wombat_socho

There's an interesting piece in today's WSJ OpinionJournal which echoes the late Milton Friedman's condemnation of corporate philanthropy (or "corporate social responsibility", in Newspeak) as nothing more or less than socialism. I've never been fond of the practice myself, and find it interesting that the closer a company is to the actual nuts and bolts of the economy (for example, energy and coal companies) the less patience they have for this kind of socialist bullroar. I have patience for this notion of "stakeholders". Either you have stock or you don't, and if you're the kind of person who buys five shares so you can show up and harangue the directors, you get treated with the respect you deserve, i.e. none. This is also why I'm in favor of suing the pants of any muddle-headed pension fund manager who uses the fund's clout to bludgeon a company into pursuing goals that have more to do with the manager's notions of "global thinking" or "social responsibility" than with making the maximum profit consistent with the law and good business practices. The Evil Banking Neighbor, unfortunately, spends a lot of time and effort on this sort of thing; I suppose some of it can be justified as good PR and a decent exploitation of the tax laws. However, I have a hard time getting my head around their participation in this sort of nonsense. One good thing about getting into the teaching business will be having my summers off to hector management about this. I'll have pretty close to a thousand shares, and I plan to make them heard.

Meanwhile, a couple of Thanksgiving-related posts. First, somebody who needs to cut the kids some slack - there'll be time enough for them to become cynical when they reach puberty. (Rachel) Next, is there any way we can get this jerk a job reclassification from "history professor" to "illiterate fucktard"? (Volokh Conspiracy, via Instapundit).

Later today, time permitting: a post on how the Great American Holidays correspond to the Seven Deadly Sins. Particularly appropriate as we waddle ponderously forth from the Feast of Gluttony to the Season of Avarice.