>Cutting to the chase: --
>
>The purpose of a corporation like Sprint is to make profits for its shareholders. Much as some people might wish it so, its purpose is not to be a paragon of ethics.
>
Al,

You miss the mark badly when you say that "...its purpose is not to be a paragon of ethics".
All corporations, businesses and people do have as their primary purposes in our society to be "paragons of ethics"!!!

"Think outside the box", a popular phrase some time back, was actually designed to get people thinking more "flexibly" about ethics/morals.
"The pursuit of excellence", another corporate mantra some time back, was bastardized to consider any moral implications last, if at all.
Today's "TEAM" is particularly onerous in the business setting because while promoting 'teamwork' and shared (team) values to produce better/faster, it's bigger purpose is to identify (moderately) non-conformists and to give those people promotions. Where once promotion depended on quality work, productivity, peer-superior acceptance and similar factors most of those traits now condemn a person to the current position for a very long time.

When Communism was a factor then both government (particularly) and business (to some degree) had incentive to take some care about workers' well-being. This is now completely out the window and it is a simple dog-eat-dog world today.

Before governmental downsizing and de-regulation it was well known, even then, that business could NOT be relied upon to "do the right thing" and oversight helped to ensure that the negative things thhey did try were caught early. Such oversight is now mostly a thing of the past and corporations are taking every advantage of it that they can.

You might cite corporate beneficience to counter much of this. Just keep in mind that such largess, which is also diminishing, has strictly the promotional (read: PROFIT) motive. Were I in such a position I too would take advantage of tax loopholes because then I could spend my money where I GET THE MOST OUT OF IT rather than just handing it to the government to let them choose how to spend it. But we mustn't lose sight of the fact that every time a business underwrites some charitable concern that is 1 less dollar that goes to the government. And in the case of artsy 'gifts' to museums/universities/etc they often reap $100 in tax deduction for every $1 actually spent (using inflated appraisals).

Anyway, it IS the primary purpose of corporations to make ethics the cornerstone of ALL OF THEIR ACTIVITY. Period!

Jim

SNIP