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A trip down memory lane. Listen to the story or read the transcript here.

Excerpt:
The business world has been rocked by one scandal after another in the past decade. From Bernie Ebbers to Bernie Madoff, it’s been a confusing and angry time for investors.

In particular, the past 18 months have resembled a horror movie, with flaws exposed at Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG. All of that was accompanied by a 777-point one-day plunge in the Dow (plus plenty of dismal trading days that followed) and more than 7 million job losses.

Read more…

Links to the studies are included in the article.  Read the article here.

Excerpt:
Why does it seem that it’s always Christmas in corporate boardrooms? And how can investors tell whether those glittering pay packages are worth the cost?

The answer sounds obvious: Pay the boss more for good results now, and you should get even better results later. But the evidence for that is surprisingly weak, and two new studies even suggest that when chief executive officers get paid more, shareholders end up earning less.

Read more…

http://www.manpower.com/social/srreport.cfm
2009 Corporate Social Responsibility Update: People and Purpose

From a great blog that covers ethical issues in the biotechnology industry.  Read the blog article here.

Excerpt:
Monsanto is widely considered to be Public Enemy #1 by critics of the biotech industry. But most who’ve heard complaints about Monsanto don’t know much more than what’s contained in the single-sentence slogans.

But if you’re going to form an opinion, it’s good to know a little more. As a start, here’s a good story by Christopher Leonard, writing for the Associated Press (and coming to you via The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), Monsanto seed biz role revealed. I strongly recommend the whole article. But here’s a taste:

“Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.’s business practices reveal how the world’s biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.

With Monsanto’s patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry participants, agriculture and legal experts….”

Read more…

Read the article here.
Excerpt:

You might think that board members overseeing businesses that cratered in the credit crisis would be disqualified from serving as directors at other public companies.

You would, however, be wrong.

Directors who were supposedly minding the store as disaster struck at companies like Countrywide Financial, Washington Mutual or Fannie Mae have not all been banished from other boardrooms. In many cases, directors just seem to skate away from company woes that occurred on their watch.

To some investors, this is an example of the refusal of those involved in the debacle to accept responsibility for it. Whether you are talking about top executives loading up on leverage, regulators who slept while companies took on titanic risks or mortgage lenders that made thousands of dubious loans, few in this crowd have acknowledged culpability. Taxpayers and shareholders, meanwhile, who had nothing to do with the problems, are left holding the bag.

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Interesting article, but more data might be needed before a conclusion can be drawn. Read the article here.
Excerpt:

From a carbon emissions point-of-view, is it better to buy products online or in a store? You probably guessed the former. And if so, you’re right, according to a study conducted by MindClick GSM, a sustainability consulting firm and released today by GigaOM Pro, a subscription based research and analysis service covering green IT (among other topics).
[...]
The researchers took these numbers and ran with them, calculating that the negative environmental impact of an in-store purchase made on Black Friday is 50 times that of an online purchase made on Cyber Monday. And in more general terms, it found that carbon emissions related to purchasing an item inside a store represents an increase of more than 15 times that of an online purchase.

Read more…

Read the article here.
Excerpt:

What critics do do – in both good economic times and bad – is offer the usual bromide that the minimum wage is a “job-killer.” In reality, though, the most careful studies of state and federal minimum wage increases have found little evidence of job loss. For example, states that raised their minimum wages higher than the federal level between 1997 and 2007 (when the federal minimum wage was stuck at $5.15 an hour) enjoyed lower unemployment rates than states that did not. When Congress finally raised the minimum wage in 2007, the move was endorsed by more than 650 economists, including five Nobel laureates and six past presidents of the American Economics Association, who argued that the increase would significantly improve the lives of low-wage workers “without the adverse effects critics have claimed.”

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A great article from a very interesting website. Read the article here.
Excerpt:

During the past year, the financial sector has done a lot of wrong. First, it nearly self-destructed. Then it engaged with a set of Washington elites to extract trillions of dollars of public funds to ease its pain. Now, it’s posting record bonuses on the back of that assistance, in a disgustingly entitled manner, as if its profits are based on sheer skill, rather than federal aid, accounting tricks, and regulatory indifference. What’s missing from this reckless scenario? Women.

Read more…

Read the article here.
Excerpt:

Kohl’s Department Stores is the first retailer to commit to net zero emissions as part of its partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Leaders program. Kohl’s pledges to achieve net zero emissions by 2010 and maintain carbon neutrality through 2012. The retailer said its goal is equivalent to offsetting the annual emissions from electricity used by more than 99,084 homes or removing 130,842 vehicles from the road for a year.

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Here we go again… Read the article here.
Excerpt:

Enron was the financial scandal that kicked off the decade: a giant energy trading company that appeared to be doing brilliantly—until we finally noticed that it wasn’t. It’s largely been forgotten given the wreckage that followed, and that’s too bad: we may be repeating those mistakes, on a far larger scale.

Specifically, as the largest Wall Street banks return to profitability—in some cases, breaking records—they say everything is rosy. They’re lining up to pay back their TARP money and asking Washington to back off. But why are they doing so well? Remember that Enron got away with their illegalities so long because their financials were so complicated that not even the analysts paid to monitor the Houston-based trading giant could cogently explain how they were making so much money.

After two weeks sifting through over one thousand pages of SEC filings for the largest banks, I have the same concerns. While Washington ponders what to do, or not do, about reforming Wall Street, the nation’s biggest banks, plumped up on government capital and risk-infused trading profits, have been moving stuff around their balance sheets like a multi-billion dollar musical chairs game.

Read more…

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