Unions Have No Shame

Nothing would inspire the werewolf to indefinitely forsake professional car-washes more quickly than to learn that they have been unionized. If the macro-circumstances weren't so pathetic, this NY Times article on the steel workers' union attempt to strong arm the dudes that wipe down your car into a union would be somewhat funny. However, it isn't funny and it is freakin' disgraceful. First of all, the fact that the steel workers are out there footing the bill to try and agitate the mostly illegal Mexicans workers who are the backbone of LA's car-washer workforce show how desperate and fakakta the unions have become. This is nothing more than a racketeering attempt to squeeze struggling small business owners.

The national unemployment rate is cresting 10%, consumers are afraid to spend, employers are terrified to invest capital in hiring, and the American public has the overall confidence of an awkward pubescent dweeb at his 8th grade sock hop. How out of touch can the unions really be? These guys have out-lived their structural usefulness in an era of heightened consumer awareness and expectations, and via their greed have clearly demonstrated that they are impediments to American recovery.

One car-wash operator states the obvious ramifications in the article.

"Mr. Crestall said the unionization push would hurt everyone. “Having a union will mean higher wages, and that will lead to higher prices,” he said. “That will mean fewer consumers coming to carwashes, and fewer jobs for these workers.”

This lame micro-push is just a regional symptom of larger flaws in our governance structure and understanding of how leverage markets to betterment of all participants. Who knows if this push will succeed or not, but believe me you, this wolf's wheels will never be touched by a union member. (This acknowledges that his wheels were born of union hands, but that was beyond my control.)

The irony will be when the proponents of real corporate social responsibility (CSR) understand how adversely unions impact cost and operating structures, and ditch de-couple themselves from out-dated left-wing ideology for the potential third-way benefits that the concept of CSR can offer.

The cascading impact of the crude spill in the gulf

The story about the BP sourced oil spill in Gulf keeps getting worse. The slick is now the size of Jamaica and will likely devastate the coast-lines the five gulf coasts states. Not only will be the economic and ecological impact be catastrophic for the folks in the region, but the werewolf thinks there will be very nasty macro-effects that will haunt the America psyche for a long-time to come. The two most sinister macro-legacies will be reinforcing the misbegotten notion in the minds of Americans that government intervention is increasingly required to handle everything. The current administration will most definitely use this to exploit that idea.

Additionally, America's energy policy will be screwed over as the over-reaction to this disaster will likely lead to massive reductions in the ability to exploit the abundance of domestic energy as irrational fears take over. This will increase America's dependence on overseas oil, screw over the domestic energy worker, hamper American owned energy interests, and further divert American capital away from strengthening our internal energy infrastructure. We will self-sodomize ourselves on account of the emotional scars this will cause.

Much like how Three Mile Island made American Luddites and retards  when it come to appreciating the beauty and benefit or nuclear, this gulf spill will open a Pandora's Box of contemptible retardation.

Lesser, but still severe effects of this spill will manifest themselves interestingly.

The anti-humanist environmental movement will get new life breathed into it. These people want us to have no kids, eat freeze dried air, attach sails to our cars, and live in homes fueled by love. They suck.  After a series a recent setbacks and the virtual debunking of global warming had rendered them impotent, it's unfortunate that they'll have a voice again.

There will be a spike in oyster, shrimp, and certain fish prices. The werewolf loves the fruits of the sea and has no money. The price increases will be felt. Not to mention the real tragedy of a regional American industry being virtually destroyed.

BP has really screwed the pooch. One wonders if they are competent and fit to operate. They lied, mislead and mis-managed this whole affair from the get go. $25 billion in shareholder equity has been wiped out. That's a mere glimpse of what we can expect when this is all done. Tens of billions more can reasonably expected to evaporate as the situation gets worse. This is all before the lawsuits, regulatory fine fines and consumer outrage kick in.  BP has invested millions heavily in making themselves the "nice energy company." However, it is clear that it was all sham. The werewolf loves the energy sector. He is pro-energy sector, pro corporate social responsibility and pro growth. BP has manged to blow the lid of these things through their vile display of incompetence.Compliance, proper risk management, foresight, and honesty are all part of the bargain of believing in the power of the private sector. BP doesn't erode all of that, however, they are dead to to the werewolf.

As mentioned earlier, the government, which has been asleep at the wheel, and Americans should learn to shun, will leverage this to further expand as the all consuming leviathan that dominates our lives.

The double standard of how the current administration is being given a pass is shocking, especially when one considers the mountains of unfair shit hurled at President Bush. (Granted Bush and his PR people should have fought back with more vigor).

This whole thing is tragic. The werewolf is convinced that the impact will be much more far-reaching than anyone currently realizes.

Tobacco Control and Free Speech — An American Dilemma

An old nemesis of the werewolf sent him this article, "Tobacco Control and Free Speech - An American Dilemma" recently published in the The New England Journal of Medicine. It provides interesting analysis of how the attempts to restrict tobacco advertising in the name of public health have shaped up recently. For anyone with an interest in free speech, advertising, public health, tobacco, advocacy, and democratic societies this makes for a great read.

A few things struck the werewolf from this article.

-Public health officials hate the 1st Amendment and view it as an impediment.

-People assume that their something virtuous in European social democracies where censorship, conditional speech, and state supremacy all kick around the individual. We have a constitution that guarantees us scared rights and has been cornerstone of our civil society since it was founded. The Europeans lack the same sense of history, document, or tradition. This needs to be highlighted and emulating them needs to be avoided like a case of the clap from $5 Mexican hooker.

-Public health officials still hide behind yesterday's "save the kids" argument. This cynicism needs to end. It's dishonest.

-Tobacco companies have ceded too much of their communications authority over the years and are scared to fight back with full effectiveness. They should be able to transparently communicate efficacy of alternative tobacco products as a worthy substitute.

-A commenter posted that there needs to be an unapologetic tobacco company. The werewolf wholeheartedly agrees. The company should be called 6 Feet Under, have three brands Death, Tumors, and Black Spot, the packs should be black, and coffin shaped,  featuring the grim reaper on them, and the slogan should read "this shit is risky as hell and may kill you, make an adult F*CKING decision, and enjoy."It would usher in a new paradigm for corporate social responsibility.

-There seems to be a desire to obstruct communications about these products or else allow the narrow-minded folks at the FDA and health groups to monopolize all information. Information should never be trusted from a single source, especially when the motives are questionable. What ever happened to the free exchange of ideas and allowing room for debate. Instead of launching new studies and coming to new conclusions, there seems to be a dependence of the health officials on yesterday's data and thoughts. Instead of being permanently adversarial, have public health officials ever thought to partner with big  tobacco in way to shape honest advertising, that allows the market to operate in the interest of the consumer, explains the risk, and allows for inter-brand competition?

Those are just a few thoughts on the article. It is a great read. The werewolf can't get over how strange the times we live in are. 

GlaxoSmithKline sets a great example.

The Guardian is featuring an article about GSK's CEO, Andrew Witty, who recently announced that GSK will open its internal research findings on malaria drugs to the global health community to hopefully expedite the search for a cure. It's a brilliant move on GSK's part and it clearly showcases the power of disciplined corporate social responsibility as a management philosophy. Given the time consuming, capital intensive, and complex trial and error research approach with a variable hit ratio that yields successful drugs, it makes sense from a moral, ethical, financial, and strategic perspective to release this data. GSK doesn't have the time, money, or will to bark up the 13,000 research leads it is releasing to the world, yet, releasing them undoubtedly increases the chances of producing aproduct that can measurably improve peoples lives. It's a win-win of the best sort.

Pharma has long been in a bind. They perform an invaluable service to humanity and have been doing so for the most honest of motives, profit. Regressives, left-wingers, and even some liberals have long wallowed in the sea of their ignorance of basic economics and shamelessly hounded pharma for "not doing enough." Well, given the FDA has increased the barriers to research through insane bureaucratic standardization, that pharma is inherently a high risk, high reward industry, and that profits reaped are in part needed to sustain these various research initiatives since most flop, pharma has had to be judicious in guarding their intellectual property. GSK gets a huge image improvement, paves the way for pharma to reassess how they manage their internal research flows, shuts up the ignorant lefties(wishful thinking), helps sick populations, and allows itself to focus on drugs with high profit returns that can sustain the cycle.

In an age of changing consumer expectations, increased corporate transparency, and broader stakeholder constituency awareness, the werewolf has long realzied that the opportunity of a well integrated CSR strategy, and the upside it presents to the bottom-line, is too important to leave to the anti-capitalistic, self-loathing do-gooders who frequently claim to be stewards of CSR. They are the enemy. Capitalism and free-markets are the path to humanity's prosperity. CSR, properly executed, reaffirms that very notion.

Good for Google

It looks like Google is growing a pair. According this NY Times article, Google may be withdrawing from the Chinese market. A series of Chinese state-sponsored hacks into Google managed email addresses for anti-Chinese government agitators has prompted this move.

The werewolf has no problem with doing business in China, as long as you are honest about the pros and cons. China is a growth market on some levels, can potentially offer cost-savings to American companies, can offer American consumers cheaper priced goods, and can even emerge as a destination market for American exports at some point. He believes businesses have a responsibility to consider it as an option, if serious production synergies and value can be created. However, the werewolf also thinks the politburo in Beijing is loaded with some really nasty customers, that the mid-level bureaucracy is woefully corrupt, and that there is a moral cost do doing business with a murderous totalitarian regime. Just be upfront about your business decisions. We live in an age where businesses need to leverage all options to succeed and create the value that benefits us all. Plus, China isn't the only nasty regime where companies do business, it just happens to be the biggest nasty regime in world.

Herein lies the rub for Google. First of all, the werewolf thinks Google is managed by some of the most pretentious falsely moral hippie capitalistic butt plugs in the world. (He loves the hippie capitalist part) However, despite always being angry at them for their pretentiousness and empty moral preening, he uses a bunch of their products. The werewolf has a gmail account, he likes Chrome, and despite an effort to try and use bing.com more often, he still finds himself reflexively using google as his primary search engine. What can he say, the butt plugs make some excellent products.

However, the butt plugs at Google have an informal motto "Don't be evil." Google is really proud of that motto and wears it like a tramp stamp on their lower back. Fine. The werewolf actually agrees with the component of the ethos that drove the motto that emphasizes long term strategic considerations over quarterly profits. Evil can be construed as many things, and there isn't enough space to deep dive into that philosophical debate. Although, there is very little wiggle room when you strike a deal with a severely oppressive regime to enter their market and agree to completely comply with that awful regime's obscene censorship regulations. In a bid to enter the Chinese market, Google dropped their trousers and allowed Beijing to rough ride everything Google claimed to stand for. That hypocrisy never sat well with the werewolf and he resented the continual moral posturing and preening from the company, despite being a willing accomplice to Beijing's oppression of its people.

Google learned firsthand that Beijing takes you for a bad ride in more than one way. He thinks Google's decision to voluntary vacate the Chinese market is a bold and impressive move, that has begun to restore some of their damaged credibility in his eyes. He also thinks it is great for an iconic American company, like Google, to send the signal that avoiding the Chinese can be a good thing. He wishes there was more perspective on the whole China debate.

Here's to unexpectedly raising a paw in salute of a good move from Google.

Reason: Tobacco Truth Gets Smoked

This article from Reason magazine paints one of the most thorough and honest pictures of the alternative tobacco market landscape. It is a must read for anyone interested in how out-of-whack the government and public health officials are when it comes to understanding the war against smokers and peoples health. FYI, cigarettes can be very hazardous to your health!

Despite being a non-smoker, the article hit home for the werewolf on multiple levels. Let the werewolf declare it here, during the summer of 2008, the werewolf was officially a vassal in the tobacco castle. The werewolf spent his MBA summer internship working on alternative tobacco product marketing strategy and corporate social responsibility initiatives for one of America's largest tobacco companies. Being the misanthrope that he is, playing Nick Naylor lite for summer was a dream job. Anyhow, the article states all of the key take-aways from the werewolf's experience with both an eloquence and accuracy in its writing that the werewolf hopes to achieve someday. You'll be spared all of harm reduction, reduced risk mantra that became the werewolf's second inner dialog at one point in his life, as it is all spelled out in the article.

The werewolf has many amusing stories from his experience that he'll indirectly share at some point. (He'll have to be nuanced though, big tobacco NDA'd him out the wazoo) He will say that he learned just how vicious the folks in public health advocacy are and how their anti-smoking crusade is more like a jihad than anything else. One of the werewolf's responsibilities was performing corporate social social responsibility outreach, which involved communicating with hostile stakeholders (public health advocates). During a conversation with a senior apparatchik from a leading and well-known public health advocacy organization involving smokeless tobacco concepts, the werewolf was told to pound sand and that "we are more interested in driving you a**holes out of business than saving lives at this point." The hate filled rage, disregard for the organization's health charter, and blind questioning of yesterday's cause really shocked the werewolf and drained him of all respect for those who claim to be champions of health. When these guys win the war against big tobacco(and they will, sadly), I pity whomever they target next, because for them, it's about winning at any cost, not saving lives, nor helping people. Never forget that.

Unions are like herpes and John Mackey is the Man.

John Mackey and Whole Foods: newyorker.com

Here is a must read profile of Whole Foods CEO and co-founder John Mackey. The big kahuna of hippie capitalism and one of the few leading business luminaries I actually admire and respect. His career is a testament to what modern corporate social responsibility (CSR) management theory should consider and implement if it was honest with itself. There's too much content in this article to parse out in one post, but this newly discovered Mackey quote “The union is like having herpes. It doesn’t kill you, but it’s unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover" is epic, and spot-on. (The werewolf may have it chiseled on his tombstone)

As a great admirer of conscientious capitalism, I have always been dumbfounded by the lefty, do-gooder, hippesque adoration for unionized labor. Unions represent a huge threat to stakeholders like consumers, suppliers, shareholders, management, and the even the long-term prospects of employees themselves. (has anyone looked at Detroit and the US auto industry lately?) Monopolizing labor is just as dangerous for the long-term, as the monopolization of any other good or service in a market driven economy. I have long been fascinated by the inherent incompatible realities of unions and those who claim to care about all stakeholders, as CSR stewards. It's time to address the elephant in the room and realize that one of the most ethical and socially responsible moves a company can make for its employees and workers is resist unionization at all costs. If CSR is serious about itself as a concept, it will file divorce papers from the liberal/democratic interest groups and de-link itself from partisan politics. Wishful thinking.