4th set of weekly questions

It's essay-writing week, so we're not covering new material. As usual, answer three out of the four to get credit.

QUESTION 1
Pretend there is a bill in Congress that says that it will be illegal for American companies to do business in non-democratic countries. Give one argument for the bill, and one argument against it


QUESTION 2
Now that we're a month into the quarter: do you think that there is any actual point to learning about anything we've covered so far? If so, what? If not, why?

Yes, it's perfectly okay to say that the material is a waste of time. I've said that to professors in the past. :-)


QUESTION 3
"If voters just put more pressure on their politicians to stand up to corporate malfeasance (look it up if you don't know that word :-)), politicians would do a much better job at keeping companies in line. Companies act up because politicians basically let them, and politicians do that because they voters are too apathetic to do anything about it."

What do you think of that line of reasoning?


QUESTION 4
Pretend that you started a private drug manufacturing business - you're the only owner. It's a huge success. Profits are good, the future outlook is rosy, etc. You have 100 million dollars and will likely make an extra 5 million next year. You realize, though, that you could probably get an EXTRA million if you relax your quality control a little.

Pretend that you know for a fact that you will not get caught. No one would ever know. If you relax the quality control, you get an extra million dollars, but you're pretty sure that about 10,000 people will die as a result. Some slowly, some pretty quickly.

Would you do it? If so, would you do it for 1 extra dollar? If not, do you think that still makes sense to assume that companies do nothing but maximize profits? Why/why not?