Business & Commercial

Funniest Unethical Quote of the Week: The New York Post

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

“The precise reason that Biden is struggling to find top-dollar audiences is unclear.”

—The New York Post, in a report on the former President’s attempt to bill $300,000 per speaking appearance.

The “precise reason” is incredibly clear! Not only that, but the Post’s story is clear about what that reason is. For example, this passage: “Biden’s use of “colored” to refer to black people while speaking at a disability conference in Chicago earlier this week has some former aides hoping he will spend more time at his Rehoboth Beach house. ‘This was hard to watch,’ said one former White House official. ‘It felt like seeing someone you care about start to regress. We just wanted him to enjoy retirement like other presidents — not go out like this.'”

The man is suffering from progressive dementia, and has been for years. He was never especially bright to begin with. Biden has little or no influence now, and was an embarrassment as President. Decision-makers for any organization that paid $300,000 for Biden to stumble through a speech written by someone else would be liable for breach of fiduciary duties.

I suppose having him speak might be a draw for the same kinds of people who watched poor Anna Nicole Smith’s reality show, as the late obese and alcoholic model/actress/gold-digger stumbled through each episode, slurring her words and looking ridiculous. It was kind of like watching a geek bite the heads off of live chickens at a carnival: witnessing complate human degradation makes som feel better about themselves. But no carnival paid geeks a $300,000 salary.

I was trying to think of a former President of the United States whom I wouldn’t rather hear speak than Joe Biden. There isn’t any. How could there be? Yeah, it’s a real mystery why Joe’s agents are having trouble finding suckers willing to pay $300,000, plus expenses, for the privilege of assessing how far his dementia has progressed.

Ethics Drama at RT’s

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

RT’s is a local eatery about five minutes from my house. It specializes in seafood and Cajun/Creole dishes; its she-crab soup is the best I have ever slurped. My house guest—lets call him “Bert”—took me to lunch in celebration of progress we have made on a joint project, the substance of which is irrelevant to the tale.

The RT’s food and service were, as always, terrific, but while we were waiting for dessert, a middle-aged woman, shabbily dressed, came up to our table and asked for money, saying she was hungry. She asked Bert for money, and he said he would be happy to buy her a sandwich. She said she wanted the money so she could buy her own food, and was getting agitated.

Bert finally gave in, and handed her 20 bucks. After she left, he said that he was worried that she might cause a scene, and that it was worth the price to defuse the situation. Our waitress then ran over to our table and apologized profusely, saying the woman had been appearing and bothering diners lately, and that Bert shouldn’t have encouraged her by giving her cash. He told the waitress what he told me: he had felt trapped, and that giving her money seemed like the safest and quickest way to address the problem.

When the waitress brought our check, she told Bert that, again, she was very sorry, and that she had taken twenty dollars off the charges to compensate for us having to deal with a homeless woman. He told her that it wasn’t her fault and that the gesture was unnecessary; she responded that it was the restaurant’s responsibility to protect diners from such intrusions. Bert said that he wanted to give her the $20, and again, she refused.

When he paid the bill, however, he added ten dollars to her tip.

I think everyone did the right thing eventually, at least if the homeless woman really used the money to buy food.

Didn’t they?

The Guardian’s Blue Origin Flight Critique: Into The Mind of America Haters, Where No One Rational Has Gone Before!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

What a fascinating article from the British hard left tabloid “The Guardian!” Simultaneously taking aim at a legitimate target and exploding into a furious attack on the United States and Donald Trump, it is invaluable for plumbing the depths of how the extreme progressive Left takes in information, filtering it through a confirmation bias to reach false but—for them—comforting conclusions. Stephen Green nailed some of what’s wrong here, “writer Moira Donegan’s utter lack of self-awareness while decrying our lack of self-awareness.” She uses Blue Origin’s all-female passenger flight to as evidence of U.S. decline, but the too-obvious-to-mention reality is that the U.S. has more than one private company capable of putting humans into space, and the crumbling U.K. can’t come close to producing the same.

How can an essay be simultaneously astute and idiotic at the same time? Easy. Donegan accurately writes that for the most part, the high visibility female celebrities taking this expensive joy ride embarrassed themselves and their sex by acting like sorority girls exclaiming, “Like, omigawd! Stars!” Leaving out the gratuitous political shots, Donegan writes in part,

Space used to be a frontier for human exploration, a fount of innovation, and a symbol of a bright, uncertain and expansive future. Now, it is a backdrop for the Instagram selfies of the rich and narcissistic….the flight, and its grim promotional cycle, might be most depressing for what it reveals about the utter defeat of American feminism. Sánchez, the organizer of the flight, has touted the all-female crew as a win for women. But she herself is a woman in a deeply antifeminist model. It is not her rocket company that took her and her friends to the edge of space; it’s her male fiance’s. And it is no virtue of her character that put her inside the rocket – not her capacity, not her intellect and not her hard work – but merely her relationship with a man….There are at least two women on the mission who can be credited as serious persons: Aisha Bowe, an aerospace engineer, and Amanda Nguyen, a civil rights entrepreneur…But most of the crew’s self-presentation and promotion of the flight has leaned heavily on a vision of women’s empowerment that is light on substance and heavy on a childlike, girlish silliness that insults women by cavalierly linking their gender with superficiality, vanity and unseriousness. In an interview with Elle, the crew members paid lip service to the importance of women…but mostly, they seemed interested in talking about their makeup and hair. “Space is going to finally be glam,” Katy Perry said…“Let me tell you something. If I could take glam up with me, I would do that. We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut.” “Who would not get glam before the flight?!” asked Sánchez, who evidently can’t imagine that women might prioritize anything else. “We’re going to have lash extensions flying in the capsule.” Bowe, too, joined in, saying that she had gone to extreme lengths to make sure that she would be, of all things, well coiffed for the experience. “I skydived in Dubai with similar hair to make sure I would be good,” she said. “I took it for a dry run.”

Continue reading →

The Trevor Bauer Story Proves That Baseball Really Is “The National Pastime” (Or At Least Tries To Be)

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The last we looked in on the ugly and strange tale of ace MLB pitcher Trevor Bauer was in 2023, in two epic posts, “The Amazing Trevor Bauer Ethics Train Wreck: It Has Everything: #MeToo, Kinky Sex, Ethics Zugzwang, Predatory Women, ‘Guilty Until Proven Innocent,’ “The Asshole’s Handicap,” Legal Ethics And Baseball! [Part I: The Story]”and “The Amazing Trevor Bauer Ethics Train Wreck, Part 2: Villains, Victims, Heroes And Confusion.” Here’s the short version: In 2021, Bauer was an ace pitcher with a rich contract with the Dodgers until a former sex partner of his tried to shake him down for cash by threatening to claim sexual assault and domestic abuse. Baseball is tough on domestic abusers, and it suspended Bauer while it investigated her (calculated) accusation. Bauer refused to capitulate to the woman, and insisted—still insists—that the rough sex was consensual. Law enforcement concluded that he was likely the victim here, but the Dodgers no longer wanted him as damaged goods, and no other team has hired him. Bauer hasn’t pitched in the U.S. since his suspension was lifted.

Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Tariffs Have Been Needed For Decades”

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

I meant to post this retort to Steve Witherspoon’s guest column yesterday (as it was “Tariffs Monday” at Ethics Alarms, but was waylaid by life. Canadian EA correspondent Humble Talent began a long and lively debate thread with his Comment of the Day, and I encourage you to read it all, here. Meanwhile, here’s Humble…

Oh! I almost forgot: I read another anti-tariff piece today titled “I Shot the Tariff.” I should have thought of that. Phooey.

…

I’m always disappointed when there’s something that I’m actually familiar with in the media, because a lot of the media smudging that happens around the areas that they’re familiar with stand out like a sore thumb.

Tariffs have been one of those things. And this attack on Free Trade is another.

You want to know what’s bullshit? The idea that any nation can pull of autarky (“a system where a country or region aims for self-sufficiency, minimizing or eliminating international trade and relying primarily on its own resources and production.”) No one can pull off autarky and maintain efficiency, product diversity, and quality of life. You will eventually need to trade for something.

You want an example for America? Potash. There are exactly three active potash mines in America, because the resource effectively does not exist in America. You import 96% of potash used for crop fertilizer. Without potash imports, you would be unable to add phosphorus to your crop input chemistry, and your yields would suffer. Which would then impact your already insufficient food production system. Your people would literally starve. Which means there will be trade.

Continue reading →

Tariffs Have Been Needed For Decades

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

Guest post by Steve Witherspoon

[It’s shaping up as “Tariffs Monday,” at least in the morning! JM]

I worked as a Manufacturing Engineer in a metal fabrication plant for thirty years (I wore many hats in this small company) and I personally saw what other countries (especially, China, Mexico, and Canada) were doing to undermine manufacturing in the United States of America. The USA should have put tariffs on at least these three countries 20+ years ago, but instead they were allowed to continue to unfairly practice “free trade” with us unabated.

China took one manufacturing and assembly job after another, then China used its financial capital to seriously undercut USA steel manufacturing causing steel mills in the USA to slow to a dead crawl and increase their cost a lot. In addition to that, the steel coming out of China was rusty and didn’t meet quality standards and distributors were having real problems providing quality steel to long term customers like our company. We had to slow production of some products as a result of supply problems and that hurt some of our customers and that trickled down to problems for some consumers.

Canada has been undermining aluminum and stainless steel manufacturing in the USA for over twenty years, as they practiced their unfair “free trade”  with us unabated. When Canada’s stainless steel production slowed we had to seriously slow the manufacturing of some products. One stainless steel product that had to be slowed we made for a local company and that product ended up on United States Navy submarines. I personally know people who worked (past tense) in aluminum mills and they watched as the plants slowed down to a crawl. People got laid off and retired early as Canada took over most of the market for some aluminums.

Then there is Mexico. That nation has been undermining USA assembly plants of all kinds for well over twenty years. Where do you think a huge portion of assembled consumer goods are coming from, including PC computers? Yup, it’s Mexico and usually just across the USA/Mexico border. These are not the only countries that have been unfair with all this “free trade” bull shit.

Continue reading →

Institutional Ethics Dunce: The Pittsburgh Pirates

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Wow. Morons!

A crucial component of institutional competence is “know the history and culture of the organization you work for.” Obviously the Pittsburgh Pirates, one of the original National League Major League Baseball franchises, contains too many employees who lack this component. Had not this been true, the team would not have taken down a tribute to Pirates icon and Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, whose uniform number, 21, was retired by the club, to put up a liquor advertisement.

How clueless can you get?

“Hey, Fred, what does this “Clemente 21″ thing stand for?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Stinky, just some old guy nobody remembers! Just cover it up!”

Clemente, who died in a plane crash while trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Nicaragua, played 18 seasons for the Pirates, during which he joined the elite ranks of players with 3000 hits, had a .317 lifetime batting average and won four batting titles, twelve Gold Gloves, two World Series, and a National League MVP award. He may not have been the greatest Pirate—that honor goes to Honus Wagner—but he was and is the most beloved. For the team to replace his number with a liquor ad was spectacularly ignorant.

Continue reading →

And the “Great Stupid” Continues to Spread Its Dark Wings Across the Earth…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

On the bright side, I guess, it appears to be much stupider across “the pond” than here, which is astounding. However, the fact that anybody has been so addled by the various Woke and Wonderful agenda items as this story indicates has to concern everyone. My reaction to it is barely contained in the catch phrase, “I can’t even…”

Emma Pinchbeck is chief executive of the U.K.’s Climate Change Committee (CCC). She recently announced the group’s conviction that frequent flyers should pay higher taxes so that less affluent Brits can take nicer vacations.

Oh. What??

Continue reading →

“The Ethical Dilemma Of The Successful, Failing, Local Small Business,” the Sequel

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

In 2016, I posted about a dilemma I faced regarding a neighborhood carry-out restaurant. “It opened the same year my wife and I moved into the neighborhood,” the post began. “It quickly became our reflex fall-back when we were too tired to make dinner or wanted a treat for lunch….The food was consistently delicious, fresh and authentic… the little Greek lady greeted you with a knowing smile when you walked in the door, and you knew you were going to be treated like a neighbor.”

Then, I explained, a long-time employee who had worked in various jobs there over the years took the restaurant over. He was a nice guy, and I knew him, but though his new, ambitious version of the place seemed to be thriving, the food declined noticeably. After several months of disappointing experiences with our old standby, my wife and I resolved that the next bad meal there would be our last. A carry-out so-called gyro sandwich came covered in a ton of shredded lettuce without onions or the mandatory tzatziki sauce. The young woman who was running the kitchen that night argued with my wife about what the order was supposed to include, saying “That’s the way we always make a  “jy-row,” causing my wife to correctly note that NOBODY makes gyros buried in lettuce and with no sauce. “Well, maybe you should find another restaurant then!” she said. Bingo! We resolved never to go back to the place again.

Continue reading →

Briefly Noted: The Dumbest Question “The Ethicist” Has Ever Chosen to Answer

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Here it is: “Can Male Authors Publish Books Under Female Names?”

Well, of course they can, but the real question is little better. “I’ve recently heard some sharp comments from friends about male authors publishing books under female names. The pseudonyms are sometimes gender-neutral, but in genres dominated by women, readers assume that these writers are women too,” blathers “Name Withheld.” ” I know there are historical examples of the inverse: female writers using male names or gender-neutral names that are assumed to be male. But are these equivalent? Whatever difficulty male authors may face in majority-female literary genres today cannot compare to women’s historical struggle to live a public life. Is it unethical for these male authors to present themselves this way?”

Continue reading →