It is certainly no secrete that we have, in the USA, a serious problem regarding social and racial inequality, and I agree there should be no harm in publicly acknowledging this fact. Our constitution's second amendment does indeed afford us protection, as stated below.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Some of the professional athletes, of late, are trying to draw attention to these stark inequalities in our society, and that is a good thing. However, showing outright disrespect concerning our national symbols, like our flag, and the national anthem, is not the right way to go about. Since a very long time people, historically, have always stood up straight, with one hand over the heart, while our anthem was played. President Obama, apparently, may have been the exception, on at least one occasion, when he was seen, on TV, having his hands folded below his navel area, while the anthem was played, or the pledge of allegiance was spoken.
We should also consider the millions of Americans, our brothers and sisters, who have given their lives, in a number of wars, carrying these symbols in their hearts, and our flag into battles. How can anybody show utter disrespect for our national symbols, in light of all these sacrifices?
In my opinion, it is certainly disingenuous, on the part of these athletes to decry social inequalities, when they themselves are part of the problem. Together with their owners, they are guilty of indirectly stealing great sums of money, from mostly working people, who in many cases live from paycheck to paycheck. In defense of the owners, I must acknowledge that they are practically forced into gouging the public because of the high fees/salaries demanded by their players. These astronomical salaries far exceed what they should receive for their services. I venture to say these players are not any better than the players of old, who, by the way, performed mostly without the use of drugs, and for a lot less money.
I would not be surprised that buying tickets to sporting events, today, will often result in shortchanging the needs of families. These athletes, apparently, have no problem with this; the money they carry to the banks is saturated with blood, sweat and tears of the working people, no doubt. Whenever I watch their self-righteous performance on the national news networks, I smell a strong odor of hypocrisy. If they really care about our social inequity, why don’t they donate 50% of their inflated salaries to help minimize this social problem?
Their donations could also help in minimizing racial inequalities, by building better schools in mostly black areas, finance clinics to provide better healthcare, and ensure all people of color, and others in inner cities, have at least one good meal a day.
Their public performance cost them nothing; to the contrary, it gives them top billing on national television that normally would cost in the thousands of dollars. These players, while exercising their first amendment rights, are doing so in a very disrespectful, hurtful, and insulting manner, while at the same time providing a bad example for our young people of today.
Myself, I stopped going to the games a long time ago, when I saw the extreme greed attached to these events; these professional sports, today, act like a cancer feeding on the host, the public. They forget that when the host eventually dies, they also perish.
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Sunday, September 3, 2017
When Business Ethics still existed ...
I was recently shopping for a new Smart Phone, for a gift, on Amazon, and after reading customer reviews, I became to realize that no matter how much money one is willing to spend, the failures rates of these items are far beyond, so called, normal.
First, I looked at the lesser expensive models, and from a sample of 12 different items, the average failure rate was 20%, and the range was from 9% to 37%. I considered a single star rating a failure; many of these complaint that Amazon made no provision for zero, or no stars.
Next, I looked at models from Samsung, Apple, Microsoft, Motorola, etc., also on Amazon, and found the following failure rates, from small samples of six (6) each, for a total sample of 24. The average, apparent, failure rate was 21.9%, and the range was 0% to 33%. There was only one cell phone, in the sample, which had no one star rating.
As can be seen from the foregoing, price did not guaranty better performance. It appears, cell phone manufacturers rely on the fact, that too many of us are so addicted to these gadgets, that we buy them knowing that they may be bad on arrival, or soon thereafter, i.e., fully realizing that too many fail, well before their time, for a variety of reasons.
There were times when manufactures, of electronics, were stress testing each item, before it was offered for sale; they took care of the so called 'infant mortality rate', or early failures. Nowadays, it is the consumer who is expected to discover these early/premature failures, and what is astonishing, consumers apparently put up with this nonsense. Instead of enjoying their purchase, they now often have to beg to get their money back, or a replacement unit, but not before the defective unit is returned. To add insult to injury, some vendors expect the buyer to pay for the return postage. There is no compensation for the inconvenience experienced by the consumer; packing and mailing the defective item, and being without a phone for some time.
The reliability curve for electronic equipment resembles the cross-section of a bathtub, first the failure rate is high (infant mortality), and slowly decreases as time goes by. After some period this negative slope reaches a point where the constant failure rate begins. This would be the flat section of the bathtub, where time in use does not affect the operational utility. After that the curve meets with a point, where the failure rate increases again, mostly because of age and wear-out.
In an effort to increase their profit margins the new breed of manufacturers, and their managers, decided to dispense with the initial stress tests, and shift this burden to the willing consumer; no longer is the customer their 'King', but their fool. Similarly, when problems arise with a product, one can no longer talk to a manufacturer's technician, when seeking help; questions are now handled by consumer forums. These well-meaning people, for the most part, are less than qualified to provide answers to complex product issues, at least this has been my experience.
No sane store owner would keep a product on his/her shelves with a 20% or more failure rate; to handle so many customer complaints would not be economical, the stores reputation would adversely suffer as well. However, these modern giants of industry and retail, appear not to care, mainly because the consumer of today, who may be tech. savvy, no longer knows that when one buys a new product, it is supposed to work for a long time without aggravation. And, guess what, the cost of handling all these failures, is simply added to the cost of doing business, and is included in the price calculation, thus the consumer is subsidizing the sloppiness of the manufacturer. Is it not great to be a manufacturer these days? The same holds true for the giant retailers, who have priced in their extra handling of defective goods, and yes, the consumers pays for this as well.
Sadly, Amazon, apparently, does not use its considerable power to insist that manufacturers, and sellers refrain from knowingly continue to list inferior products, as evidenced by consumer reviews. It appears, Amazon is knowingly or unwittingly selling inferior products, which can only brand them as a supplier of junk products, should this trend continue.
As an aside, it appears, the consumer dependent complex managed nicely, with the help of others, to ensure that people instead of buying descent clothes, have money to purchase their latest unnecessary gadget, by convincing us that wearing mostly long lasting jeans is cool and fashionable. And, since even jeans eventually acquire holes from constant use, we are now shown that jeans with ugly holes and tears, are even more fashionable. We the consumers have become so dependent on these gadgets , it seems, that we would even run around in our underwear if necessary, to get our gadget fix.
It is said, our morals are in a steep decline, must our intellect follow this same negative slope?
First, I looked at the lesser expensive models, and from a sample of 12 different items, the average failure rate was 20%, and the range was from 9% to 37%. I considered a single star rating a failure; many of these complaint that Amazon made no provision for zero, or no stars.
Next, I looked at models from Samsung, Apple, Microsoft, Motorola, etc., also on Amazon, and found the following failure rates, from small samples of six (6) each, for a total sample of 24. The average, apparent, failure rate was 21.9%, and the range was 0% to 33%. There was only one cell phone, in the sample, which had no one star rating.
As can be seen from the foregoing, price did not guaranty better performance. It appears, cell phone manufacturers rely on the fact, that too many of us are so addicted to these gadgets, that we buy them knowing that they may be bad on arrival, or soon thereafter, i.e., fully realizing that too many fail, well before their time, for a variety of reasons.
There were times when manufactures, of electronics, were stress testing each item, before it was offered for sale; they took care of the so called 'infant mortality rate', or early failures. Nowadays, it is the consumer who is expected to discover these early/premature failures, and what is astonishing, consumers apparently put up with this nonsense. Instead of enjoying their purchase, they now often have to beg to get their money back, or a replacement unit, but not before the defective unit is returned. To add insult to injury, some vendors expect the buyer to pay for the return postage. There is no compensation for the inconvenience experienced by the consumer; packing and mailing the defective item, and being without a phone for some time.
The reliability curve for electronic equipment resembles the cross-section of a bathtub, first the failure rate is high (infant mortality), and slowly decreases as time goes by. After some period this negative slope reaches a point where the constant failure rate begins. This would be the flat section of the bathtub, where time in use does not affect the operational utility. After that the curve meets with a point, where the failure rate increases again, mostly because of age and wear-out.
In an effort to increase their profit margins the new breed of manufacturers, and their managers, decided to dispense with the initial stress tests, and shift this burden to the willing consumer; no longer is the customer their 'King', but their fool. Similarly, when problems arise with a product, one can no longer talk to a manufacturer's technician, when seeking help; questions are now handled by consumer forums. These well-meaning people, for the most part, are less than qualified to provide answers to complex product issues, at least this has been my experience.
No sane store owner would keep a product on his/her shelves with a 20% or more failure rate; to handle so many customer complaints would not be economical, the stores reputation would adversely suffer as well. However, these modern giants of industry and retail, appear not to care, mainly because the consumer of today, who may be tech. savvy, no longer knows that when one buys a new product, it is supposed to work for a long time without aggravation. And, guess what, the cost of handling all these failures, is simply added to the cost of doing business, and is included in the price calculation, thus the consumer is subsidizing the sloppiness of the manufacturer. Is it not great to be a manufacturer these days? The same holds true for the giant retailers, who have priced in their extra handling of defective goods, and yes, the consumers pays for this as well.
Sadly, Amazon, apparently, does not use its considerable power to insist that manufacturers, and sellers refrain from knowingly continue to list inferior products, as evidenced by consumer reviews. It appears, Amazon is knowingly or unwittingly selling inferior products, which can only brand them as a supplier of junk products, should this trend continue.
As an aside, it appears, the consumer dependent complex managed nicely, with the help of others, to ensure that people instead of buying descent clothes, have money to purchase their latest unnecessary gadget, by convincing us that wearing mostly long lasting jeans is cool and fashionable. And, since even jeans eventually acquire holes from constant use, we are now shown that jeans with ugly holes and tears, are even more fashionable. We the consumers have become so dependent on these gadgets , it seems, that we would even run around in our underwear if necessary, to get our gadget fix.
It is said, our morals are in a steep decline, must our intellect follow this same negative slope?
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