Corporate question

[Cedar]

"I'm sorry but my experience with business has taught me that most businessmen value the bottom line over ethics that cannot be objectively defined."

I guess maybe that's why farmers don't seem to make good businessmen, eh? Too much ethics, not enough bottom line...!?!? (I have to wonder who the consumer would rather buy from/deal with if they only knew all the "nitty-gritty"?

[farmers_son]

If someone is driving 110 in a 100 km zone and the police do not pull them over it does not mean driving 110 is legal, they just got away with it.

Actually the business people I know are very ethical. Personal reputation is everything in business. Sure there are Enrons out there but I think the momemtum today is for a much higher standard of ethics in the way businesses conduct themselves. Cargill and Tyson are exceptions, not the norm.

[Bez]

Cedar

THe consumer does not care. They are taxed and beat up so badly that all they want is the cheapest price - in most cases - and to be left alone.

As for packers and any business - well, they are PROFIT driven. The shareholders in any major corporation demand the profits be kept up. Any CEO will attempt to preserve his salary and bonus by maximizing profit above almost all else.

Bez

[cowman]

Cedar:I wonder if the consumer really gives a rip one way or the other? I guess the success of Wal-mart pretty well illustrates that?
In any transaction there is a buyer and a seller. No one is forced to buy and no one is forced to sell. As an example if kpbs' neighbor didn't like the $2 offered he didn't need to take it? He could store it and hope the price went up somewhere down the road? Now I realize he probably needed some money to pay the bills and obviously he thought selling was better than holding it...but everyone has options! Who knows barley might be $3 by next year?
The same argument goes for cattle...if you don't like the price then make a decision to hold them or fold them! If you think the packers are raping you then go into the packing business...there are lots of schemes out there to build packing houses!

[SASH]

grassfarmer wrote:
Sash, you say "This is another one of these things where you see alot people standing around talking about how it should be instead of dealing with the reality of what is."
Perhaps the world would be a better place if more people talked about some of the factors adversly affecting humanity in this world and started putting some things right.

I agree that having a social conscience is a good thing. As far as trying to help out the third world, how do you help out the people in the third world If not by giving them industry. If you just send money, you risk turning them into a dependant welfare state. We already have groups in Canada who seem to have given up on working because it is way easier just to wait for thatgovernment cheque. The other thing is that this situation will only get worse because as the baby boomers retire, they will put a strain on Canada's social programs and somebody will need to pay for it. Taxes will either have to go higher which means people will have a tougher time making a living and less money for charity or government spending must decrease which means there will be less disaster relief both in Canada and abroad. The way I see it, maybe we can import some of these third world immigrants to come work in Canada to help pay for these programs and help them out in that way.

[SASH]

Got a little off track with that last post. I guess if you look at the packers, although they may have been making record profits from their Canadian income stream, they were losing money in the US. How is this different than the farmer who is losing money on his barley and hoping to make it up on his wheat? As far as them taking advantage of you, if you were getting ready to send your cattle to market and expecting $600 a head and one of your down on your luck neighbors came by and offered to give you $400 a head for them, would you sell them to him? Probably not. You would probably try to get as much for them as you could. This is exactly what the packers are doing. As far as a marketing board goes, it would help the producer by making sure he is making a profit on his animals and help the packer by giving him forward pricing on the cattle they are intending to buy which takes out alot of the risk and adds more certainty to their income stream which in turn makes their stock price go up. I know it sounds like a funny looking thing but I'm convinced that if the producers don't set this up, the packers will work at integrating it which would be much worse for us.

[farmers_son]

SASH: You said “Ethics and business are mutually exclusive... If you are expecting corporate business to be ethical, you must be living in a dreamworld.”

I believe that people who can explain away questionable ethics in others will have no trouble justifying their own lack of moral values. The Golden Rule “Do onto others as you would have others do onto you” is still one of the foundations of our society. Those who would justify the actions of Cargill and Tyson would probably have no problem do the same themselves if they only had the opportunity. The very fabric of our society is built upon moral and ethical business, religious and political values and expectations of ourselves and others. Yes, we are all human and sometimes fail to live up to the standards we should but to suggest that business has no ethics surely casts suspicion upon your own values for we all conduct business.

Arguing that business and ethics are mutually exclusive is an indefensible position. The actions of the big packers is nothing short of immoral, unethical and illegal. In the cattle business today as yesterday a man’s word is still worth something. The Golden Rule means as much now as it ever did, in business as well as personal life.

[SASH]

Arguing that business and ethics are mutually exclusive is an indefensible position. The actions of the big packers is nothing short of immoral, unethical and illegal.

I don't know what your background is that you would say that. Let me tell you, however, that I've been in the corporate world and am no longer there mostly because I couldn't get my head around the way the people who were getting ahead in that business conducted themselves. Again, I'm not defending anybody, I'm just saying that this is the reality of the situation. When I was in university, 'The Art of War' and "The Marquis de Sade' were mandatory reading. This is what business training is all about. How to get ahead and show no mercy. Why do you say the packers are unethical, immoral and illegal. What debt do you feel that they owe you as a producer, and really as long as they are making money, what concern is it of theirs if you go bankrupt. There are always going to be more people out there that will supply them with the product they need whether it be from Canada, the US or the third world. Tell me, when the packers get to a point where they are losing money are you going to dig deep to help them out and if not why not you seem to expect them to do it for you. Good Luck.

[grassfarmer]

A word that I don't think has been used in this thread is exploitation.
Exploitation is something that needs to be considered.
I was not joking when I said children in the third world are sold to "sweat shop" factory owners producing goods to be consumed in the developed world. And don't bother telling me these kids should be thankful they have a job and food to eat. This is slavery - how ironic that US corporations are perpetuating slavery in a modern world.

This is what global trade and corporate business are about - screwing the bulk of humanity so that the riches of the world get into a tiny percentage of the world population.
We also have exploitation of natural resources - water, timber, fossil fuels. The most "successful" corporations are the ones who are prepared to be the most damaging to the environment - again using up the worlds resources to make personal profit for a handful of individuals. Who gives them the right to do that?
If you can defend the corporations in these situations SASH you truly belong in your former occupation. Strange how anyone with these values would finish up a farmer - assuming you are a farmer.

[SASH]

If you can defend the corporations in these situations SASH you truly belong in your former occupation. Strange how anyone with these values would finish up a farmer - assuming you are a farmer.

For the umpteenth time, I'm not defending anybody!
I consider myself to be more of a small businessman than a traditional farmer. I would rather spend my time trying to find a way to keep myself in business through this crisis rather than sitting around bitching about how things aren't the way they should be. I will agree, however, that getting away from the farm for awhile has given me a little broader perspective than those who have never left. For what its worth, I agree that the third world shouldn't be exploited and that we are very wasteful of our resources in North America. But this is another of these 'should be's' that you dreamers tend to come up with. I'd like to hear what your solutions are to help out these third world people. Do we leave them alone? Do we create a welfare state for them? Do we try and let them get their economy up and running by creating jobs for them? The last one is what we are doing but it will take years possibly decades before they get up to an acceptable living standard. The thing is you are talking about countries that are basically pre-industrial revolution. How long did it take us to get from that state to where we are. The first assembly line production started back in the late 1800's so at least a hundred years. Again, I commend you for having a conscience about these things but how from an economic standpoint are you going to implement this Utopian vision that you have for the world?