Corporate Accountability Panel

[jamie mclaughlin]

I have to say I was very disappointed in this panel. I felt that all
the real, analytical questions were just deflected with P.C. answers,
and that we were subject to panelists marketing their corporation
instead of learning anything of real value. I think it is wonderful
that these organizations are philanthropic, but I think paying taxes
to really invest in their local communities would be much more
beneficial I think the issue of corporations' failure to take
responsibility for their failures, like BP, was largely avoided. I
loved the question concerning consumer sovereignty and why it was that
more was spent on advertising than on educating; however we never got
a real answer because the moderator rephrased it in a way to avoid the
real issues and promote Verizon's philanthropy again. Any thoughts?

[Conner]

These are persons trained in public relations. If they don't like a
question, they restate their mission statement. We heard the same
reply. A lot. Telecommunications companies are not very well liked by
people our age, partly because of net neutrality, partly because we
just don't like paying them tons of money for things we have (cell
phone, internet, tv...). So they knew going in that they wouldn't
receive the warmest of welcomes.

[Petros Kusmu]

I wasn't too fond about the panelists, as well–this is in part due to
the poor answer I received about various actors needing to "cooperate"
more in order to make real global change. One of the panelists, the
United Nations fellow, argued that cooperation is needed, but we can't
stop those who "want to do good" so it's okay to let them do their own
thing. My problem with that is you may have individuals who feel like
they should start up their own, for example, development program (such
as Nate, the 13-year old boy scout, and his mosquito organization)
which causes more harm than good. For example, by buying mosquito nets
from abroad and giving it to the poor in Africa, then you're
destroying the mosquito net businesses in those local communities–thus
causing great job loss and placing a greater amount of people in
poverty (Dambisa Moyo expands on this in her book "Dead Aid").

I was really disappointed to her that none of the panelists were
critical on this. Especially considering that the guy is from the UN,
you'd hope he'd be aware of bad development practices, despite the
goodwill behind these practices.

On Jun 28, 3:06 pm, Lillian Hussong <lillian.huss...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'll definitely have to agree with you on that one, Jamie.  The panel
> wasn't interesting because A) Not everyone is interested in learning
> about corporations and their 'philanthropies' and B) It was definitely
> obvious that questions were being rephrased to make it easier for the
> panelists, and C) The speakers did not have the audience's attention
> for that long!  The most interesting part of that program was watching
> the late panelist surreptitiously walk to her seat on the stage.
>
> I also didn't like the subtle or not-so-subtle advertising going on
> during the panel.  I don't want to hear a Q&A where Comcast and
> Verizon both have to talk about their agendas and why their agendas
> make their service "the best in America today".  We're not here to
> listen to you two talk about whose company is better, we were supposed
> to be here to learn about corporate social responsibility!

[Matt Mill]

Poppycock, but what do you expect? These people give a dollar to an
orphan and then spend two dollars telling everyone about it -- if the
Comcast woman said "branding" one more time I was going to have a
seizure. Jamie's 100 percent right. These are the same people who dole
out money to accuse politicians of socialism so their income tax don't
go up 3%, and lobby to gash medicaid so that they don't have to pay
taxes on their corporate jets. I'm probably being far too earnest
here.

I asked the question about inconsistencies between Citizens United and
the Walmart Case. Since I was the last one in line and didn't expect a
straight answer I didn't ask my follow up. They referenced
responsibility to share-holders multiple times, and how much share-
holders care about the social responsibility of the companies they are
invested in. The latter is mostly untrue. Share-holders only get
concerned when there is a high-profile disaster. See BP, or the
controversy that surrounded Nike a little while back. In cases like
that, when the media gets riled up, investors bail. My follow-up was
going to be about the relative knowledge of investors. The majority of
people who invest on Wall Street buy stock through Mutual Funds that
they are usually advised on by investment banks. Mutual Funds lump
together dozens, sometimes hundreds, of "blue-chip" stocks. Most
people probably don't even know what they own. Even if they do, we're
talking about people's pensions and retirement funds here. People
didn't buy stock in BP because they admired the company, they bought
it because it paid a dividend. If people knew that catastrophes
similar to the Gulf Coast tragedy happen often in Exxon-Mobile's
Nigerian operations, or what Texaco did to Ecuador would they still
buy stock in those corporations? I don't know. Luckily for them,
neither do the shareholders.

Consumer knowledge is important but it's equally important to avoid
being smug about it. Once I was reading a book and a young woman
informed me that Kindles were much greener because they saved trees
etc etc. I told her that somebody in the DRC probably lost a hand over
the coltan in her Kindle. I wonder what the corporate panelists think
of that.