Business & Commercial

Unethical and Unjust Firing of the Week: The MSNBC Cheerios Tweeter

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

CheeriosWhen reader Scott Jacobs sent me a link to the now infamous MSNBC tweet that presumed that all “right-wingers,” which in MSNBC Universe means anyone who doesn’t want to put Barack Obama on Mount Rushmore, were horrified by the very existence of bi-racial families, I honestly didn’t understand what he was telling me.  MSNBC’s official position is that Republicans are racists, so he couldn’t have been referring to that….everybody knows that. (“But did you know Old McDonald was a really bad speller?”) And what racists approve of bi-racial families? So the tweet wasn’t illogical or dealing in rationalizations. The tweet—oh, here it is:

“Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family” Continue reading →

The State Of The Union Deceptions

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Pinocchio_Disney

Washington Post Factchecker Glenn Kessler has become increasingly non-partisan in his assessment of political decsption since the sheen fell off of Barack Obama. He’s not there yet, but increasingly Kessler has refused to pull his punches regarding the President’s habitual dissembling. Although he did not give out any of his trademark “Pinocchios” for the biggest whoppers in Tuesday’s State of the Union message (ah, for the days when a blunt President Ford had the integrity to  say, “The State of the Union is not good!”) because, well, he just doesn’t on the State of the Union, okay?—Kessler did point out six significant examples of deceit, dishonesty, or misrepresentation:

 I.   “The more than eight million new jobs our businesses have created over the past four years.” Continue reading →

KABOOM! Bloomberg: “Well, I Hear These Guys Do A Good Job, So Let’s Give The Contract To Them!”

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

head_explodes

From an exclusive in the New York Daily News:

“In one of its final acts, the Bloomberg administration pushed through a costly contract to modernize the city’s 311 call system — hiring the same company fired by the feds for the botched rollout of the Obamacare website. The city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, known as DoITT, awarded the contract to the Montreal-based company CGI on Dec. 31, hours before Bill de Blasio was sworn in as mayor.”

This isn’t even an incompetent U.S. company. It’s based in Montreal. Continue reading →

Ethics Heroes: The New York Yankees

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Yankees Wallpaper

You know how hard it is for the co-creator of “Pennant Pursuit, the Boston Red Sox Trivia Game” to write this.

It can’t be avoided though. The New York Yankees have, and not for the first time, upon reflection, demolished the oft-stated accusation that Major League Baseball is no longer a sport, but a business. This was always a false dichotomy, for from the days of rag-tag 19th Century baseball to the present, The Great American Pastime That Does Not Require You To Cheer Young Athletes Guaranteeing That They Will Spend Their Retirement In A Brain-Damage Haze has always been both, with each side constantly yielding to the other.

Coming off a disappointing season (the all-time most successful team in pro sports history missed the playoffs for only the second time in 19 years) and faced with an aging, injured, question mark-filled roster despite the highest payroll in the game ($228,995,945; the Houston Astros, in contrast, spend about 24 million, or less that the Yankees paid their steroid cheating third-baseman), and faced with baseball’s team salary luxury tax, which charges teams with a payroll exceeding 189 million for every dollar over it, the Yankees discarded their announced business plan of cutting back on salaries to avoid the tax threshold, and instead went on a spending binge. They snapped up most of the top free agent stars peddling their wares this winter, committing themselves to a staggering boost in contract obligations that will approach a half-billion dollars by the time the dust clears. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Marriage Mark-Up

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

Wedding reception

The New York Times published a feature in December exposing how hotels and wedding service vendors typically charge more to couples planning wedding festivities than they do to corporations seeking the same facilities and the same services. Is the result of  gauging, market forces, negotiation inexperience by the happy couple, or something else? Is it unethical?

The article seems to conclude that the vendors are simply taking advantage of purchasers who have no sensitivity to price, especially so-called “Bridezillas.” They want what they want for their perfect day, and will pay whatever it will cost to get it. Are the venders being unethical to take advantage of what is an emotional rather than a rational mindset? After considering whether more price transparency in the wedding industry would help (the author thinks not), the piece concludes,

“Strong consumer preferences — about the flower type, bridesmaid dress, cake decorations, music style, whatever — mean less price sensitivity (what economists refer to as greater demand inelasticity). If the cocktail napkins must be blue, the happy couple will be willing to pay more for blue. So if there are enough brides out there with strong and specific preferences, who want their weddings to be the special day they always dreamed of, that’s going to push equilibrium prices higher, no matter how transparently they are displayed. In other words, the Bridezillas keep prices high for the rest of us.” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Pro Track Star Lauren Fleshman

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Lauren Fleshman

Lauren Fleshman is a 31-year-old track star whose attractive looks have garnered her product sponsorships, magazine covers and fashion show appearances. Thus it represents a noble sacrifice for her to choose to reveal the truth about her beauty and fitness—that she’s human, and is not as perfect a specimen of the species as the media would lead us to believe.

On her blog, Fleshman struck a blow against vanity and for the acceptance of realistic and healthy female body images by exposing the kinds of photos of glamorous athletes like her that the public isn’t usually permitted to see. Images like this… Continue reading →

Translation For Norwegians: “Oh, Please. We’re The United States Of America. Why Should We Care About Sweden…er, Norway? Whatever.”

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments
I hear he really likes fish, though, and roots for the Vikings.

I hear he really likes fish, though, and roots for the Vikings.

Stipulated: Ambassador to Norway is not the most vital foreign relations post the Obama Administration has to fill. Also stipulated: if one assumes that the quality of U.S. appointee naturally diminishes down the line from the most important diplomatic position to the least, and the top position is filled with the likes of John Kerry, one might assume that Norwegians would be relieved that the post of U.S. Ambassador to Norway wasn’t being filled by a used lawn chair. The final stipulation is that there is nothing unique or unusual about a U.S. President filling a high diplomatic post with someone manifestly unqualified for the job by anything other than the size of their contributions to his re-election. This is not only a case of “everybody does it,” but also “everybody has been doing it shamelessly for about 200 years.”

With all of that stated and understood, it is still impossible to avoid the ethical conclusions that…

  • The performance of President Obama’s selection as Ambassador to Norway in his Senate confirmation hearing was a disgrace and an embarrassment, even by the prior low standards of past appointees.
  • Appointing such an obviously unqualified, and indeed lazy and uninterested, U.S. ambassador to any locale with more human occupants than Sesame Street is irresponsible.
  • Doing so is an insult to Norway, and, by extension, its population, friends, and neighbors, which..
  • Makes the government of the United States look arrogant and  foolish, which…

Ethics Dunce: Justin Bieber Enabler, Adidas

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
today-justin-bieber-mugshot

You have to admit, the kid takes a great mugshot…

Sure, why wouldn’t a multinational athletic shoe company want an irresponsible, sociopathic drunken creep as the face of its product?

With any half-ethical company, the news that the celebrity it is paying a fortune to endorse its wares to consumers has just completed a six month period of embarrassments with an arrest for drag-racing under the influence would be followed immediately with a pink slip and an apology. Not Adidas.

No, despite the news of the continued unraveling of the 19-year-old Justin Bieber,—previously seen egging his next door neighbor’s home—who seems determined to emulate the worst of spoiled child idol cautionary tales, Adidas announced that Bieber is still their boy, which means that it is still promoting him as an icon and role model, and officially communicating the position that a teen’s impaired driving is no big deal—certainly nothing to lower the teen’s status in the eyes of a major corporation. The company also signaled that it doesn’t care if its ethical shrug amounts to enabling and rewarding The Bieb’s self-destructive behavior, increasing the burgeoning odds that he ends up in the gutter, on a slab, or wort of all, in a pathetic reality show before he’s 30.

I know, I know: the company is taking a wait and see stance, which only means it is venal and irresponsible, and if Jeffrey Dahmer was their official Adidas-wearing superstar, and the kids who buy Adidas shoes didn’t care who he ate, Adidas would keep paying him millions too.

In these situations you only get one chance to show that you care about the values and conduct you endorse, and Adidas already missed it. It has no values.

But I guess most of us already knew that.

(I saw this coming, you know…)

___________________________________

Sources: TMZ, The Province

Reluctant Self-Promotion Dept.: An Honor From Trust Across America

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Trust

I am directed by management to announce to you all that your Ethics Alarms host was recently honored by Trust Across America, whose co-founder and Executive Director Barbara Kimmel often weighs in here. The inspiring non-profit organization, which pursues the crucial mission of enhancing trustworthy behavior in organizations, annually names its Top 100 Thought Leaders In Trustworthy Business, and I made the 2014 list, which is a distinguished one. For example, it also includes Charles H. Green, whose commentaries on posts here often enhance the site.

The list is described on the TAA site this way:

“While there are many “top” lists and awards, none specifically address trustworthy business – perhaps because the word “trust” presents a definitional challenge. For five years Trust Across America has been working with a growing team of experts to study, define and quantify organizational trust. During the course of our research, we have met with and spoken to hundreds of experts, across a variety of professional disciplines who, when their efforts are combined, help create trustworthy organizations. As our understanding of trust deepens, so does our pool of exceptional candidates. Many of the honorees are well-known CEOs and leadership experts, while others are quietly working behind the scenes as teachers and researchers. We intend to shine the spotlight on both groups, to redirect the focus from the “scandal of the day” to the trustworthy leaders and organizations of the day.”

I could not be more grateful, honored or humble (hey, I can be humble!), and I want to thank Barbara and her organization for this recognition and encouragement. Trust, as I write here often, really is the essential goal of ethics, for without trust, productive human society is impossible. We have a very long way to go to repair the fraying societal and institutional trust now plaguing America, but groups like Trust Across America give me hope that the task is not impossible, just daunting. I do believe that together, by setting and maintaining high standards and not allowing ourselves to be distracted by biases and rationalizations, a more trusting, ethical world is within reach.

The Reasonable, Ethical Firing of Maria Conchita Alonso

/ Jack Marshall / 63 Comments

V_logo_currenteventsOnce again we confront a variation of the “Duck Dynasty” issue of entertainers losing their jobs over their expression of political, religious or other opinions that have nothing to do with their performances.

Actress María Conchita Alonso, who has been an outspoken advocate of conservative  policies on occasion, was recruited by the camp of the Tea Party candidate for governor of California, Tim Donnelly, to appear in a campaign video.  Donnelly is a hardliner on illegal immigration, or as supporters of open borders and stolen U.S. benefits of citizenship like to call it to blur the issues, “undocumented workers.”  Following the ad’s debut, many Hispanic residents of San Francisco protested and threatened to boycott the Brava Theater Center’s production of a Spanish-language version of “The Vagina Monologues,” which was starred the actress.

Not any more. Alonso “resigned”from the cast—actually she was the cast, since “The Vagina Monologues” is a one actress show—which means she was forced to quit or be fired. Continue reading →