Business-like approaches
I've never heard of politicians running on a "Bureaucracy is great!" platform. Normally, when politicans describe changes in service, they talk about a more business-like approach. These days, that's not always a good thing.
MrsSheeple was irked by reports about Fannie Mae, a quasi-private company founded by the United States government that has embraced some accounting practices used by other companies. Said accounting practices today resulted in a $400 million fine over a saga of deceitful practices that also helped get top executives much larger bonuses.
MeTheSheeple is glad to see such entrepreneurial spirit, but wonders why they didn't take it farther. Perhaps there could have been some Enron-style shell games? Or maybe some almost-off-the-books debt like U-Haul? If Fannie Mae's core business is moving money around and working with debt, then such accounting seems ideally suited. Yeah. That's the ticket.
Other business-like activity is brought to us by a charitable division of the Catholic Church. After finding out that the head hospital honcho may have sexually harassed several hospital employees, the church is now finding out ... oh, maybe it's at least a dozen women. So now the church is trying to figure out whether it can pay the guy $3 million to go away. Boston Globe columnist Eileen McNamara suggests that for the church the only effective regulation is litigation.
Corporations have many amazing, wonderful things for people all around the world. Of course, not everything is perfect. Next time someone says they want to run a charity more like a business, or run a government agency more like a corporation, you might want to ask just what they mean.
MrsSheeple was irked by reports about Fannie Mae, a quasi-private company founded by the United States government that has embraced some accounting practices used by other companies. Said accounting practices today resulted in a $400 million fine over a saga of deceitful practices that also helped get top executives much larger bonuses.
MeTheSheeple is glad to see such entrepreneurial spirit, but wonders why they didn't take it farther. Perhaps there could have been some Enron-style shell games? Or maybe some almost-off-the-books debt like U-Haul? If Fannie Mae's core business is moving money around and working with debt, then such accounting seems ideally suited. Yeah. That's the ticket.
Other business-like activity is brought to us by a charitable division of the Catholic Church. After finding out that the head hospital honcho may have sexually harassed several hospital employees, the church is now finding out ... oh, maybe it's at least a dozen women. So now the church is trying to figure out whether it can pay the guy $3 million to go away. Boston Globe columnist Eileen McNamara suggests that for the church the only effective regulation is litigation.
Corporations have many amazing, wonderful things for people all around the world. Of course, not everything is perfect. Next time someone says they want to run a charity more like a business, or run a government agency more like a corporation, you might want to ask just what they mean.
posted by MeTheSheeple at 2:38 PM
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MrsTheSheeple was in a training session about business conduct and ethics today and heard that 67% of all large organizations (for- and not-for-profit) in the US provide such training for their employees and associates.
MrsTheSheeple wonders how much tic-tac-toe is played during those sessions.
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