If you have something to say...
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If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
New Gallup polling suggests the joys of motherhood can bring added challenges. The most striking finding is how much stay-at-home moms in particular suffer.
The journey from crib to empty nest is filled with learning experiences for all family members. It's clear that sometimes children are responsible for helping us find and develop our hidden talents.
The victims of crimes of corruption are diffuse, invisible, and often vulnerable: every dollar paid in bribes tilts the scales further against the most unfortunate in societies where fairness frequently goes unprized.
When Wal-Mart gets itself into trouble, it makes it that much harder for ordinary people to accept the company's good deeds. Yes -- you read that right: good deeds.
Corporations can be prosecuted as criminals and every year some get convicted of crimes. However, over the past decade the government has not stepped up corporate crime enforcement. In fact, the evidence is to the contrary.
Al Norman's new book Occupy Walmart, a collection of his essays written over the years, is timely because it reminds the reader of the fundamental flaws at Walmart that create problems like those recently exposed by the New York Times.
Just as the noise has abated somewhat from their public relations woes of a few years back, The New York Times outs Walmart in a bribery scandal that will haunt the company for decades.
While the FCPA has served a useful purpose, it remains stuck in another era. In today's dynamic and ever-changing international business landscape, U.S. businesses would really benefit from a less absolutist approach to the subject.
Allegations that Walmart paid millions of dollars in bribes to build up its empire in Mexico should act as a warning sign to corporations everywhere. A culture of bribery in a subsidiary is unacceptable, but failing to deal with it would be even worse.
This progress is too slow and not audacious enough. We need Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG). What has to happen to flip the current energy paradigm, where oil is 3.6 percent of our energy consumption?
Walmart's much heralded commitment to ethical behavior has once again proven to be a pathetically flimsy shield against the driving imperative of its "grow at any cost" business model.
Don't let this corporate exodus from ALEC fool you into thinking that these corporations have grown a conscience or that they have given up on influencing the political process.
Last week, as tens thousands of Americans voiced our collective outrage at the work of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a lobbying front underwritten by these and other major companies, they delivered a side-splitting response.
If Walmart refuses to stock Monsanto's GE sweet corn, it would send a strong signal that there is no market for this genetically engineered food and could actually stop the seed before it's even planted.
Business as usual is changing. Or at least the way business leaders think about philanthropy is changing.
With a purchasing power expected to reach an unprecedented $1.2 trillion dollars in 2012, and a population already surpassing 50 million, Hispanics perhaps our greatest hope for a sustained economic recovery.
