His image of President Barack Obama:
Posted on 05/27/2009 11:05:43 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Caterpillar, the heavy equipment manufacturer, is moving to lay off more than 20,000 workers. These days such mass layoffs are sadly unsurprising, but are they ethical?
If Caterpillar is to relegate legions of employees to the care of the public, it may not simply echo Ebenezer Scrooge: “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Is there no COBRA?” Instead, it must use its considerable political clout to ensure that those programs are robustly funded, hardly a priority either for Caterpillar or its confreres among the Fortune 500. That is, if Caterpillar is to deprive thousands of people of a livelihood, it must either provide for their basic needs or see that the public can do so. To do neither is to dodge a moral obligation.
(Excerpt) Read more at ethicist.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Maybe the problem here isn’t Caterpillar. Maybe the immorality lies in government. Maybe a government that steals so much of its citizens’ resources has a moral obligation to see that those resources are well spent. And spent in accordance with the constraints of law.
Ask not what obligations citizens owe government, but what government owes its citizens.
You have to read to comments on the article.
Caterpillar has some of the lowest paid senior execs for a fortune 500 Dow Jones Industrial companies. Much of their pay reported comes from options. Most Cat shares are owned by institutions that need the steady modest dividends and benefit millions of individuals. Cat has pursued a limited expansion plan to minimize ups and downs of employment, but there was a boom of demand for their products world wide for about a decade. But when things turn down..they turn down by an order of 50%..there is no choice but layoff’s,salary cuts, early retirment, performance related firings, etc. The NYT has targeted one of the most respected, conservative and honest companies in the world..one that is universally respected world wide.
The New York Times has spent years pushing for government spending on stuff like this. The partisan hacks are now claiming that this is only “ethical” of them since they sometimes don’t provide jobs for everybody.
But I think it is unethical for the New York Times to only provide for people they choose to hire. What about the rest of us?
Who is doing the dehumanizing here?
Is it the individual who stands by the right of thinking persons to make contracts and agreements amongst themselves, for their mutual benefit, and expects each person to abide by the agreements made?
Or is it the individual who catagorizes people as boss and worker, exploiter and exploitee, and seeks to interfere in the right of people to arrange their own affairs and make their own agreements?
Employment is an agreement between an employer and an employee. It is not "moral" for some third party to stand in the middle of that transaction and tell one side or the other that they have to do things that are not part of that agreement. That will create uncertainty on the part of the employer and keep him from hiring people in the first place, and it will convince the employee that he need not take responsibility for his own maintenance by setting aside a portion of his pay for a rainy day.
This kind of destructive behavior should never be permitted to don the mantle of "morality"...
If they are meeting all contractual obligations, they are acting morally - but I doubt any human being actually enjoys laying people off; it would haunt me to get rid of people for no fault of their own. I’d make an exception for cutting union workers we never wanted to retain in the first place because of performance issues, but can now cut because the required dire fiscal conditions outlined in the contract have been triggered.
Now, layoffs may not always be wise for the company (long-term), especially in areas where lots of training has been invested (in some jobs, a worker must be trained for years before they contribute to the bottom line), and/or where obtaining highly skilled workers is necessary and normally difficult. I am surprised furloughs and other job-neutral cost-containment strategies are not in more widespread use in skilled industries.
I thought odumbo the socialist gave one of “his great speeches” a month or two ago and the company would be hiring because of the stinkulus hmmmmmmm
His image of President Barack Obama:
Caterpillar has embarrassed President Obama, because they refused to throw out their multi-year business plan in order to comport with The One's off-the-cuff statement. Therefore it is only right and proper that they be excoriated.
And don't even get me started about Rachel Corrie...
I'd guess that's why Caterpillar is getting the 2 minutes hate from this wacky NYT "ethicist".
I've worked for some whom I pretty sure did enjoy it. But then again, I'm also using the term 'human' somewhat loosely.
What a retard. If the company could provide for these workers, they’d still have jobs. And didn’t Caterpillar pay into their unemployment insurance all the time they were employed?
When is it time to start blaming Obama?
“The purpose of a company is to make a profit for its owners, PERIOD.”
(I’m not defending the article’s position.)
To state that “The purpose of a company is to make a profit for its owners, PERIOD.” is pretty much a wholesale rejection of the protestant work ethic which is the very foundation of the free market.
If there is no greater good served than “making a profit” then them marketplace will eventually descend into a orgy of thievery.
0bama attacking caterpillar via the press
That second one is an incredible picture.
A few years ago I succeeded in naming this jerk Enemy of the Week at American Spectator. He said it was immoral for honest customers to alert super-markets to shop lifting in progress.
Question: is it immoral to hope the NYTimes dies?
let em work then. But there ain’t no dough to pay ‘em. I agree it is demoralizing to fire them. “Laid off” is a sheety euphemism. Let the ones that want to work, work. It’s better than sitting home feeling worthless and taking it out on the wife and kids.
Making a profit in and of itself IS the “greater good.”
Do you understand how business profits benefit nearly everyone in society, even the non-owners?
Without profits, businesses have no reason to exist.
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