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Issues in the News

1. ENVIRONMENT

Wal-Mart is looking towards using more recyclable materials and more renewable fuels.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Journalism Fellow Tim Carney on the unfair results of big business lobbying for more regulation in his new book, The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money:

“Wal-Mart can afford such expenses better than any other company in the world. But when the executives lobby Congress to require the rest of us (especially Wal-Mart’s smaller competitors) to do the same thing, they become just one more big business bully using big government to drive up costs, reduce freedom, and squash competitors.”

2. POLITICS

Conservatives raise doubts about the staff choices of freshly-minted Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Adjunct Analyst Steven Milloy on some of the questions that should have been asked during Paulson’s confirmation hearing:

“There’s the ongoing controversy over the $140-million pay package awarded to former New York Stock Exchange head Dick Grasso by a committee that included Paulson. Although Grasso’s pay was documented for board members and discussed at three board meetings, Paulson attended only one. According to an internal memo, Paulson supported the package, but Paulson missed the final board meeting where the package was approved. Once Grasso’s pay package became controversial, Paulson led the call for Grasso’s termination while maintaining he was always opposed to the payout. A Goldman Sachs subordinate was subsequently installed as NYSE president.”

3. BUSINESS

The Center for American Progress hosts a debate over the role of “corporate social responsibility” and the role of business in the 21st century.

 CEI Expert Available to Comment: President Fred L. Smith, Jr. on the meaning of CSR:

“The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) movement is an effort to redefine the corporation and to make it a tool of ‘social justice.’  This is much like the Galbraithian vision of the socially regulated firm – and, in a way, a complement to the esteem in which the market is now held.  No longer can we rely on government to ‘guide’ the firm, we now need to capture the firm itself.”

*Summary and photos of today’s debate available at Open Market.