It'll never happen, but here's an alternative to politicizing a business

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3DOCTORS

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Say you’re a large profitable corporation - retail, fast food, etc. - if you have extra money left over, instead of making big corporate donations or ad campaigns pandering to controversial causes, how about making sure your employees are paid more than minimum wage, have full-time employment if they desire it rather than being supplanted by a bunch of part-timers you don’t have to pay benefits to, aren’t overworked by trying to do 3 people’s work at once, etc.?

Further, suppose you make every effort to buy products from the country you are located in rather than overseas sweatshops? Suppose your CEO is content with a salary that in no way disregards his or her hard work running the company, yet is not exorbitant and hundreds or thousands what the lowest worker in the company makes?

I know, probably not as good a tax break on the donations and the ads

Sounds crazy, huh? :rolleyes:
 
Great idea!

I keep running across it, I read about this in a book about a businessman in the mid 1800’s or thereabouts, and the author described him as musing:* …he had always held that a country’s prosperity depended on a friendly alliance between master and man. It maddened him to see a properous merchant, known to work his hands like field slaves, contribute a large sum of money towards the cause of Temperance, or a new church, or some other short cut to Paradise, when they were ready to see their foundries close, or their ships left unladen, before they could be talked into paying their furnacemen or dockers an extra penny on the hour.*
 
3DOCTORS said:
Say you’re a large profitable corporation - retail, fast food, etc. - if you have extra money left over, instead of making big corporate donations or ad campaigns pandering to controversial causes, how about making sure your employees are paid more than minimum wage, have full-time employment if they desire it rather than being supplanted by a bunch of part-timers you don’t have to pay benefits to, aren’t overworked by trying to do 3 people’s work at once, etc.?

Further, suppose you make every effort to buy products from the country you are located in rather than overseas sweatshops? Suppose your CEO is content with a salary that in no way disregards his or her hard work running the company, yet is not exorbitant and hundreds or thousands what the lowest worker in the company makes?

I know, probably not as good a tax break on the donations and the ads

Sounds crazy, huh? :rolleyes:
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The only thing I see a flaw in, is that this country does not produce very many of the products we use any more. So it is difficult to buy products here when they are now made overseas. It’s going to take us a long time to recover from this madness.
 
This would have been a great idea for the preferential option for the poor thread (which was closed). It’s a very good idea, 3Docs!
 
Unfortunately, because of all the power city, state, and the federal government wields, businesses of any significant size have to contribute a lot of money to political causes. If you don’t pay the right supervisor, aldermen, representative, or senator then perhaps you won’t get that permit to expand your business or that environmental report will just be delayed a little longer.

I’m sure many the dirty little secret of many business people is that they would rather spend their money on something other than political ads and campaigns. I’m sure some of them hate that they have to suck up to politicians that they don’t actually like. But that’s the reality of living in a country where we let the government into every corner of our public and private lives.
 
Taking the right stands in political issues is very valuable and the larger the business that does it, and the more visible it is, the better.
 
TheRealJuliane said:
The only thing I see a flaw in, is that this country does not produce very many of the products we use any more. So it is difficult to buy products here when they are now made overseas. It’s going to take us a long time to recover from this madness.
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Yes. The grave has been dug. I suppose we’re all complicit to a degree. I often think about when the U.S. got into WWII, all that had to be done to fit existing manufacturing plants for wartime production. If we (God forbid) ever got into another war with a large power, would we even have the manufacturing infrastructure to attempt it, or would it be over with before anyone fired a shot? Something to think about.

redstate.com/delawarewindjammer/2011/08/07/should-americans-boycott-chinese-products/
 
3DOCTORS said:
Yes. The grave has been dug. I suppose we’re all complicit to a degree. I often think about when the U.S. got into WWII, all that had to be done to fit existing manufacturing plants for wartime production. If we (God forbid) ever got into another war with a large power, would we even have the manufacturing infrastructure to attempt it, or would it be over with before anyone fired a shot? Something to think about.

redstate.com/delawarewindjammer/2011/08/07/should-americans-boycott-chinese-products/
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No, but the good news is that we have newer weapons that don’t require that same sort of manufacturing. Drones, for example. They are flown remotely, as in radio controlled model aircraft. Don’t require heavy machinery support, either.
 
3DOCTORS said:
Say you’re a large profitable corporation - retail, fast food, etc. - if you have extra money left over, instead of making big corporate donations or ad campaigns pandering to controversial causes, how about making sure your employees are paid more than minimum wage, have full-time employment if they desire it rather than being supplanted by a bunch of part-timers you don’t have to pay benefits to, aren’t overworked by trying to do 3 people’s work at once, etc.?

Further, suppose you make every effort to buy products from the country you are located in rather than overseas sweatshops? Suppose your CEO is content with a salary that in no way disregards his or her hard work running the company, yet is not exorbitant and hundreds or thousands what the lowest worker in the company makes?

I know, probably not as good a tax break on the donations and the ads

Sounds crazy, huh? :rolleyes:
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Not at all. I work for such a company.

Peace,
Ed
 
It seems to me that the best use of ‘excess profits’ for a business is to invest the money in the business, thereby growing the business and creating more jobs and more prosperity for everyone. Some–many–businesses give a lot of charitable donations. Why should I think that does more good than actually tending to and increasing the business itself?

Bill Gates has the Gates Foundation–it does a lot of charitable work, some of which is morally questionable. To me it makes more sense for businesses to do what they know something about–which is their own business.

And if they move manufacturing from “overseas sweatshops” back to the U.S., they thereby deprive those overseas workers of what may be the best standard of living they have ever had, even though we find the wages intolerable. And in doing so, they may increase their cost of doing business such that the company becomes LESS viable, thereby endangering the livelihood of its own workers!
 
JimG said:
It seems to me that the best use of ‘excess profits’ for a business is to invest the money in the business, thereby growing the business and creating more jobs and more prosperity for everyone. Some–many–businesses give a lot of charitable donations. Why should I think that does more good than actually tending to and increasing the business itself?
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They probably give a lot of the charitable donations for tax credits, don’t you think? Which is okay. Although if they make a big deal out of giving to controversial ones - such as Planned Parenthood - calling attention to it - they’re taking a political stance. Why not give to something more neutral such as food for the poor, or school supplies for 3rd world countries instead, is my idea. As a corporation. If their employees want to donate to more “hot button” issues privately, well, they will.

And advertising, it’s budgeted in to the cost of doing business, I assume. But here lately what we’re seeing is the businesses such as JCP and Target spending big bucks on ad campaigns to pull in the gay marriage demographic. The decisions to do so may well have been made by younger execs who are gay or pro-gay. I don’t mean to pounce on the gay issue as the only one; it’s just the one receiving a lot of attention here lately.
JimG said:
Bill Gates has the Gates Foundation–it does a lot of charitable work, some of which is morally questionable. To me it makes more sense for businesses to do what they know something about–which is their own business.
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Don’t get me started on the Gates Foundation and their pushing contraception overseas when they could be helping people care for their families - it’s elitism, racism, a superiority complex. Let us rich Americans tell you how many kids you should have. :mad:
JimG said:
And if they move manufacturing from “overseas sweatshops” back to the U.S., they thereby deprive those overseas workers of what may be the best standard of living they have ever had, even though we find the wages intolerable. And in doing so, they may increase their cost of doing business such that the company becomes LESS viable, thereby endangering the livelihood of its own workers!
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I thought of that - although the conditions of work are often deplorable. I don’t have anything against an individual Chinese worker who wants a job; what I have a problem with is the corrupt Chinese government gaining strength because of us shipping all our jobs over there.

:twocents:
 
3DOCTORS said:
They probably give a lot of the charitable donations for tax credits, don’t you think? Which is okay. Although if they make a big deal out of giving to controversial ones - such as Planned Parenthood - calling attention to it - they’re taking a political stance. Why not give to something more neutral such as food for the poor, or school supplies for 3rd world countries instead, is my idea. As a corporation. If their employees want to donate to more “hot button” issues privately, well, they will.

And advertising, it’s budgeted in to the cost of doing business, I assume. But here lately what we’re seeing is the businesses such as JCP and Target spending big bucks on ad campaigns to pull in the gay marriage demographic. The decisions to do so may well have been made by younger execs who are gay or pro-gay. I don’t mean to pounce on the gay issue as the only one; it’s just the one receiving a lot of attention here lately.

Don’t get me started on the Gates Foundation and their pushing contraception overseas when they could be helping people care for their families - it’s elitism, racism, a superiority complex. Let us rich Americans tell you how many kids you should have. :mad:

I thought of that - although the conditions of work are often deplorable. I don’t have anything against an individual Chinese worker who wants a job; what I have a problem with is the corrupt Chinese government gaining strength because of us shipping all our jobs over there.

:twocents:
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Thanks for your response. Your last paragraph reminds me of something I saw on one of the newsmagazine shows some time back. If I recall correctly, someone was recounting a conversation between Steve Jobs and President Obama. They were discussing the large number of people employed by subcontractors overseas in the manufacture of Apple products. The president said something like, “how can we get those jobs back to America?” Mr. Jobs replied, “Mrs. President, those jobs are never coming back.”

The fact is, in a great many cases, the U.S. is simply not competitive in manufacturing operations. It’s not just wages. It’s regulation; it’s tax policy; it’s worker availability, a lot of things, more than I know about.

That doesn’t mean that the U.S. is not competitive in other areas. We are competitive, for example, in the design of those same products. They are designed here and manufactured elsewhere. We are competitive in growing and exporting soybeans, and wheat and other agricultural products.

But I’m afraid that markets have become global, and that won’t change–labor markets as well as every other market.

In any case, I guess this is off topic. My main point originally was that businesses do best when they do what they know best, not when they involve themselves in side shows and politics. You can tell, I’m a Calvin Coolidge fan!
 
JimG said:
Thanks for your response. Your last paragraph reminds me of something I saw on one of the newsmagazine shows some time back. If I recall correctly, someone was recounting a conversation between Steve Jobs and President Obama. They were discussing the large number of people employed by subcontractors overseas in the manufacture of Apple products. The president said something like, “how can we get those jobs back to America?” Mr. Jobs replied, “Mrs. President, those jobs are never coming back.”

The fact is, in a great many cases, the U.S. is simply not competitive in manufacturing operations. It’s not just wages. It’s regulation; it’s tax policy; it’s worker availability, a lot of things, more than I know about.

That doesn’t mean that the U.S. is not competitive in other areas. We are competitive, for example, in the design of those same products. They are designed here and manufactured elsewhere. We are competitive in growing and exporting soybeans, and wheat and other agricultural products.

But I’m afraid that markets have become global, and that won’t change–labor markets as well as every other market.

In any case, I guess this is off topic. My main point originally was that businesses do best when they do what they know best, not when they involve themselves in side shows and politics. You can tell, I’m a Calvin Coolidge fan!
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Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut 🙂

Warning - silly off topic smartypantsness - I’m a Calvin and Hobbes fan myself 😃
 
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