"May 10, 2007 — EDITOR'S NOTE: News Corp., The Post's corporate parent, employs
some 47,000 people on five continents. Yesterday, Chairman and CEO Rupert
Murdoch announced the company's dramatic plans to become fully carbon-neutral by
2010. Below are some of his remarks to News Corp. employees explaining why, and
how, we'll do it - and that this is only the start. "
I had an interesting conversation about this today. I mentioned I had read about this on the internet and this guy said he doubted it. I went on that there is reason to believe it is true because Murdoch is not an idiot- which he right away said that he thought he was (I think anyone who thinks an idiot could run News Corp. is an idiot and a willful idiot at that). I mentioned that it could save the company money, and that Murdoch would never turn his back on something that could save money. The man replied that money wasn't everything, got impatient and walked off.
I wonder sometimes why that the left hates so strongly. Why hate Starbucks with such venom, it does good things for its workers, it does good things for education and it is working to do better on the environmental and free trade areas. It used to be said that the left was based on a politics of hatred and envy, and I find that hard not to believe sometimes. Talk to people about McDonalds working to make their food healthier and some of them will tell your right out that they will still hate McDonalds.
Does it make sense to hate a business just because it is big, and how big does it have to be before you should start hating it.
A major problem with the approach that many take towards corporations is that it undermines their causes. Suppose there is a restaurant that sells chickens, it is a fast foot chain and it is fighting for its small part of the market. To do that it has to cut corners on cost to under sell its competitors. It does this by buying chickens from farms that treat their chickens poorly. Now suppose a new president takes over the company, he has heard the complaints and wants to make a change. He makes the commitment to get the best healthiest chickens he can - and has to raise the price to make up for that. If the left continues to treat him with disgust and hatred, the business will go down because the change will not generate new customers and the old ones will leave seeking lower prices. No business can or will take a loss for long, corners will get cut again to lower that price and be competitive. On the other hand if the parties on the left work with the company president and support the company and the change results in a continued profit - the change will remain. Not only that but one business making money doing the right thing can leverage the industry to higher standards.
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