Podcast

Decode DC - Some very interesting stuff here.

The idea of protecting people's intellectual property is a ridiculously important one.  You have the right to profit from your own work, and this was built in to our Constitution.  But this guy mentions The Mickey Mouse Provision, which extends Copy Right exclusivity for 75 years after the death of the Copy Right owner.  To me, that's exactly what we weren't supposed to do, because it contributes to the creation and perpetuation of Aristocracy - where the only thing some people have to do for a living is to be born to privilege.  That's not what this joint's supposed to be about.

Gettin' It Done - 26

26. Improved Food Safety System: In 2011, signed FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which boosts the Food and Drug Administration’s budget by $1.4 billion and expands its regulatory responsibilities to include increasing number of food inspections, issuing direct food recalls, and reviewing the current food safety practices of countries importing products into America.

Seems like your basic no-brainer, don't it?  Here's the problem with letting a free market take care of these things:  dead people.  

It makes perfect sense that any company is going to do whatever it can do to protect its reputation.  There's a solid incentive to do things right and to try to ensure the safety of your customers - the thinking is that if your product causes harm to your customers, you won't have customers for very long, and so the problem fixes itself.  But every time we've decided it's not necessary to be proactive about these things, we end up with the same result - dead people.

All these smart business guys keep reminding us how smart they are, but they seem totally unaware of one of the absolute rock-hard fundamentals of the production process - no matter what it costs or how long it takes, doing it right the first time is always quicker and cheaper than having to go back and do it again.  And it's no different when you apply it to product safety.  Prevention is far more cost-effective than remedy.

But here's the kicker:  BizGuy knows his math, and he actually is fully aware of the Prevention-vs-Remedy Formula.  He's walked himself thru the exercise and he's decided to attack the problem of Remedial Cost by purchasing a few Coin-Operated Politicians, who'll simply block the consumer's path to the remedy.  PR, De-Regulation and Tort Reform make for a winning combination.

Throw in some Union Busting and we're right back where we started 240 years ago.

My Friend, Ed

Ed Freeman is a professor at The Darden School of Business, UVa in Charlottesville.  He teaches Business Ethics (insert oxymoron joke here), and his expertise is quite probably needed more right now than at any other time in my memory.

I missed this when it came out, which I wonder about less than I wonder about why this is the kind of thing that shows up fairly prominently in the foreign press, but never makes the cut here in the US.  I do in deed wonder.

Forbes India:

Business has to be a good citizen in the community and society. The old way of business presupposes the purpose of business is to make profits. This is akin to believing that making red blood cells or breathing is the purpose of life. Yes, we must have red blood cells, just as businesses must make profits. But the purpose of business is usually determined by a passionate entrepreneur chasing a dream to change the world.

Workin' In The USA

Listeria

The story about the Listeria outbreak is several days old now, and I have yet to see or hear hardly anything at all on the aspects of food safety inspection - except on some of the blogs I read.

AGAIN - where the fuck is the reporting?  There was one piece a day or two ago that briefly mentioned the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, and said food handling/processing facilities were supposed to be inspected at least once every three years, but apparently, nobody has brains enough to go to the FDA and ask about the status of inspections at Jensen Farms!?!

This one, from The Guardian, is typical.

From the Business Section, NYT.

Every article at least hints at the industry policing itself.  Apparently, we're deeper into an era of privatization and free market self-regulation than I thought.  In the NYT piece, the food safety manager at CostCo is calling for better Quality Control measures from the growers and handlers, but he says nothing about an actual food safety inspections regime on the part of any level of government.  I'm not saying every food item should be tested, but there are sampling techniques that work astoundingly well in manufacturing (eg) that could be applied to cantaloupe or potatoes or practically anything else.

So I'm asking American Business to tell me what the calculation looks like: how many people have to die before it becomes cost-effective for you to stop killing your customers?

FInally, here are a couple of dots that can be connected to this story:
1) All those annoying emails about how grand it was once, back in those golden days when we could do as we pleased and we didn't have to worry our little heads about anything.
2) Tort Reform; particularly Product Liability.

Do you really think this shit just happens at random?

Today's Deep Thought

It's illegal in the US for any person to own another person - because people are people and  not property.

If a corporation is a person, then why is it legal for anybody to own it?