Wal-Mart Seeks Global Ethics Chief – Not Actual Ethics

In the Global Ethics report I saw a piece on Wal-Mart seeking a Global Ethics Chief.
Facing numerous class-action lawsuits and ire from its employees, and
patrons Wal-Mart if finally looking to put a good face forward.  From a
community standpoint it may be too late.  I’m in the middle of Doug
Rushkoff’s ‘Get Back In the Box‘ and so many of his points apply to this situation.  Wal-Mart is looking for an Ethics Chief … not actual ethics.

As a  corporation they are run and governed by the bottom line, and
in that case they have little room for consideration of what is right
… only what is profitable.  From hiring illegal immigrants to clean
stores, underpay employees, and cut health benefits they are looking to
boost margins at all costs.This flies in the face of ethics and their
attempt is little more than a farce.

Rushkoff has a wonderful
example of how a retail in this segment can be ethical, socially
responsible and be rewarded with extreme customer loyalty and
consistent profits.  Costco
covers 92% of health insurance costs, has 1/2 the staff turnover of
Wal-Mart, and has $.9 billion in net cash compared with Wal-Marts $25.6
billion in net debt.  They pay their employees fairly, treat them well,
and in turn have a loyal customer base. Communities, and business would
most certainly benefit from following the Costco’s model and embracing
their ethics model. As posted in Community Mobilization.

Friedman and Florida

I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago and had a chance to
read Richard Florida’s new book, The Flight of the Creative Class. I
consider it a kind of companion piece to Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat
(now a #1 best-seller) because Florida is talking, as is Friedman, about the role that well-educated
knowledge and idea producing people play in the US economy.

Friedman and Florida agree in some ways and differ in
others. Both see the category of people who earn their living by working with
information, ideas, data, design, invention and relationships and the
entrepreneurs and managers who mobilize them as the core of wealth generation
in any economy. Florida extends this catgegory a bit further than Friedman by
including artists, musicians, hair designers and similar creative typess. The message
of both authors is: 1) the people who
work with creative ideas and innovation are absolutely critical to the well
being of the US economy, and 2) we’re not doing a good job acquiring or
developing these people compared to some other parts of the world.

READ MORE

Non-government Organizations Win Greater Trust than Media and Big Business

Pressure groups and charities have overtaken goverments, media and big business to become the worlds most trusted institutions, according to an international poll to be presented this week to the World Economic Forum.

An annual survey of attitudes suggests public trust has been eroded by scandals such as corporate malfeasance and discredited journalism.  The survey found that non-government organisations now score the highest for trustworthiness in the US and Europe.

Faith in the internet as a source of trustworthy information has risen sharply, at the expense of more traditional media tainted by scandal.

This poll was carried out among 1,500 university graduates aged between 35 and 65 with household incomes of more than $75,000.

Well, that is welcome news.

Stock Market Scam

Using technology to manipulate the value of stocks may be easier than apparent.  ABC World News had a report that companies were placing errant phone messages designed at duping investors into thinking that they are receiving a hot insider stock tip designed for someone else ears.  The hope is the unsuspecting investor will act on the tip anyways, artificially inflating the value of the stock.

Douglas Rushkoff outlines an on line chatroom scenario that is similar in his book Exit Strategy.  What if investors were using inter net chat rooms to inflate or devalue stocks by convincing investors to buy or sell at their will?  More at Community Mobilization.