The 14 Worst Corporatations

ryan198 wrote:

I guess we will have to agree to disagree here, because I'd rather know exactly where the authorial voice is coming from before I make decisions on its claim to validity.

Ok. I'm not sure how 'validity" relates to the source of an author's voice within the context of fact, but I'll agree to disagree.

So when El Kabong drops loads of facts on you, you still decide to argue those are wrong?

Where did I say they were wrong? Some of the aren't fully substantiated, but the majority of them are quite true to the best of my knowledge. My beef here is that those facts are incomplete.

And I also find it funny that you cite wikipedia as a "factual" source of anything in the first place given that it could be anyone who posted the info up there. It's claims to truth and fact are no different than prison planet, my argument is that in this country many people, like you, actually believe that they are.

I cite wikipedia as a source that values fact over conclusion. Please read my post. I did not say that Wikipedia is 100% factual without errors or omissions. It is not. Here's the difference. When I look up something on Wikipedia, at least I get a broad spectrum of the information regarding that topic. When I look up something at prisonplanet, I get a severe subset of the information tailored to their conclusions. When the average contributor to Wikipedia posts something, they do so in the interest of presenting a big-picture representation of fact. When the average contributor to prisonplanet posts something, they do so in the interest of presenting a conclusion with the fact to back it up. Do you understand the difference?

I didn't say that prisonplanet was right if wikipedia is wrong...I'm just saying that I find info given whereby the author situates her/himself contextually within a given moment much more compelling than some positivistic claim on facts and truths.

Of course you do. That way it doesn't matter when something is right or wrong in the next moment.

But yesterday you labeled us theives for accepting tax dollars, which by my account, I never really had a vote on?

One doesn't "accept" tax dollars. One collects them with the force of law. That's why there are the different words "tax" and "alm".

You certainly did not vote on corporate or individual income tax rates. At least not directly. I doubt such a vote would ever occur in this country, though I wish it would. However, if you willingly accept services from this government in value greater than you pay in, you are a thief.

So how am I a thief for taking those tax dollars, and the employer who's exploiting people not? Who has a more direct choice in the matter?

Because in the confine of your example, the employer is not exploiting anyone. Certainly some corporations exploit workers, typically workers overseas. But an employer is not exploiting you by default just because you work for them.

I love how you keep repeating that you are a person not an average. I know that you are, we are all different, we are all individuals, we all get dealt different hands.

You keep speaking of people as if they're just blobs of clay constantly shaped by the external world without any control or choice or will. Your statements seem to deny the unique consciousness of every human being.

When it came to the gene pool you won the motherfucking lottery deal with it.

Just because I'm white and a man?

You can't tell me that you really think you don't have more privilege than a poor kid from the inner-city who studies off books from the 1950's who's best hope of getting out of school is going to some shitty community college.

I was born with more privilege than he was. Yet some of those kids have done a shitload more than I have.

You have got to be kidding me! Just b/c you believe that you got here individually doesn't mean you didn't get a lot of help along the way.

But you're not talking about "help along the way". Of course I had help along the way. I had the help of my family, my friends, my coworkers, my educators....the list goes on and on. But I dealt with those things, good and bad, as myself.

What you're telling me is that what I have primarily comes from my genes. Yet you can't even begin to cite one specific example from my life that fits that scenario.

I never said that...to say that would make me a rote-Marxist and that is far too deterministic for my beliefs. I say you believe far too much in the individual agents choice as to make you sort of the anti-marx.

I'm as anti-Marx as the come, my friend.

Somewhere in between is where I lie, I believe that class/race/sex/gender/age etc. structures shape our lives and that we make choices based off of those structures. At the same time we actually have the ablility to change the structures with our actions. You see it's fluid, individuals are not all powerful, and the structure doesn't always decide for you but it definitely has far more say in your life than you are willing to give it credit.

Ok. I'll give it credit when someone can actually demonstrate it's "power" over me.

I find Ayn Rand quite funny actually b/c Nietzche is one of her early influences given that he was the initial person to write about genealogy, using the past a detailed look at history (and the people writing that history) to better understand the present. Somehow however she found this too subjective, and she herself decided that objectivity (clearly a subjective political act) was the way to go. For a better use of Nietzche see Michel Foucault: Discipline and Punish, History of Sexuality vols. 1-3.

Somehow? She found that too subjective by believing that history is outside the man who writes about it.

For a better use of objectivity in both the political and individual context, see Rand's "Fountainhead".

I do like that she actually spoke out against Kant that knob.

I'm surprised you reject Kant, considering that he loved the idea of a priori knowledge and his theories required that man's mind is impotent.

Umm...I was taught that in my economics courses. God I hated those classes..."how to take advantage of the disadvanteged" by Rich People.

Ok. Interesting that an economics class would teach you how to profit by taking advantage of people. I didn't know that economics was being taught via the logic of Three-Card-Monty these days.

What?

The coffee shop made a 900% profit off of me on that cup of coffee. How did they "exploit" me?

Wal-Mart's still runnin' strong...it'll eventually be taken down by someone more efficient and destructive than they are...maybe farfrom-mart.

Yet Wal-Mart is already losing in some areas to other grocers and supermarkets. Why? The answer is actually hidden in your statment above. Efficiency and destruction are more often at odds than they are complimentary.

You have stuck up for unpaid overtime in the past, which is unwanted work with no compensation.

I certainly will stick up for unpaid overtime (at least in the context of human rights, not necessarily as ethical behavior), unless one of the following is true:

- A contract between employee and employer exists requiring overtime work to be paid
- The employee is unable to refuse without incurring physical force

El_Kabong wrote:

no, i never said tjhe only purpose was for halliburton's profit...in fact i've posted several other reasons...but to say the profit for rebuilding had nothing to do w/ it is ludacris.

But he's not making a dime of profit off of it:

"In recent years the company has become the center of several controversies involving the 2003 Iraq War and the company's ties to US Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney retired from the company during the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign with a severance package worth $20 million[citation needed]. As of 2004, he had received $398,548 in deferred compensation from Halliburton while Vice President.[3] Cheney also retains unexercised stock options at Halliburton, which have been valued at nearly $8 million.[3]

Concerns have been raised regarding the possible conflict of interest resulting from Cheney's deferred compensation and stock options from Halliburton. However, before entering office in 2001, Cheney bought an insurance policy that guaranteed a fixed amount of deferred payments from Halliburton each year for five years so that the payments would not depend on the company's fortunes.[3] He is legally bound by an agreement he signed which turns over power of attorney to a trust administrator to sell the options at some future time and to give the after-tax profits to three charities. The agreement specifies that 40% will go to the University of Wyoming (Cheney's home state), 40% will go to George Washington University's medical faculty to be used for tax-exempt charitable purposes, and 20% will go to Capital Partners for Education. The agreement states that it is "irrevocable and may not be terminated, waived or amended," preventing Cheney from taking back the options at a later date.[3]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton#Dick_Cheney_ties

the suggestion that if profit was a motivation they would give ALL the contracts to them is equally ludacris

Why? It would create even more profit.

farfromglorified wrote:

Certainly. But those judgments only work if they involve both sides, right?

which do you think is more common knowledge?
that 'millions of ppl enjoy drinking coke' or they privatize water and even collecting rain water is illegal? a lot of the 'other/good' side is common knowledge. certain actions ppl would think are so bad no matter the good the company does will not erase the bad enough for them to support the company. like the privatization; that far outweighs, in my mind, any money they give to charity.

farfromglorified wrote:

But you have to remember how LOGCAP works. LOGCAP is a cost-plus contract, the kind often used by the Clinton administration (and many others). LOGCAP allows Halliburton to make a 2% profit. Unfortunately, it also fucks the taxpayer because there are no built-in cost control mechanisms. Effectively the only way to raise profit is to raise cost. Halliburton's bonus also includes deductions for mistakes made and deductions are also made in the standard billing process. This is not unique or even untoward. It only looks weird if you have a mindset that says that a few mistakes or acts of willful neglect erases all of the other successes or acts of willful care.

a few mistakes?? simple neglect?? are you kidding me? feeding them spoiled meat, giving them contaminated water 'The level of contamination was roughly 2x the normal contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates River'...did you honestly even read the list of the logisitcial audits??

'the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority Inspector General (CPA IG) found that, as a result of poor oversight, Halliburton charged U.S. taxpayers for unauthorized and unnecessary expenses at the Kuwait Hilton Hotel. According to the IG, the overcharges would have amounted to $3.6 million per year.' over $10million they've overcharged just for this one hotel since the war started...and that's a 'simple mistake'? up to $26 million in missing equipment is just 'neglect'?

sorry, but when these ppl are cutting the headstart program and lots of other things while this is happening and allowing them to receive a bonus is absurd

farfromglorified wrote:

" if one of your employees did a real bad job, came in late, called in, did his job 1/2 assed, stole stuff from the office...would you give him a raise?"

The more apt example would be an employee that did a great job, came in on time, did his job as well as he could, but then stole something from the office. In that case, I would punish the employee for stealing, but I also might reward him for all the other stuff. See how that works?

i guess that is another difference...i see a lot of problems w/ halliburton's work, you want to simply brush them off as 'neglect' and 'mistakes' i don't think that list of abuses (and it is far from a complete list) does not a "great job" make this employee is not only stealing staplers, he's putting 40% more time on his time card than he worked. he's telling you materials cost one thing but really inflating hte price and skimming some off the top.

man, how does your business run w/ this kind of work ethic you title 'great'?

my2hands wrote:

I REALLY FUCKING HATE THE MULTI quote, MULTI POINT POST

sorry, had to get that off of my chest

see above

El_Kabong wrote:

which do you think is more common knowledge?
that 'millions of ppl enjoy drinking coke' or they privatize water and even collecting rain water is illegal? a lot of the 'other/good' side is common knowledge. certain actions ppl would think are so bad no matter the good the company does will not erase the bad enough for them to support the company. like the privatization; that far outweighs, in my mind, any money they give to charity.

So you're here to spread uncommon knowledge? That's your purpose?

If you feel that Coke's actions in India have outweighed the positives of their actions elsewhere, that's fine.

a few mistakes?? simple neglect?? are you kidding me? feeding them spoiled meat, giving them contaminated water 'The level of contamination was roughly 2x the normal contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates River'...did you honestly even read the list of the logisitcial audits??

'the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority Inspector General (CPA IG) found that, as a result of poor oversight, Halliburton charged U.S. taxpayers for unauthorized and unnecessary expenses at the Kuwait Hilton Hotel. According to the IG, the overcharges would have amounted to $3.6 million per year.' over $10million they've overcharged just for this one hotel since the war started...and that's a 'simple mistake'? up to $26 million in missing equipment is just 'neglect'?

sorry, but when these ppl are cutting the headstart program and lots of other things while this is happening and allowing them to receive a bonus is absurd

Halliburton is not cutting the headstart program, ok? Dear God.

It is "neglect". Do you understand what the word means? $10m in overcharges on a $5.6B contract is a 0.1% overcharge. Do you understand that, while wrong, it's not the end of the world?

A family member of mine works for the Michigan Welfare System and deals with the financials of daycare-related services. Everyday there's another day care center in Michigan that overcharges the state for daycare services. Sometimes its willful fraud. Other times it's a mistake. Should she be running around trying to shut down day care centers just because a few bills out of thousands are incorrect???

i guess that is another difference...i see a lot of problems w/ halliburton's work, you want to simply brush them off as 'neglect' and 'mistakes' i don't think that list of abuses (and it is far from a complete list) does not a "great job" make this employee is not only stealing staplers, he's putting 40% more time on his time card than he worked. he's telling you materials cost one thing but really inflating hte price and skimming some off the top.

AGGHHH!!! That list of abuses does not a "great job" make. That's because the list of abuses doesn't contain the thousands of correct bills, the millions of gallons of clean drinking water, and the millions of pounds of safe meals provided. What don't you understand about this?

man, how does your business run w/ this kind of work ethic you title 'great'?

It works because I understand that not a single person is perfect. It's called dealing with reality. It's about punishing people for their errors and rewarding them for their successes. What's so hard about that to understand?

farfromglorified wrote:

So you're here to spread uncommon knowledge? That's your purpose?

I hesitate to tread here, but what is the problem with these guys bringing this kind of fringe info to the main? I know I've been down this route before with you re: Commy.

farfromglorified wrote:

Ok. I'm not sure how 'validity" relates to the source of an author's voice within the context of fact, but I'll agree to disagree.

b/c the source of an authors voice is PART OF the context of fact. knowing who someone is identity-wise makes up a large portion of what/how they are going to think. so an individual's 'facts' (as if there is a such thing as a cold hard fact - even the most positivist scientist will argue against you on that) are most definitely shaped by their indentity.

farfromglorified wrote:

Where did I say they were wrong? Some of the aren't fully substantiated, but the majority of them are quite true to the best of my knowledge. My beef here is that those facts are incomplete.

There are no facts my friend, they are all incomplete, they are all shaped by the dominant and subversive trends of society at a current moment.

farfromglorified wrote:

I cite wikipedia as a source that values fact over conclusion. Please read my post. I did not say that Wikipedia is 100% factual without errors or omissions. It is not. Here's the difference. When I look up something on Wikipedia, at least I get a broad spectrum of the information regarding that topic. When I look up something at prisonplanet, I get a severe subset of the information tailored to their conclusions. When the average contributor to Wikipedia posts something, they do so in the interest of presenting a big-picture representation of fact. When the average contributor to prisonplanet posts something, they do so in the interest of presenting a conclusion with the fact to back it up. Do you understand the difference?

Yes one is outwardly political and admits it. The other is insidiously political and claims to present truths. I'm not saying one is better than the other, I'm just saying that I'd rather know the politics behind given statements before I make judgements on them. It's part of the context.

farfromglorified wrote:

Of course you do. That way it doesn't matter when something is right or wrong in the next moment.

That's because something that is right at this moment could be wrong in the next moment. Remember when scientists thought that women couldn't play sports because they would be unable to reproduce. Or when scientists claimed that black people were genetically dumber that white people. Now women can play sports, and the human genome project has concluded that their is no essential race. When power shifts, dominant ideologies shift, and "FACTS" shift.

farfromglorified wrote:

One doesn't "accept" tax dollars. One collects them with the force of law. That's why there are the different words "tax" and "alm".

You certainly did not vote on corporate or individual income tax rates. At least not directly. I doubt such a vote would ever occur in this country, though I wish it would. However, if you willingly accept services from this government in value greater than you pay in, you are a thief.

So using that logic...if you make more money on a particular product that you sell than you pay to the laborer and all the extra-costs (thus make a profit) YOU are a thief.

farfromglorified wrote:

Because in the confine of your example, the employer is not exploiting anyone. Certainly some corporations exploit workers, typically workers overseas. But an employer is not exploiting you by default just because you work for them.

If you make a profit, which is paying less economic value to someone for their labor value. IE - it costs 1 unit in materials to make a widget, you pay your worker 3 units to make it, and you turn around and sell it for 6 units for a profit of 2. You certainly exploited the worker, and the environment from which you took the material. That's easy to see.

farfromglorified wrote:

You keep speaking of people as if they're just blobs of clay constantly shaped by the external world without any control or choice or will. Your statements seem to deny the unique consciousness of every human being.

Wrong. No I do not. I am arguing that neither you/Rand nor Marx allows for the kind of nuance that I am calling for. Read Lawrence Grossberg's interview with Stuart Hall called "Marxism without Gaurantees" to see where I align myself. In that Hall states that the marxist structure is too rigid, as is plain agency, the two are in constant interplay.

farfromglorified wrote:

Just because I'm white and a man?

No but also because you are of a certain class, sexual preference, and age position that allows you to be a part of the dominant face of America. Again this is fluid, if you walk into an Ani DiFranco concert your relative level of privilege is not the same as it is if you are at a Pearl Jam concert. Generally there are more things in the U.S. that reflect a Pearl Jam concerts demographic than an Ani DiFranco concert.

farfromglorified wrote:

I was born with more privilege than he was. Yet some of those kids have done a shitload more than I have.

Some...but some can't and you cannot solely blame the individual in these situations you need to outline the context of the situation before blaming the poor for being poor.

farfromglorified wrote:

But you're not talking about "help along the way". Of course I had help along the way. I had the help of my family, my friends, my coworkers, my educators....the list goes on and on. But I dealt with those things, good and bad, as myself.

Yes yourself a white, heterosexual, male who has the unspoken advantage in most situations in life.

farfromglorified wrote:

What you're telling me is that what I have primarily comes from my genes. Yet you can't even begin to cite one specific example from my life that fits that scenario.

First of all no I am not arguing that everything comes from your genes, but it does help. How about something as stupid as this what color is an Ace Wrap? What color are band-aids? What color is a crayola Flesh crayon? What is the universal in English Man or Woman?

farfromglorified wrote:

I'm as anti-Marx as the come, my friend.

Hey I recognize that his system wasn't perfect, but Rand's system of corporate lassez faire capitalism has never worked anywhere ever.

farfromglorified wrote:

Ok. I'll give it credit when someone can actually demonstrate it's "power" over me.

Alright lets not be so egotistical for a second and look at W. He was born into a high powered family. The man was a knob for years, an alchy, coke blowing moron who's mommy and daddy paid for him to get through school. He ran 8 businesses into the ground, and sucked at owning the Rangers. He's our president?!?!?!? You're telling me that he individually earned all that on his own...got no structural help? Please, tell me that the latina lesbian living in the inner city could behave the same way as him and be president...now way! And you know it. So look at your life, and say if I were a race/class/gender/sexual pref. minority would I still have been able to make it where I was making the same decisions!??! I would again argue no way. People would treat you differently, speak to you differently, and make different assumptions about you before you even opened your mouth. That's the structure and that's where Rand's argument falls flat.

farfromglorified wrote:

Somehow? She found that too subjective by believing that history is outside the man who writes about it.

For a better use of objectivity in both the political and individual context, see Rand's "Fountainhead".

Objectivity does not and cannot exist...see above.

farfromglorified wrote:

I'm surprised you reject Kant, considering that he loved the idea of a priori knowledge and his theories required that man's mind is impotent.

Kant was a high-class snob who also made value decisions based on people's standings in life. I never said man's mind was impotent just in constant battle with the structure.

farfromglorified wrote:

Ok. Interesting that an economics class would teach you how to profit by taking advantage of people. I didn't know that economics was being taught via the logic of Three-Card-Monty these days.

No it's called the capitalist business sense, and since we live in a time where neo-liberal capitalist rule dominates our thoughts we just think that paying people less than what they give us is good business. In reality it's exploitation to various degrees.

farfromglorified wrote:

The coffee shop made a 900% profit off of me on that cup of coffee. How did they "exploit" me?

The coffee shop made a 900% profit off the cup of coffee and didn't give all that money back to their laborers...that's how exploitation works. Profit is based on exploitation. The consumer is part of it only b/c they are paying.

farfromglorified wrote:

Yet Wal-Mart is already losing in some areas to other grocers and supermarkets. Why? The answer is actually hidden in your statment above. Efficiency and destruction are more often at odds than they are complimentary.

I'm pretty sure they will find a way out of it. Although Costco would seem to help argue your point.

farfromglorified wrote:

I certainly will stick up for unpaid overtime (at least in the context of human rights, not necessarily as ethical behavior), unless one of the following is true:

- A contract between employee and employer exists requiring overtime work to be paid
- The employee is unable to refuse without incurring physical force

Again what about being the Wal-Mart employee who needs that money to be putting food on the table so they can't quit following your two ridiculous addendums? How about unpaid overtime where the employee is unable to refuse without being fired?

What's your occupation? It's obvious you don't work in corporate America and if you do it's low level. You SERIOUSLY think any/every global company stops a work order until it can get a clear and precise listing of all political views, actions, associations, contributions, etc., from all foreign, politically allied companies that they conduct business with? Life must be great on your planet. ...

Dance For Me wrote:

What's your occupation?

Pirate.

It's obvious you don't work in corporate America and if you do it's low level.

I'm in the mail room.

You SERIOUSLY think any/every global company stops a work order until it can get a clear and precise listing of all political views, actions, associations, contributions, etc., from all foreign, politically allied companies that they conduct business with?

I don't think that.

Life must be great on your planet. ...

It's not bad.

Did anyone mention McWane Corp yet? Proof that a family owned company can be just as shitty as a public traded company.....Environmental abuses, unsafe work conditions and low pay are just some of what you can expect from these turds. PBS and the NY Times did a four part series about them a couple of years back......the main paper here in Birmingham, Alabama, where McWane is headquartered, did not run the story. The lesser read of the two dailies, now defunct, ran the story. I formerly worked for a company that McWane acquired....scum of the earth.

Their main revenue stream is cast iron pipe and related products. They own several small steel companies and one of the largest producer of fire extinguishers worldwide, with whom I was once employed.