Business CEO’s Overstating Political Uncertainty in the United States

The impact on business of political uncertainty in countries that are seized by revolution can be substantial—so much so in fact that CEO’s and board directors are motivated to avoid the uncertainty itself. I submit that business analysts of political risk tend unwittingly to routinely overstate the uncertainty arising from incoming U.S. presidential administrations. If I am correct in this claim, CEO’s and board directors pay too much heed to political uncertainty itself in the making of major strategic decisions involving operations in the American context.

The full essay is at "Business CEO's Overstating Uncertainty"

Modern Day Mercantilism: Donald Trump Intervenes at Carrier

The tension between the free-market philosophy and mercantilism (e.g., an industrial policy) has been longstanding. I contend that the philosophy of international business (or international economics) is flawed terms of how far comparative advantage is applied, even at the expense of full employment at the city or country level. The case of Carrier in Indiana points to the legitimacy of government intervention even at the expense of comparative advantage.

The full essay is at "Modern Day Mercantilism."

 

Springtime for China's Coal Industry: Is China Too Big to Swerve Enough to Avoid the Climatic Iceberg Ahead?

Even as Chinese government officials “called on the United States to recognize established science and to work with other countries to reduce dependence on dirty fuels like coal and oil,” China was “scrambling to mine and burn more coal.”[1] Notably, short-terms concerns were dominant. “A lack of stockpiles and worries about electricity blackouts” were “spurring Chinese officials to reverse curbs that [had] once helped reduce coal production.”[2] By December, 2016, coal mines were reopening, and with them coal miners were returning to work. The renewed activity would of course make it more difficult for China and the world to meet CO2 emissions targets, “as Chinese coal is the world’s largest single source of carbon emissions from human activities.”[3] In fact, China’s use of coal results in more emissions “than all the oil, coal, and gas consumed in the United States.”[4] The implications for being able to contain the global rise in temperature within 2 degrees C are not bright from this real-life scenario. It is important, therefore, to grasp the underlying dynamics behind China’s plight.

The full essay is at "Springtime for China's Coal".

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1. Keith Bradsher, “Despite Climate Vow, China Scrambles for Coal,” The New York Times, November 30, 2016.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

A Law School Dean Offers Grief Counseling to "Hysterical" Students after Trump Wins: Legal Reasoning Suffers

Michael Schwartz, dean of the law school at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock announced in November, 2016 that he would resign the following summer. His accomplishments included a lawyer-student mentoring program, live-client learning sessions, and a low-income clinic in the Arkansas Delta.[1] The trigger for his resignation was a school-wide email he had sent to students just days earlier in which he announced that he was making counseling available to any student who was upset by the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President. Besides effectively normalizing over-reactions and failing to recognize normal venting, the dean’s email interjected partisan politics, albeit tacitly, into higher education. Rather than turn the popularized context into a teachable moment for assumption-analysis, the dean modeled what happens when unsupported assumptions run unchecked. In the end, the legal reasoning of students could suffer.

The full essay is at "Grief Counseling to Hysterical Students."

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1. Emily Walkenhorst, “UALR Law School Dean to Exit Post,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, November 19, 2016.

The Courts Go After Gerrymandering: Deconstructing a Conflict-of-Interest

In the U.S., the boundaries of both federal (e.g., U.S. House of Representatives) and state legislative districts are redrawn every ten years after the census to “ensure that each district contains roughly the same number of people.”[1] Both major political parties in state legislatures “often remap districts to favor themselves, either by cramming opposition voters into a single district or by dividing them so they are the majority in fewer districts.”[2] I contend that a simple majority vote is problematic, given the irresistible temptation to redraw the districts for partisan advantage rather than merely to take account of changes in population.

The full essay is at "Gerrymandering."

1. Michael Wines, “Judges Find Wisconsin Redistricting Unfairly Favored Republicans,” The New York Times, November 21, 2016.

2. Ibid.

The Trump Organization and a President Trump: Minimizing the Exploitation of Conflicts of Interest

In a matter of days after his being elected as President of the United States, Donald Trump decided to put his business empire in the hands of his adult children. Roughly a month later, in recognition of the intractable conflicts-of-interest problem even were his three eldest children to run his roughly 500 companies, he announced that he would sever his ties with his empire; after all, he would have his hands full as the federal president of another sort of empire: The United States of America. Even so, he did not mean to divest, suggesting that conflicts of interest involving his brand could be salient through his tenure as U.S. President. It is important to remember that nothing in federal law prohibits the President from continuing to run his own business; the conflict-of-interest rules that apply to other federal officials do not apply to the office of the president. Even so, enormous external pressure was being brought to bear on the president-elect to divest completely from his businesses.

The full essay is at "Donald Trump: Conflicts of Interest."

Transforming Transformational Leadership: Foundations over Ideology

James Burn’s concept of transformational leadership is in essence a process in which “one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality.”[1] This includes a moral commitment to develop followers, especially morally. To Burns, transformational leadership is therefore “an ethical, moral enterprise.”[2] I contend that the term transformation is not inherently ethical, and so it can apply to leadership in an amoral sense. Freed up from the limitations of being viewed primarily or even exclusively as moral, transformation can be seen to apply to leadership in at least two, much more direct—or central—ways than morally: as referring to a leader’s own transformation and to a leader’s vision being transformational. 

Material from this essay has been incorporated in The Essence of Leadership, which is available at Amazon in print and as an ebook.

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1. James M. Burns, J. Leadership (New York: Harper & Row, 1978): 20.

2. Ken W. Parry and Sarah B. Proctor-Thomson, “Perceived Integrity of Transformational Leaders in Organizational Settings,” Journal of Business Ethics 35, no. 2 (January, 2002): 75.

Getting an Election So Wrong: The American Media and Pollsters in 2016

“After projecting a relatively easy victory for Hillary Clinton with all the certainty of a calculus solution, news outlets like The New York Times, The Huffington Post and the major networks scrambled to provide candid answers.”[1] The dynamics likely went beyond even candid answers from the media, with major implications for how much reliance Americans should place on their media-establishment for political information.

The full essay is at "Getting an Election So Wrong."

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1. Jim Rutenberg, “News Outlets Wonder Where the Predictions Went Wrong,” The New York Times, November 9, 2016.

California and Britain: “Calexit” and “Brexit”?

Nearly six months after a majority of British voters voted to secede from the E.U., interest was building among Californians on the possibility of a “Calexit” from the U.S.[1] In fact, supporters were proposing a referendum to take place in 2019. Although the two exits would be comparable—two large states of empire-scale unions (California’s economy being larger than that of France, and California’s population being larger than that of Poland)—the reasons for a Brexit are more fundamental than those for a Calexit. As a result, the secession of Britain from the E.U. would have a firmer foundation in terms of political theory.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

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1. Eugene Scott, “Interest in #Calexit Growing after Donald Trump Victory,” CNN, November 10, 2016.

Societal Norms Understating Unethical Corporate Cultures: The Case of Wells Fargo

The case of Wells Fargo suggests that even when a massive scandal is revealed to the general public, the moral depravity of a company’s culture is skirted rather than fully perceived. Wells Fargo was fined a total of $185 million by regulatory agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which had accused the bank of creating as many as 1.5 million deposit accounts and 565,000 credit-card accounts that for which consumers never asked. The bank fired 5,300 employees over the course of about five years after it was revealed those employees had opened the accounts and credit cards.[1] Wells Fargo's CEO at the time, John Stumpf, "opted" for a cushy early retirement after an abysmal performance before a U.S. Senate committee; he walked away from the bank with around $130 million[2], and none of the other members of senior management were fired, or "retired," obliterating any hope societally that any of the senior managers would be held accountable. This result is particularly troubling, given the true extent to which that management had turned the bank into an ethically compromised organization.

The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com.  

Organizational Conflicts of Interest and National Interest: The Case of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation

Organizational lapses, such as in non-profits or companies, regarding institutional conflicts of interest can extend in impact as far as distorting or impairing government policy and national interest if a principal of the organization also holds a high government office. Relying on whether a position in such a dual-role has scruples of character against exploiting conflicts of interest is vulnerable because people differ substantially in character. As a result, I contend that even the appearance of such conflicts should not be permitted. I use the case of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation to make my point.

The full essay is at "Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation."

Iceland’s Pirate Party on Systemic Change in Developing Democracy

Rarely does systems theory become a political issue; instead, political parties and their respective candidates brandish policy positions geared to fixing particular issues (i.e., parts of systems). In Iceland, the Pirate Party proffered an exception leading up to the 2016 election. “We do not define ourselves as left or right but rather as a party that focuses on the systems,” said Birgitta Jónsdóttir, the party’s leader.[1] In other words, the party made the system itself the issue. “We stand for enacting changes that have to do with reforming the systems, rather than changing minor things that might easily be changed back,” she said.[2] Even if the minor things could not be easily changed back, I contend that fixing them is still sub-optimal when the systems of which they are part are warped, and thus deficient as wholes. Therefore, a political party’s emphasis on systems as themselves being in need of reform presents the world’s population with a practical way to redress systemic problems.

The full essay is at "Iceland's Pirate Party."

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1. Kim Hjelmgaard, “Hacker-founded Pirate Party Could Win Iceland’s Election,” USA Today, October 28, 2016.

2. Ibid.

Wallonia Threatens to Veto the E.U.-Canada Trade Treaty: Complicating State Sovereignty in the E.U.

"The European Union and Canada signed a far-reaching trade agreement on [October 30, 2016] that commits them to opening their markets to greater competition, after overcoming a last-minute political obstacle that reflected the growing skepticism toward globalization in much of the developed world."[1] The obstacle may indeed have reflected increasing resistance at the time to globalization, but this veil can be pulled back to reveal the underlying political obstacle--that of states' rights in the E.U., taken to a crippling extreme.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

1. James Kanter, "Canada and E.U. Sign Trade Deal, Bucking Resistance to Globalization," The New York Times, October 30, 2016.

An Anti-Obesity, Anti-Poverty Philanthropist Joins PepsiCo.’s Board: A Case of Reform from Within

In October 2016, Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, became the newest member of PepsiCo’s board of directors. Whereas Walker worked at the time for a more just and equitable society, Pepsi was making the bulk of its money by selling sugary drinks and fatty snacks and there being a well-established link between obesity and economic inequality. Would he be working at cross-purposes? “There’s a risk that he will be viewed as inconsistent,” said Michael Edwards, a former Ford Foundation executive at the time.[1] The company itself could also be viewed as being inconsistent—lobbying against anti-obesity public-health legislation while putting Walker on the board of directors.

The full essay is at "Philanthropist Joins PepsiCo.'s Board."

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1. David Gelles, “An Activist for the Poor Joins Pepsi’s Board. Is That Ethical?,” The New York Times, October 28, 2016.

CO2 Record-Level in Atmosphere: Implications for Human Population

In 2015, average global CO2 levels for the year surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time, the WMO revealed in its 2016 annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. At the time, any scientists regarded that ratio of carbon dioxide to other gases in the atmosphere as a “climate change touchstone.”[1] Curiously, however, 400 ppm was not considered a tipping point. It was still possible to reverse the progression of the ratio—yet no one seems to ask how long that would take. In this regard, the ratio’s accelerating rate is particularly telling. Practically speaking, 400 ppm may in fact be a tipping point.

The full essay is at "CO2 Record-Level."

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1. Lydia O’Connor, “The Planet Just Crossed Another Major Carbon Milestone,” The Huffington Post, October 25, 2016.