.

For almost a year now we have been hearing Wall Street wail as loud as they can for help so we bailed them out despite the knowledge that they created the disaster themselves by virtue of unethical business practices and greed. The idea was such that pouring taxpayer money into badly managed, unethical, parasitic banking institutions would save the economy, our beloved free market system, and give them more money to loan. The trickle down theory of economics in practice, but it is not trickling down and never will. Therein lies obvious as well as less apparent problems.

By the very definition of capitalism and free market economy it is survival of the fittest. This is what Wall Street has been espousing far longer than I am alive.  But wait! Apparently that does not apply to Wall Street itself, and the rest of us never got the memo. If it did apply they would have insisted that inferior institutions be allowed to fall in order to make way for the stronger ones, but they didn’t. All of a sudden they had their hands out with fear mongering speeches decrying the end of America. The best part is that we the American public, and our government, all drank the Kool-Aid. We buy into fear. It unites us. It gets us to agree to things that we later scratch our collective heads in wonderment over. If the previous eight years can be pointed to as an example it is not surprising we find ourselves in a similar position today, and those that reap the rewards stand laughing.

Just a few days ago I ended up in a conversation with an otherwise intelligent man that begged me to understand that the United States financial system was hours away from “Armageddon.” Armageddon?! Does this not wreak of familiar pulpit driven tactics to control the masses from thoughts of upheaval? Of course, the moment he began spouting his vitriol I correctly guessed that he was an investment banker by trade.What was there to understand? Where is their free market, capitalist model now? I do not see small business being bailed out, and small business employs the bulk of Americans. Small businesses are failing at record rates because of the mess that Wall Street created.

I am not saying I disagree with a free market system, but left unchecked as it has been since WWII it is doomed to self destruct. The fact that our economy has been in free fall has not been remotely solved by the big bailout, but why? That is what they promised after all. The answer is simple. Our form of capitalism breeds greed. We can look back to Lord Acton’s famous quote; “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” This is why my recent debate opponent sees nothing wrong with the bailout or the huge sums being given out as bonuses to the very people that did a poor job to begin with. It is not that he is a “bad man” as Lord Acton would suggest, but he is employed by some. If the rest of us had driven our companies into the ground we would surely not be given bonuses.

This folks is capitalism, but it is not democracy. They are mutually exclusive from one another despite what we are too often told. It is not democracy it is plutocracy, which is the form of government rampant, unchecked capitalism is best suited for. By definition plutocracy is “government by the wealthy.” Sound familiar?

According to several real estate websites the mean home price in Palos Verdes, CA is just under $1 million. The mean home price in Big Tujunga, CA is between $400,000 – $500,000.  If property taxes are assessed at around 1% we can easily see that between the two areas Palos Verdes is the big ticket item for the state.  A state in dire financial crisis I might add.

Right now you are saying “that can’t be!” How can a professor of business ethics jump on the accusatory bandwagon of alleging financial favoritism? Has the latest news story gotten to her head without doing the research? Have conspiracy theorists invaded her cerebellum? No. Quite the contrary. I am not jumping on a bandwagon, not a conspiracy theorist, but most importantly am speaking from personal observation.

What the residents of Big Tujunga are claiming rings true. Almost every other year now I have been evacuated from my own canyon home above Chatsworth, CA due to raging, out of control fires. I am not complaining about this fact because I accept the pitfalls of living in paradise. Four years ago we were evacuated and I attended an NBC news conference being held by Mayor Villaraigosa and the fire chief just below the canyon. They proudly announced to the crowd and the cameras how the water drops were taking place at that very moment in Bell canyon. Now, this would have been good, but the homes most in danger were in Box and Woolsey Canyons. The fire had not even reached Bell canyon at that point, but rest assured those homes were protected while not one water drop had occurred in Box or Woolsey. When I confronted the mayor about this he hemmed and hawed so I pressed the point and inquired as to whether the higher property taxes in Bell canyon had anything to do with why we were not receiving the needed water drops. While watching the television camera go from my face to his repeatedly he appeared to be a deer caught in the headlights then sputtered out that he would personally go check on our homes. To his credit he did just that, but I wanted water drops like Bell Canyon was getting not a mayoral visit. We did begin to get water drops just minutes after his trip up our canyon, and I am not saying definitively it was because of my confrontation, but I also don’t believe in coincidences.

So, when I saw Bert Voorhees, resident of a burnt out home in Big Tujunga Canyon, make his claims on the news today I gave a silent cheer and ran to my blog. After all, I have a blog on ethics and what could be more unethical than greed on the part of our government? Some may argue that it makes financial sense. I say garbage! It is not okay, nor is it ethical to decide whose home gets saved by the value of their property tax! Next thing you know the government will decide whose life is worth saving by how much money they have. Uh oh, they already do that. It’s called health care and war.

I guess I was busy this morning lamenting the America we see today, and sad at the thought that I don’t think our parents and grandparents would be proud of us. Those that lived through the depression and fought in WWII gave their lives so that we could enjoy the life that we have today, but somehow, somewhere along the way much of it was squandered. GM, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists as an American company. Chrysler is in the process of being sold to Fiat, and who knows how long Ford will hold on. These were powerhouses of American industry, and now what? Hummers made in China, Chryslers made by a company that hasn’t been able to sell a car in the U.S. for more than twenty years and is not considered to be top notch. What is next?

If we want to ask ourselves why we have to do a combination of things. Yes, we need to look in the mirror, but it is far more than just a turn away from “buying American.” It has been a long time since these companies have given us something worthy of buying. While foreign car companies were being innovative American car makers were giving us more of the same and losing focus on the customer. They were late to the game of hybrids, still producing oversized monsters designed to make soccer moms and underachievers feel powerful, and providing such low quality in order to get the customer buying more frequently. This was not and is not the American way, and yet somehow it became the American business model in a relatively short time for Detroit and others.

Two years ago I finally shook the invisible cultural shackles I had been raised with and purchased my first foreign vehicle, and I have never been happier. The first thing I noticed is that I am treated like a valuable customer; something that had been lost along the way in my years of dealing with GM and Chrysler. Simply said, they stand by their product. The last American car I had happened to be a convertible and when the rag top blew off after only a year and a half they told me it was my problem because it was “not a covered item.” In my foreign car I have been to the dealer twice in two years. Both times were for a “yearly” oil change. That’s right; YEARLY.

My father is still alive at the ripe old age of 78 and will probably live to well over a hundred at the rate he is going. He spent many years in the auto industry and helped to frame my “All American” girl persona. Is he proud of what has happened? No, and the sad part….he also drives a foreign car.

What is our obsession with the gruesome details? Why is human nature such that we just cannot look away? And why in the world would a California Highway patrolman find it necessary to send these pictures to friends and then have them end up all over the internet? Can we say common decency?

As this story unfolds, and the case winds its way through the court system let us accept that this behavior, while not currently illegal, is unethical to say the least. Surely there must be something else for people to obsess about that is not quite so vile. It is bad enough that people read the rag magazines about the famous and infamous, but leave this poor child and her family alone. Haven’t they suffered enough?