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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
> What I would say is, in a global economy,
> we're all globally responsible.
> I think Wal-Mart will make changes. It has to.
No it does not. And it will not, unless something big happens. Don't confuse your hopes with your expectations.
I'm sick and tired of people holding out this naive notion that a large for-profit corporation will suddenly become a bunch of flower children and start caring about the environment.
Corporations run on profit. period. Any CEO who guides her company with another goal, is soon replaced. Either by the stockholders, or by bankrupcy.
Walmart will move on this issue only if it turns into dollars. For instance, if some laws somewhere get passed, and enforced, and it costs them a lot of money to violate them and get caught. That's usually the best way. Ain't gonna happen this year, and maybe not this decade.
Another mechanism that works sometimes, and appears to work much more often, is if there's PR value. If Walmart gets bad press and bad gossip, that translates into dollars and they will act. They call it 'goodwill' - public perception, the people loving the company. Or not, as the case may be. Sometimes bad press causes a company to clean up its act. More commonly, it leads to a company to appear to clean up its act.
What would that look like? Executives of Walmart suddenly appear to turn into flower children. At least in the commercials. Commercials show how Walmart is cleaning up salmon poo! Well, you listen carefully and really they are developing a machine to do it. And you get on the web and do research, and it's just one guy with a patent and a prototype, and after they shoot the commercial, they drop the whole project. But continue to show the commercials.
Walmart gives college scholarships to smart Chilean kids! Three of them, fabulous scholarships, hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece. Tons and tons of photos at photo ops where everybody sees the same three kids, benefactors of good old Walmart. The kids go on a worldwide speaking tour. Especially to places with Walmart stores. Total investment: Thirty million dollars for the promotion, one million dollars for the scholarships. And their classmates stay back home and work Salmon for the rest of their lives. But you never see that on TV.
PR is very tricky - sometimes it works too well, sometimes not well enough.
I read the editor recommended letters and two of them mentioned tithing. What is that?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
