Business Law
During the consumer movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Congress enacted a substantial amount of legislation to protect "the good of the people." There is only one problem with consumer protection laws -- they are slow to react and even harder to enforce. As a result of this situation, corporations are allowed to profit at the expense of consumers' health. The resistance comes in a number of stages. The first is denial of the problem, wherein the corporations argue that there is not enough evidence to link their products with the negative outcomes that are being reported. Then there is the lobbying that causes politicians to defer action until a later date, or ignore the call to action altogether. Too often, when statutes are enacted, corporations fight them to the end, resulting in flawed legislation that either has loopholes, require interpretation from the judicial branch or is difficult to enforce. As a result, consumer protections are subsumed to corporate interests.
There are many examples of this over the past few decades. A recent example would be Republican efforts to water down the role of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, something that will allow financial corporations -- already responsible for a horrible recession and lingering economic malaise -- to further abuse consumers (Puzzanghera, 2011). Other examples include the seemingly neverending battle against cigarette companies, who continue to deny links between their toxic products and cancer (Proctor, 2012). Sugar consumption is linked to cancer, diabetes and heart disease, yet there are no controls on the use of sugars in processed foods. Little to nothing has been done to address the obesity epidemic in the U.S. Even addictive substances can be added to food with impunity, as the legislative branch remains years if not decades behind the level of scientific knowledge about these issues. Evidence-based policy is shown the door in favor of pleasing corporate donors, a reality that is nothing...
... If gun manufacturers are responsible for violence, why not the makers of the steel used in the guns?" (Levy, 2004, p. 80) The application of the principles of assumption of risk and product liability to incidents that are ever more removed from the ideal usage of the product or service eventually creates a situation in which all are liable for everything and everyone. The notion of choice upon which assumption of
Since the monopoly controls so much of the market share, the producers of goods have no choice other than to sell to the firm at lower prices, meeting their demand. This causes the market to stagnate, in that the producers of the goods must increase their production, but lower their margins (Federal Trade Commission, 2002). The same occurs for merged companies. Regardless of the type of merger, the end result
Business Summaries This chapter addresses the reasons that one should study business and businesses to begin with. The authors make the point that they do not intend for this to be a narrow study that just focuses on particular examples of successive and failed businesses, although it will include case studies too. But the major point of studying business, the authors write, is to provide a larger sense of what is needed
The treatment of the undocumented workers has legal and economic implications, but is only an issue in the political arena. Companies that hire illegal immigrants are being socially responsible. The argument that illegals suppress wages is not based on sound evidence - the jobs illegals do would otherwise be unfilled. If anything, hiring illegals is socially responsible because it gives those people an opportunity to better themselves, something they otherwise
This allows for greater levels of planning and cooperation, and fills in the information gap that currently exists between the factory floor and the rest of the supply chain. Lexmark provides an example of waste. Recently, the company found itself with more than $1 million in scrap from one lot. Engineers had insufficient information to isolate and fix the problem, so were instead relegated to crisis control. With more accurate
Inventory Management Strategy. In his book, Streetwise Project Management, Dobson (2003) advocates the use of a just-in-time inventory management strategy to keep inventories low and manufacturing process more productive. This approach, though, will require close coordination with a Brazilian supplier, warehousing operations, planners and forecasters, and transportation directors throughout the inventory management process. In this regard, Epps (1995) advises, that such an approach requires the efficient transportation of materials from
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