Walmart being pro-public health care doesn't mean they're left.  It means they're looking out for their own interests (national health care eliminates the need for Walmart to cede to worker demands and establish a health insurance program for its workers).

Things like this are going to be a big problem in determining the "political ideology" of a company.  Companies aren't people.  They don't have morals.  They have bottom lines (No, I don't mean that in a derogatory way.  They're companies.  Making money is their job.  Get used to it).

Oh, and you forgot McDonald's!

EINSTEIN thank god, i was so bored

> Einstein wrote:

> Zarf I want to know... Whats GE's bottom line? Why lose money with liberal ideal after liberal ideal?

What about Google? Why wont they let gun resellers, gun manufactorers, or any gun ads be displayed? Does this not run counter to their bottom line?

The world is not so black and white as you would think.

Well, how about you cite some of the liberal issues GE supports, and we'll see how they interact with the company's earnings potential...

Now, I will concede that for some industries, a business can have a political bias because their industry is more in the arts than the sciences, so to speak.  CNN, for example, would qualify under this: their industry is producing a show (the news) and having audiences view it... as such, it's extremely subjective, leaving the door wide open for individuals to put their own political bias in the product without hurting the bottom line....

But when you get into manufacturing, sales, or other non-artistic businesses, there's less wiggle room for politics...

I could only address Wal-Mart because that's the only company which you cited an issue which they supported.  I'm Pepsi challenging you on this, then... pick any number of those companies you mentioned... provide a link (even wikipedia) about some liberal issue they supported... and we can go from there to figure out why they support each one...

http://www.climatebiz.com/news/2010/02/16/bp-caterpillar-and-conocophillips-leave-uscap

Going with anti-business anti-global warming hysteria is against a bottom line. Especially when it would crush your business. Yet each ended up lead by an environmentalist (or leaning to) and went to hug the very beast that would slay them.

1: "Going green" is a great marketing campaign.  Note that they started their organization in 2007, at a point where anti-global warming sentiment was quite high...

2: It's also a strategic move.  I talked about this a few months ago in a previous thread: it's easier to win a debate by proposing a counter-alternative that addresses your complaints about the opponent's proposal than by standing by the status quo.  Right now, the left has hijacked the global warming debate by claiming that they are the only agents that advocate a way to solve global warming, which means if there is a 1% risk of global warming causing global destruction, they'll probably win the debate.  Under the current debate, if a person buys that global warming is true (which is easy for someone to believe because most of the science is above the average person's head), then the only way to solve it is to vote Democrat.

Alternatively, USCAP made a strategic move: they essentially said "Okay, global warming could exist, it could be man made, and it could threaten us all.  However, just because global warming is real, it doesn't mean you should win the government.  It doesn't mean the left is the only political philosophy that can solve global warming.  Here's our free market proposal to fix it."

Frankly, you've just become polarized in the issue... unless you truly believe that there's no way the free market can solve environmental issues like global warming... at which point I would question why you believe what you believe...

Remember, on global warming, the conservative platform isn't necessarily against global warming being true (while that is a front of attack, if global warming actually was proven to be true, it wouldn't make liberalism any more valid).  Rather, the major front is the question of how to fix global warming.  Why can't a free market solution, such as investing in companies that research alternative energies, curb global warming?

3: Your own article says those businesses abandoned their climate change organization once the legislation in Congress started going too far to the left...

"House climate legislation and Senate proposals to date have disadvantaged the transportation sector and its consumers, left domestic refineries unfairly penalized versus international competition, and ignored the critical role that natural gas can play in reducing GHG emissions," ConocoPhillips Chairman and CEO Jim Mulva said in a statment. "We believe greater attention and resources need to be dedicated to reversing these missed opportunities, and our actions today are part of that effort. Addressing these issues will save thousands of American jobs, as well as create new ones."

The first paragraph says the companies are going to just work on their own efforts to protect the environment, including new technology development.  Honestly, that sounds like the 100% opposite of leftism: businesses leaving environmental protection to the free market... where's the problem?

> Einstein wrote:

> No they went left when they could have gone to the right. They failed to realize that the left is going to destroy them, or they thought they could control the left from a standpoint of businesses the left HATES. That or they got lead by leaders who are environmentalists.

Once they realized the left wouldn't move toward the center, the businesses abandoned the organization, as can be seen in the article you cited.

> Take some of these actors in Hollywood. The moment they open their mouth (One toilet paper square per bathroom visit is just fine, can you name her?) they lose severe value.

Bands like those that questioned the Iraq war in the wrong venue, with the wrong audience, at the wrong time... Dixie Chicks... they lost huge for a political stance.

I'll agree on the actor part, mainly because I already placed an exception there.  Actors work in the arts, which means the question of what benefits them is extremely blurry.  The arts are a business of individual expression, so individual biases can and will come into play here.

> GE has been losing money, more like hemorrhaging money on a bet... the bet that they can force green jobs and therefore be ahead of all others...

You explained it yourself.  Look, post-2008, the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency.  When the Democrats say they want to do something, that's going to be a major agenda issue... GE gains political capital and subsidization by jumping on the bandwagon of green jobs.  Business incentive!

> MSNBC has been operating at a net loss for them, their own profits are down, and they are getting crushed by those who are boycotting them (including me). They did get bailed out by Obama, and trust me the Stimulus was padded with stuff that got to GE through round corner stuff... but a bet that they could get it done... yes successful, but that company is GONE when a conservative Government is elected. No more government money circulating via back channels to them means they have no way to stop the losses....

MSNBC=the arts

> What about Google? The majority of the United States citizens own guns. Gun ads will generate revenue for Google. One could argue with current politics, and with the current issues making people buy ammo as quickly as it is manufactured, that gun ads and ammo ads could generate even up to half a billion dollars for Google.

1: Once again, correlation doesn't mean causation.  The recent moves against guns in Congress could have seen Google shift preemptively in order to gain political capital.
2: Cost benefit analysis.  Consider, if Google already has 100% capacity on ad sales, what added profit can a new ad buyer give?  Not much, really.  However, what cost is generated as a result?  There's the possibility of offending someone... hell, if you've been offended by BP proposing solutions to climate change, a liberal who likes gun control, especially one who has a story from a family member about some random accident, could definitely be offended by a gun ad.  Loss of customers could be detrimental to Google...

Your serve.

http://www.grist.org/article/little-ge

"After a speech in which Immelt announced that "it's no longer a zero-sum game -- things that are good for the environment are also good for business" and vowed that GE was embarking on this initiative "not because it is trendy or moral, but because it will accelerate [economic] growth," he presented a series of "ecomagination" television ads that will be airing nationwide over the next several months."

No economic sacrifice: the "green job" theory believed that technologies, such as alternative energies, that would be created as a result of the initiative would be a net benefit to the economy as a whole as well as GE's bottom line.

As for google...

1: You're going to have to explain the difference between the ads Google does allow gun companies to use and what it doesn't allow gun companies to use on its site.  Maybe it's just that I'm not 100% tech savvy, but I'm lost on this one...
2: By limiting gun companies, Google gets plausible deniability.  "We did what we could... blame it on those guys, not us!"

Fannie Mae, Frddie Mac

Lobbying for requirements which ultimately led to their fall and continuing bailouting. Pretty severe that they still need money in the billions even with all their assets. Their business practices were counter to their own survival.

No not all choices are economic. I stand by that hardcore. A large amount of business decisions are being made at cost of profits in exchange for political ideologies. Come now, you have SURELY seen this somewhere?