Good Corporate Citizenship

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Burning Petard
Posts: 4050
Joined: Fri Feb 12, 2016 5:35 pm
Location: Near Bear, Delaware

Good Corporate Citizenship

Post by Burning Petard »

I see commercials on tv for various companies (specially a certain car maker) bragging about the charity work their company does. Sometimes, pet rescue, sometimes feeding or sheltering disaster victims, Generally, this is conscious admission that a corporation is a legal person and so has duties and responsibilities in the community just like real people.

Amazon has just announced they are reducing total number of employees by a big chunk. They have at least three huge warehouse complexes within 25 miles of where sit right now. Well, that doesn't surprise me. Total number of workers in big companies seems to be very volatile. That is one of the issues that makes labor unions important. But I just got a message from Amazon that did surprise me.

Amazon is killing its 'Smile' program, in just about a month. This was a deal where the customer logs in as a 'smile' account and a certain amount (a very low percent, but it can add up) of the purchase goes to a charity named by the customer. I have been in this program for more than a decade. In the last few years it has had an annoying popup asking me to change my charity of choice to some 'clean water' outfit. I resisted and have always designated the same particular group.

Jeff Bezos or his minion is killing it. The notice said it was not having the good results they hoped for so they would be going on to something unspecified. I think the hoped for result was increased sales volume. Such is the world of' bean-counters' and civic charity. Anything goes as long as it does not blatantly break the law. I guess there are some real persons who also feel this way about their participation in the community.

snailgate.

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