How often does the Right thing trump the Profitable thing

I just read an interesting article from Harvard Business Review about how the head of Samuel Adams decided to help out his "competition" by selling them hops at the same discounted rate that they had negotiated with their suppliers.

To me this really made me think: "How often do businesses do the right thing over doing the profitable thing". Also, what defines the right thing?

I think that in our society this type of thing doesn't happen very often because businesses are very cutthroat but I think that in some cases the right thing is also the right thing for the business. Not only would it be great PR but realistically it may help the company long term.

Very interesting

Tough Call: YouTube al Qaeda Videos

Joe Lieberman has called on YouTube to remove al Qaeda videos. My first reaction was yeah they should be removed. After considering it though, I am not so sure. I believe that YouTube absolutely has the right to remove the videos if they deem them to be against their policies, I am just not sure that a Senator should be pushing the issue. Although, I don't like to see al Qaeda have this type of video available on YouTube, it has some resemblence to the beginnings of the McCarthy era.

We must protect the people and the country but we also must protect our rights as Americans otherwise what are we really protecting?

Southern Border

I have had many conversations about securing the southern border of the U.S. with friends and colleagues. I have told them time and time again, that I have no issue with workers coming in to the U.S. to work. Give all the immigrants paperwork to get in once you have verified who they are. I have heard many say that they don't think a fence or personnel along the border is justified. My argument has always been that we need to secure it against people who mean to do us harm.

I just read this article: Drug Cartels to Mexican Police: 'Join Us or Die'. Pretty much drug cartels are proving the the Mexican authorities are no match for them. The police and soldiers are outnumbered and outgunned. Can Mexico seriously police the border region? No.

With that said, I am not exactly sure how we can continue to seriously argue the point of securing the border. Mexico is unable to secure the region. I think that the U.S. is foolish to not lock down our southern border. Not to keep immigrants out but to keep drug cartels, terrorists, and others who mean harm out of the country.

Worst is Over!

Alan Greenspan claims that the worst of the credit crunch is over. He may be right but I am not sure that the saga is over yet. I truly believe that many more lenders and consumer are going to suffer the wrath. I also believe that before all is said and done that Congress is going to "intervene" with new regulations on that industry.

I also find it interesting that Greenspan denies that he had anything to do with the housing bubble by lowering interest rates. I am no economic genius but it sure seems to me like the purpose of lowering the rates was to get people to go out and finance things (maybe like homes) in order to build up the economy. Amazingly, the housing industry took off right after that. Then as interest rates started to rise things started to come crashing down. I would have a difficult time not tying those things together in some fashion.

Be careful of the bubbles. Want to see the next one... look at the gas pump.

Not quite sure about Global Warming

My contention with the global warming theories and greenhouse effects is that we don't know enough to jump to conclusions. We are still learning how climate changes work and why they happen. We can't even predict what the weather is going to be like in 2 days but some claim they know what is going to happen in 50 or 100 years. I just found an article that demonstrates that we are still learning and should stop going off of assumptions. You what assuming does right?

Cold Water Thrown on Antarctic Warming Predictions

**Side Note: Did you see that the "man-made" ozone hole is actually serving a benefit in Antarctica? Kind of humorous.

Anyway, I think that we need to spend a lot more time getting to understand the earth and how it works before we going jumping to conclusions.