1. DESCRIPTION OF BLOG ASSIGNMENT
You are required to submit 4 current event blog postings addressing legal and ethical issues. The three
primary purposes of this exercise are: 1) to encourage you to keep up with the world around you; and 2)
to help you recognize just how much our society and your everyday life is regulated and controlled by
law; and 3) to help you identify and reflect on some of the ethical challenges in society today.
Specifically, for each blog, summarize the article, indicate why it is important or how it is relevant to the
law, provide a brief analysis of the ethical issue(s) and provide a link to the article. Although I
encourage you to seek out various sources of information on a regular basis, you are not required to do
so for purposes of this exercise. You are welcome to write about an article that you come across in
your general daily reading. For example, if you are a sports fan, there are a lot of articles about the
intersection of sports, law, and ethics, e.g., steroid use/abuse, concussions in the NFL, etc. If you read
Sports Illustrated or other sports news on a regular basis, you may just blog about those types of legal
issues. If you prefer fashion or celebrity news, you will surely come across articles about contract issues,
copyright, trademarks, privacy, etc. If you read the WSJ or Bloomberg, you will find plenty of articles
discussing business practices that you may consider unethical, e.g., failure to recall dangerous vehicles
or other products; endocrine disrupters, steroids or antibiotics in the food chain; questionable
advertising practices; manufacturing of products in sweatshops in third world countries; companies
relocating to other countries to avoid paying corporate taxes; etc.
Remember, just because something may be lawful does not mean it is ethical. Also, what you may view
as unethical may well be viewed ethical by others. I’m looking for your analysis of ethical issues as well
as your opinions.
Note that if you reference another source in your analysis or opinion, you must provide appropriate
attribution. Also, websites such as Wikipedia, ask.com, about.com, facebook, etc. are not acceptable
academic references and you will lose points for citing them. Articles must be from reputable sources
such as major newspapers (e.g., New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg.com), major magazines
(e.g., TIME, The Economist, etc.), or academicjournals. Other sources that are acceptable are Sports
Illustrated, ESPN.com, Vanity Fair, CNN.com, major broadcast news sites such as from ABC, NBC, CBS,
NPR, PBS, etc. Though they have had some difficulties lately, Rolling Stone has been a good source of
information on the financial crisis and subsequent follow-up (or lack thereof) by the federal
government. In some cases, it is the author of the article that makes the difference between whether
the information is reliable or reputable.
You need to be able to identify and differentiate good information from poor information on the
Internet. Generally blogs are not viewed as reputable sources of information. There are however some
blogs that are very reputable, e.g., Nate Silver’s http://fivethirtyeight.com/ blog focuses on statistical
analysis of election polls, sports, and other issues. Other places to look for reputable blogs can be
University websites (in the U.S. they use .edu). For example, Harvard’s School of Public Health has a
fabulous blog where their researchers and professors write articles about their research (in language the
average person can understand).
In addition to being cautious about relying on blogs for information, readers must also be acutely aware
that many sites are now blending news content with advertising content. Such information is being
called ”sponsored content” or ”native advertising”. Such content is generally, and very intentionally,
written in the same style as the actual ”news” content on the site – but it is advertising and not
unbiased news.
2. GRADING RUBRIC:
BLOG RUBRIC
m- Nota Bene: Blogs are graded on a 10 point scale.
The total number of oints received is
Structure & Organization 1.0 . . . p
dIVIded by 10 times the number of blogs. This percentage IS
Know’edge 3* Accuracy 2-0 then multiplied by the total
Ethical Analysis 4.0 number of points available for blogs.
Mechanics & Readability 2.0
References 1.0
Total Points 10.0
100%
STRUCTURE & ORGANIZATION – 1 POINT: Blog posts should be structured as the sample blog post
above, i.e., using headings to clearly identify the elements of the blog post. For example:
Article Title:
Link:
Summary of Article/Issue:
Ethical Analysis:
Conclusion:
References:
KNOWLEDGE & ACCURACY – 2 POINTS: Blog posts are evaluated for accuracy of the summary of the
article/issue as well as for demonstrating that the student grasps the key issues covered and that the
student has correctly identified the key ethical issues.
ETHICAL ANALYSIS – 4 POINTS: All blog posts must identify and provide appropriate analysis of the key
ethical issues involved. Research into additional sources of information about the issue and/or the
ethical matter will likely be necessary. You may lose points here for readability as well – if the blog is so
poorly written that the reader has difficulty understanding the author’s point, then points will be
deducted under this section of the rubric.
MECHANICS & READABILITY – 2 POINTS: Blog posts should read like a short academic essay and not
like a tweet, instant message, or email between friends. Readability is related to the quality of the
writing, i.e., the easier to read and the more understandable, the higher the blog will rate on the
readability scale. When a blog is poorly written, the reader has difficulty trying to understand the
information the author is trying to convey. Mechanics includes grammar and spelling. Most word
processing programs provide grammatical and spelling error corrections.
REFERENCES – 1 POINT: A well written blog post will likely require additional research to supplement
the information from the original article. Blogs posts MUST provide a link to the original article.
Appropriate attribution must be made when other sources are used as well.
If you need additional guidance on proper academic writing, please contact the MSU writing center.
Another excellent source of information is the Harvard University writing center at
http://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/resources.
3. SAMPLE BLOG POST
ARTICLE TITLE: Burger King in Talks to Buy Tim Hortons and Move to Canada
LINK: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/08/24/burger-king-in-talks-to-buy-tim-hortons/
SUMMARY: Burger King, a fast food restaurant chain with locations around the U.S. is in talks to
purchase Tim Horton’s, a Canadian fast food operation. If the deal goes through, Burger King’s current
plan is to move its headquarters to Canada and thereby reduce the amount of U.S. corporate taxes the
company would pay. This practice of a U.S. company purchasing a smaller foreign company and then
moving its headquarters to another country is called a ”corporate inversion”.
It is becoming increasingly popular. It is particularly popular among multi-national companies with
financial holding overseas. If such companies bring their cash to use in the U.S. they get hit with a big
tax bill. Moving their headquarters overseas apparently gives them access to that cash without having
to pay a higher tax to the U.S.
ETHICAL ANALYSIS: These inversions are generally lawful business practices. Pfizer, a major
pharmaceutical company was going to engage in the practice when it made a bid for AstraZeneca, a UK
company. The deal fell through, but Pfizer is rumored to still be considering undergoing a corporate
inversion to avoid some U.S. taxes. Abeie, an Illinois pharmaceutical company is purchasing Shire a UK
pharmaceutical company and Abeie plans to move its headquarters to the UK after the purchase is
complete. Walgreens, a large drug store in the U.S. recently announced that it was planning on
undertaking a corporate inversion, but the company backed away from the plan after customers
threatened to boycott the company and various government officials urged the company not to go
through with the plan.
Although these inversions may be lawful, in my opinion they are unethical. These companies are
seeking money out of the pockets of U.S. consumers as well as the federal government and states, but
at the same time the companies want to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. In addition, the American
people subsidize many of these major multi-national corporations. The conservative libertarian Cato
Institute has estimated that ”corporate welfare” costs taxpayers $100 million per year which equates to
$870 per family. (Slivinski, 2014)
Moreover, ”effective” corporate tax rates in this country are nowhere near the 35% that most
companies and politicians cite when arguing that corporate tax rates are too high. Some argue that the
corporate tax rate is 39.1% in the U.S. when combining state and federal taxes. (Bartlett, 2013) Those
seeking reductions in corporate tax rates frequently argue that the U.S. rate is higher than other
industrialized nations. (Ferdman 2014) Few U.S. companies pay anywhere near the maximum
corporate tax, instead the average is closer to 12%. (Paletta, 2012)
Any company operating within the boundary of the U.S. is utilizing the roads, bridges, sewers, water
treatment, police and fire departments, schools, etc. of a community that have been funded by the
taxpayers. Companies need to pay their fair share of the cost of the infrastructure that supports their
business operations. Giving their headquarters a new address so as to reduce their tax bill is unfair and
unethical.
REFERENCES:
Bartlett, B “Effective Corporate Tax Rates” The New York Times, November 26, 2013.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/effective-corporate-tax-rates/ (accessed
August 26, 2014).
Paletta, D “With Tax Break, Corporate Rate Is Lowest in Decades” The Wall Street
Journal, February 3, 2012.
http://online.wsi.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204662204577199492233215330
(accessed August 26, 2014).
Ferdman, R “Have taxes your way: Why Burger King wants to become a Canadian
citizen” The Washington Post, August 26, 2014.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/25/burger-king-is-mulling-a-
move-to-canada-for-breakfast-and-lower-taxes/ (accessed August 26, 2014).