Does Your Money Support Greed?

Interesting article in the New York Times today - comparing a company that embraces social responsibility vs. one that pursues profit over customer service.  Starbucks vs. Goldman Sachs

I don't know enough about Starbucks to cheerlead for it, but I think what they're saying is what we hope for from an American business.

On Wednesday, Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief executive of Starbucks, will take the podium at his company’s annual meeting and talk about the importance of morality in business.

Yes, morality. I don’t know that he’ll use that exact word. But there can be little doubt that in recent years, especially, Schultz has been practicing a kind of moral capitalism. Profitability is important, he believes, but so is treating customers, employees and coffee growers fairly. Recently, Schultz has defined Starbucks’s mission even more broadly, creating programs that have nothing at all to do with selling coffee but are aimed at helping the country recover from the Great Recession. 

In the speech, Schultz plans to make a direct link between Starbucks’s record profits and this larger societal role the company has embraced. He will make the case that companies that earn the country’s trust will ultimately be rewarded with a higher stock price. “The value of your company is driven by your company’s values,” he plans to say. 

That's a sharp contrast to Goldman Sachs, which got a public smackdown from an executive who aired his concerns about the predatory greed as he resigned.  Bloomberg rushed to their defense.

Apparently, when Greg Smith arrived at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) almost 12 years ago, the legendary investment firm was something like the Make-A-Wish Foundation -- existing only to bring light and peace and happiness to the world. 

Smith, who was executive director and head of the firm’s U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, does not go into details in his already notorious op-ed article in Wednesday’s New York Times, “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs.” But one imagines Goldman bankers spending their days delivering fresh flowers to elderly shut-ins and providing shelters for abandoned cats. Serving clients was paramount. “It wasn’t just about making money,” Smith writes. “It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization.” 

That article is one of the saddest things I've ever read.  Corporate responsibility, community involvement is so far from the Wall Street pale that it's actually mocked.  There was a time when a company's reputation was its most valuable asset.  To be accused of putting profit above morals and ethics would be a slur that would have to be answered vehemently and definitively.  These days, the response is a cynical "Get your head out of the clouds, Pollyanna - that's business."

It doesn't have to be.  Research. Go to Good Company - see the company ratings.  And stop doing business with the ones that don't share your values.

Happy Birthday, Son

My son turned 23 yesterday. He's an immensely tall, lanky young man with a square jaw, a razor-sharp mind and a soft heart. He has been one of the great love affairs of my life, along with his equally exceptional sister.

His arrival changed me forever, as I'm sure it does most parents. Until that point I was the most important person in my life. But he began to move into first place even before he was born; with every kick I felt, every turn, I knew there was a person in my life now who was going to need me to be a far better person than I'd ever been before. He was going to trust me to take care of him, keep him safe and help him navigate this confusing world and I couldn't let him down. I had to grow up.

I was struck yesterday with just how surprising life really is. I was taking a walk on my lunch break, walking up the hill to the state capitol where all the workers in their suits were lined up at the food trucks. I'm one of them now; me, the bohemian who conformed even while she railed against it. I finally know it's just a costume, one I take off when I get home. You bet I can wear your high heels for awhile, pal.

I walked down into the neighborhood where my son's father and I lived when we were first married and looked at the brownstone that was our home. And I wondered if anyone had told me everything that would happen in the intervening 23 years if I'd have panicked.

"You'll have two children and you'll adore them. You'll worry about money a lot. Your parents will get terminal cancer before they're 75 and you'll take care of your father after your mom dies, you'll get divorced. You'll get back into journalism, meet a musician, fall in love and live together. You'll sing back up on his new songs and they'll be on the radio. You'll host and produce a syndicated radio show. You'll write a few books and finally get an agent when you write non-fiction. Then you'll get a swank press job in a building where you need a security badge to get from floor to floor. And you're not done yet."

Much as we try, we really can't begin to predict where life will take us. And if we live by the eleventh commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Bore God", it's going to be a wild ride. But nobody said it wouldn't be scary, that it wouldn't hurt.

I imagine hearing all that 23 years ago, as I sat in my hospital bed with my newborn son in my arms. I suspect I'd have hidden under the covers. It doesn't sound so bad when I write it down, but having lived it, I know that it was more than I would ever voluntarily take on. I have never been that grown up, though I do my best.

Back then, that small person with the surprisingly wide eyes was all the responsibility I could handle. And even that was frightening some times, when I worried if I knew what I was doing, whether I was choosing correctly, whether my mom instincts were enough to keep him safe as he grew into the remarkable person I knew he was.

No, back then it was enough to hold him close and watch William Shatner overact in Star Trek.

"See, little man? This is fun stuff. You're going to like it."

He does.

Toyota: Mistake After Mistake

Toyota, it's a small world, especially when something is shocking. Word gets around.

So after initially downplaying the danger of the Little Cars That Won't Stop, you put a good face on it, expressed remorse, admitted that the company had begun to put market share before quality and promised to do better.

Here's a little local anecdote that makes me doubt you mean it.

A housekeeper in Harrison, NY was driving her boss's Prius for a checkup this week. It started revving up as she pulled out of the driveway, she says she couldn't stop it, and it slammed into a wall. The airbag deployed, she was treated for an injured knee. Now maybe it was the car's fault, maybe it wasn't. Police say it appears she didn't do anything wrong. Here's what disturbs me:

The police contacted the company and here's how the local paper reported it:

"Marraccini (police) said his department sought help from Toyota in accessing information in the car's black box that would reveal what was going on with the car just before the crash. The company declined, and Marraccini said police would try to obtain a federal subpoena to get the information. Toyota Motor Corp. meanwhile let police know that it wanted to inspect the car, but Marraccini said "we are not prepared to release the car to them." LoHud.com

That doesn't sound like a company anxious to rebuild its image. That sounds like a company that wants to cover its butt.

I drive a Toyota. It's a nine year old stick shift and the check engine light has stayed on for almost a year despite a six hundred dollar outlay to fix it. It's inspection time here in New York and I will not pass with a check engine light on, so I'm going to the dealer. I'm hoping they are willing to make it right. I hope they CAN make it right.

I was a true believer in Toyota; thought they made an excellent vehicle. Those days are apparently gone and apparently no one in the corporation understands that it's going to take more than a few "Thanks for sticking by us, here's a better loan rate" ads to win back consumers' trust.

Nobody likes the thought of being stuck in a car that won't stop.