Some Benefits of Women in the Boardroom

Professor Renee B Adams of the university of New South Wales (Women in the Boardroom and Their Impact on Governance and Performance) says that of the many reasons put forward to promote gender diversity in workplaces, a call for general fairness is one of the more effective and is easily understood. Female directors have a significant impact on board inputs and firm outcomes. In a sample of US firms, female directors brought several benefits to boards:

• they are more conscientious than men, having better attendance records than male directors
• they promote better corporate governance and performance accountability, promoting more compensation based on equity for directors
• they are tougher monitors of management, are more likely to join monitoring committees and so promote monitoring—a CEO will be more likely to get fired if performance goes down when more women are on the board
• women on boards are less bound by tradition, and less averse to risk than men, so they may facilitate innovation
• men on the board show up for more meetings when there are more women present on it! (Madmen, maybe?)

There’s support across the globe for increased female participation at leadership levels. In Norway, it’s a legislative requirement that at least 40% of the board members of listed companies are women. Spain, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands also have mandated quotas. Firms and organisations in other countries, including Australia, are voluntarily adopting gender targets. But while it is obvious that a good female director is better than a poor male one, Professor Adams thinks the substitution of a woman for a man on a board cannot make any significant difference in general, it simply being a random change of one set of abilities for another. Scientifically speaking a direct swap of some men for some women directors randomly is unlikely to make a difference. So, some companies may do better with more women, but others may not.

Americans Get More Antisocial as the Meanness of Capitalism Registers

Sociality is essential to humanity. It is the feeling of care and concern that people have towards each other, and is a deep instinct within us from the time when we lived for several hundred thousand years in small groups which gave us the advantage over fiercer animals that eventually made us king of the jungle and of the world. The instinct to work in small groups is still with us, but is getting weaker:

There is a lot of evidence that our democracy is based on having citizens connected with one another. When we connect with one another in associations we learn that our self interest is actually connected to the interests of others. That gives us a conception of the public good, common identity, and sense of common responsibility as a nation and as citizens. Any decline in that scholars see as potentially detrimental to democracy.

Pamela Paxton

Pamela Paxton is a sociology professor and Population Research Center affiliate from The University of Texas at Austin. She and Matthew A Painter II, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wyoming, used the Iowa Community Survey and the General Social Survey to explore the changing nature of voluntary association membership between 1994 and 2004, using responses from approximately 10,000 citizens in 99 small towns in Iowa, as well as a national sample of the United States population. They compared active members, who regularly attend local meetings, to checkbook members who do not attend any meetings and whose only requirement for membership was likely just to write a check.

Small town Iowans on average actively participated in about a quarter fewer associations in 2004 than they did in 1994. Active participation in recreational groups declined the most at 6 percent. The smallest declines in participation occurred for church and political/civic associations. Church participation declined by 3.5 percent, and active memberships in political and job related groups declined by 2 percent, the latter decline being less because 2004 was a presidential election year.

Overall, the evidence from Iowa suggests not only declining membership in general, but also a shift in how members participate in voluntary organizations. All categories show small but significant checkbook membership of all categories, except one which remained level, increased 1 to 1.6 percent. Paxton said:

Even if we thought these checkbook memberships were equivalent to being actively involved in an organization, the decline in the active associations is greater than any increase we are getting in checkbook memberships.

Paxton said scholars are still trying to understand the decline, but if it is happening in small towns in Iowa, the heartland of America, she expects the declines may be even more drastic elsewhere in country. Potential explanations for the shift from active to passive participation include:

• communities have less neighborhood interaction
• commutes are longer
• television and computer gaming inhibit interaction
• generational differences.

Academics have to think of the sources of their funding and therefore are often timid in expressing conclusions that funding bodies do not like. The fact is that capitalism is based on the ruthless exploitation of your neighbor, everyone wants to join the rich man’s club, and capitalism is supposed to be the way to the American dream, trust disappears, neighborliness and sociality seem old fashioned in the increasingly harsh America. People withdraw to their tellies and computers. Turn to any political forum and you find the defenders of the system, people who are doing all right out of it, and many, like these, who are plainly exasperated by unemployment, hardship, uncertainty, unfriendliness:

1. interactions between people now always have the motive of profit
2. the reality of commercial competition is that anything goes, to win
3. a monetarist system always breeds distrust
4. employers always have some angle or con going even against their own employees—I’m sick of it
5. the system of government and economics is designed for people to screw one another
6. I don’t trush anybody any more—I haven’t found one person worth trusting
7. poor people are disposable, there are so many of them they don’t individually matter
8. societies with large impoverished classes soon acquire repressive means of state control of those populations—the USofA used terrorist threats to set up more repressive mechanisms
9. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who isn’t some sort of con artist or predator or something—to hell with them
10. our country became great is because we wanted it to help the poor and the elderly
11. it is unfairness that is ruining the country—how does a corporation making billions in profits not pay taxes and get government disbursements every year?
12. tax dollars should help our communities not fund foreign wars and corporation bribes—decent government gives us back the tax we pay in better community services, benefits for our people out of work, community projects that create jobs, and community education, then interaction will grow
13. it is a sick society that keeps a huge prison population and pays most people peanuts for doing menial jobs like flipping burgers, but an immensely rich minority who takes everything to spend abroad—what’s fair?
14. society needs a social contract—without it, a society has no stake in its people, and is ripe for revolution.

Americans have been conditioned for decades to hate socialism, yet it simply means building a society that everyone wants to live in. It does not mean collecting tax dollars from the poor and middle classes to give to the megarich.

The six broad categories of organizations in the study were service and fraternal organizations, recreational groups, political and civic groups, job-related organizations, church-related groups, and all other groups and organizations.

Tory Toff Cameron, British PM, Greets His Deputy, Liberal Toff, Nick Clegg

Cartoon by Chris Riddell from Guardian Newspapers and the Observer.

David Cameron is the British Prime Minister. He is a toff, a man with very rich parents who had a very expensive education, the best you can buy in the UK. The British Deputy Prime Minister is Nick Clegg. He is another toff from a banking family, and had a superior education, albeit not quite in the Cameron bracket.

Cameron is a Tory, the traditional conservative party of the UK, while Clegg is a Liberal Democrat, but the two have united in a coalition government against the New Labour Party created out of the traditional Labour party by the machinations of one odious opportunist, Tony Blair. The New Labour Party became unelectable because of the lies, spin, lack of principle, and the general careerism and dishonesty of most of Blair’s pick of grifters who stepped forward to be selected as a candidate for New Labour in the Blair and Brown years.

Clegg’s party pretended to have taken the mantle of the old Labour party in standing up for the ordinary worker and the middle classes, the old, the disabled, the deprived, and generally those struggling to manage in a world increasingly designed to favor the sharks and other financial raptors. But he welched on his promises, and joined David Cameron in the most vicious attack on the standards of anyone less than minted in almost a century.

Clegg, however, leads the junior arm of the coalition, and hence he is depicted as a doormat by Chris Riddell, having to endure the muck and mud of popular ire, and growing sense of betrayal by the Lib-Dems, because the attack on the people would have been impossible without Liberal help, and their full ire would have been directed against Cameron’s Tories.

As it is, the anger is growing, the pressure is mounting. Already students have wrecked the entrance of the Tory HQ on Millbank in London, knowing that good humored, quiet, and orderly demonstrations never get the demonstrators anywhere. They are ignored or subverted from their original aims.

Look at the orderly million strong demonstrations against the Iraq war. The antiwar feeling was rapidly extinguished and turned, by ceaseless military publicity and propaganda, into pro war sentimentality and “charities” like “Help The Heroes”, a way of keeping in the public eye the “heroism” of our soldiers killing peasant farmers, their wives, daughters and sons, in their own homes and homeland 4000 miles away.

All of this is meant to distract public attention from the way they have been robbed of trillions by the bankers and those who depend upon financial fiddling like Cameron and Clegg, not to mention the creepy Blair, so much admired, it seems, in the Land of the Free. Please take him and keep him, treating him to the same torture that he and Bush have meted out in the world, by Bush’s own admission, when the US eventually gets to prosecute war criminals instead of sheltering them.

Where is All the Money? Ask Credit Suisse Bank!

Sam Pizzigati, editor of Too Much, an online newsletter on excess and inequality, reports that the Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse has issued for the first time a Global Wealth Report based on financial data from over 200 countries. It shows that total global net worth, despite the 2008 global economic meltdown, has rocketed up 72 percent since 2000. Credit Suisse sums up:

The past decade has been especially conducive to the establishment and preservation of large fortunes.

The world has more than enough wealth to ensure no one on the planet need be potless. The study shows the world has 4.4 billion adults and the total wealth they own is $194.5 trillion. Shared out, every adult in the world could have $43,800. The fact is, though, that three billion people, almost 70 percent, have less than $10,000, and 1.1 billion, a quarter of all adults, have less than $1,000. These figures are net worth, meaning their assets less their liabilities. Half the people on earth who are 20 and older have less than 2 percent of global wealth—each less than $4,000.

The world’s richest 1 percent—adults who have at least $588,000—hold 43 percent of the world’s wealth. They constitute the ruling class, the wealthiest class, and they break down as:

• just over 1,000 billionaires, with over $1000 million each
• 80,000 more super rich people worth between $50 million and $1 billion each
• 24 million more people who are millionaires worth between $1 million and $50 million.

Those wealth differences are exacerbated by the local conditions. In uncivilized societies with poor public health care, poor quality public education, and no state pensions, then the poor are hit by ill health, a miserable old age, and ignorance because they cannot afford to pay for the absent public services. Moreover, epidemics like swine flu, natural disasters, like Katrina, and unemploment are additional shocks for which the poor do not have the reserves to survive easily. In a society with the opposite conditions, a history of civilized caring governments which have provided public services and benefits then poverty does not have the stigma and practical horrors it has in poor societies.

No other nation has as much total wealth as the United States, with only 5.2 percent of the world’s population. It has 23 percent of the world’s adults worth at least $100,000 and an even greater proportion, 41 percent, of the world’s millionaires. Yet, it is a society with inadequate social services, so its people need more personal wealth to survive than people in countries like France, Sweden and Germany which have good social services.

Canada has a national public health insurance. Credit Suisse calculates the wealth of the typical Canadian family is $94,700, double the $47,771 US average. It shows that good public services add to a nation’s wealth. Public services provide jobs, and need private business suppliers, and health and pension security means people are less risk averse, and will be more inclined to start up new businesses.

Why then have we given trillions of dollars to the banks, depleting our treasuries so much that we are told we have been living too extravagantly? It is a big lie, and we ought to be taking direct action to change it. But we can do without Tea Party economics. We do not need tax cuts for the rich, we need services for the poor, paid for by taxing the rich. They can afford it, we cannot!

Media Manipulation of the Poor Prevents Wealth Redistribution

Nate Kelly, a professor of political science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Peter Enns of Cornell University studied of economic inequality and public views of government redistribution programs by analyzing hundreds of thousands of responses to survey questions from 1952 to 2006.

The results are very revealing about the mentality and conditioning of poor Americans, and poor Americans certainly now includes a large chunk of people who like to consider themselves as middle class! One would imaging that people struggling in hard economic circumstances would appreciate government assistance, but they do not in the US. Kelly found:

When inequality in America rises, both the rich and the poor become more conservative in their ideologies. It is counterintuitive, but rather than generating opinion shifts that would make redistributive policies more likely, increased economic inequality produces a conservative response in public sentiment.

As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, both oppose government welfare programs. At present, in the US, governments cannot act to change inequality. As Obama is finding out, the poor even oppose measures that help them! Poorly off subjects, asked if they thought the government spent too much money on welfare, inevitably replied “yes”, and still do even though inequality over the last few decades has zoomed in the US.

This isn't because are unaware. They know about the huge wealth differences in the US. The reason is, the authors conclude, because the elites, political leaders and media moguls, distract and shape public opinion. In good economic times the media focus on individual achievement, and so the poor resist government programs. But in bad economic times, the media emphasize government welfare programs as handouts, and no one likes a self image of being a beggar or a hobo down on their luck. Kelly observes that:

What is clear from our work is that the self reinforcing nature of economic inequality is real, and that we must look beyond simple defects in the policy responsiveness of American democracy to understand why this is the case.

He means, of course, that leaders like Obama who would like to redistribute the huge inequalities in US wealth have not been utterly lacking in the US, but the US propaganda machine is so successful that too many people just cannot bring themselves to admit they would welcome it. They are conscious enough about their own poor circumstances, but simply do not realize how the US media manipulate them. Obama and anyone equally public minded are bound to lose until poor Yankees realize the rich and their media are pissing on them from a great height!

UM Studies Support National Health Programs

A University of Michigan (UM) study of workplace wellness programs, in a Midwest utility company, showed it pays to keep employees healthy—it saved $4.8 million over nine years—the program cost $7.3 million and it saved $12.1 million. Dee Edington, director of the UM Health Management Research Center and principal investigator, said the findings are good news for companies looking to implement wellness programs. Well, by the same token, isn't it good news that Obama has brought in the means for ensuring that the whole population stays healthier than it is?

The UM study showed wellness programs work long-term, even though the employees who participated aged during the study, and it showed that those who participated throughout benefited most. Companies are realizing that insurance plans to care for sick employees must include wellness plans to keep healthy workers healthy. Summing up the findings among employers, Edington said:

Employers want a benefit plan that will take care of sick people but also keep your healthy people healthy and working.

Another UM study found that the pressure to keep their jobs in times of high unemployment is stressing out hundreds of thousands of American workers. Workplace stress is estimated to cost US businesses about $300 billion a year through absenteeism, diminished productivity, employee turnover, and direct medical, legal and insurance fees. About 75 percent of Americans list work as a significant source of stress and more than half say their work productivity suffers due to stress.

But companies can benefit from alleviating workplace stress, and possible violence, among workers by providing complementary alternative benefits. Cindy Schipani, professor of business law at Michigan's Ross School of Business, said:

It would seem that a healthy, less stressed and collegial work force would be less prone to resolve conflicts by violence. Not only might stress reduction contribute to a more peaceful society, reduction of employee stress together with the promotion of good health may positively affect the bottom line.

Schipani and Ross School colleague Norm Bishara did a best practice study, looking at companies on the Forbes magazine list of the “best companies to work for” that offer complementary alternative benefits, above and beyond traditional benefits that create value in the workplace by implicating employee stress reduction and positively impacting health.

Complementary alternative benefits may include:

• flexible work hours and working from home
• employer-paid health care premiums
• subsidized health care classes and health club memberships
• onsite fitness centers and medical and dental clinics
• paid leave time and special services for new parent employees
• laundry and dry-cleaning services, valet parking and grocery delivery
• discounted tickets to after-hours social activities, such as movies, plays, museums, sporting events and amusement parks.

Companies on the Forbes list that offer generous complementary alternative benefits enjoy a significant reduction in employee turnover, compared to the industry average. The average cost savings for the firms examined as a group was about $275 million in 2007. Bishara, assistant professor of business law and business ethics noted:

From a pure business perspective, complementary alternative benefits are attractive because reducing stress and, therefore, reducing costs associated with things like absenteeism, sick time and premature turnover, can increase profits.

Benefits accruing to the employer were:

• lower employee turnover
• higher worker productivity
• reduced employee health care costs
• healthier and less stressful lifestyles for employees
• a sense of community among workers

Most of the actions and benefits here are specific to the employer, but if they work across large companies, it makes sense to allow them to work across society:

In addition to improving the lives of their employees and benefiting shareholders, providing employees ways to reduce stress and promote health may also have a positive impact on society.

Schipani

Someone healthy enough to work could still cost an employer more than $4,000 annually in unnecessary health care costs. It makes sense for employers to reduce their own costs by supporting health benefits provided by the federal government, and competing then on making their workplace attractive to the best workers.

The University of Michigan also looked at how metabolic syndrome (MetS) and associated chronic disease can cost employers up to $5,867 annually in health care, pharmacy and short term disability, compared to $1,600 for a healthy worker. MetS is a collection of health risks that includes body mass index, cholesterol, glucose, blood pressure and triglycerides. The study was designed to determine the relationship between MetS and disease among employed adults. Health risk assessments were given to 3,285 employees in a Midwestern manufacturing company in 2004, and again in 2006. They hoped to determine whether employees with MetS would develop one of five chronic conditions—heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, heartburn, or arthritis—associated with MetS.

Workers with MetS were significantly more likely to report arthritis, chronic pain, diabetes, heartburn and heart disease. If someone had MetS in 2004, they were much more likely to develop one of the associated chronic conditions by the second test in 2006. Study author, Alyssa Schultz, says workers in the study were just as likely to develop heart disease and diabetes as the general population. People in the general population with MetS are known to be more likely to develop health problems such as heart disease and diabetes without health intervention, but this is the first time the link has been studied and shown in working populations.

This finding challenges the supposed “healthy worker” effect that working people are healthier and more insulated from disease than the unemployed. Schultz said:

People with MetS cost employers money, but people with MetS and disease cost a lot more. It shows disease is an issue for corporations and other organizations, and they need to take action to help employees stay healthy.

A prevention and intervention program for at risk workers can cost as little as $150 a year per employee, according to the paper.

The important thing is to catch employees who have the risk factors before it escalates to a disease state. Keeping people healthy is much wiser then treating the illness or disease after it occurs.

It leads to improved vitality and quality of life for individuals, and cost avoidance for corporations in the form of lower health care, pharmacy and short term disability costs. Surely it follows, for employers as well as the employed and unemployed people who will come into the workforce when there is work available, that it must be good news if the general health of the population is improved by a federal health scheme. With all this plain evidence garnered directly from industry, is there so much irrational opposition to health care in the US, from both sides, ordinary people, and captains of industry.