Of course his "murder" has little to nothing to do with business. They have money, need stuff, if we don't sell it to them someone else will. Pretty SIMPLE!!!
2
We are witnessing the behavior of slimy bottom feeders who overlook murder if there is any money for them in it. Truly disgusting...take note of these companies and boycott them.
6
I need a list of companies doing business with the Saudis so that I may boycott them. I as offered a job maintaining the aircraft we sell to Saudi Arabia, it payed very well and I turned it down. Anyone that does any business there is complicit.
10
“It is nothing personal,” J. Robinson West, the managing director of the BCG Center for Energy Impact, a Washington-based consulting unit, said about why investors and banks flocked to the bond sale. “It’s just business.”
Don't you mean It is nothing ethical...it is just business? I intend to boycott as many of these companies as I possibly can so when it is "just business" maybe they will pay attention to morals.
9
Money talks. Blood dries.
10
of course they are returning. Why let a little thing like murder get in the way of profits
8
“It is nothing personal,” J. Robinson West, the managing director of the BCG Center for Energy Impact, a Washington-based consulting unit, said about why investors and banks flocked to the bond sale. “It’s just business.”
Yeah I think I heard this before...oh right Sal Tesio said this to Tom Hagan in the Godfather 2 after plotting to kill the new Don, Michael Corleone . How did that turn out for ol' Sal?
4
Well, after all, money is the only concern here. What's the murder of a few journalists compared with that?
6
These companies w/o conscience should continually be shunned and their immoral behavior publicized
4
Ah, yes, it's just business. Profits uber alles as usual. Too bad people are not as important as money to the powers of the world.
4
Good ol' American greed conquers all.
3
The only surprise here is that people seem to be surprised. The population of this planet and the real fact that resources are limited all but guarantees that it will become a very vicious dog eat dog world. It already is in some respects. Be assured that it will only get worse. Today will one day be called 'the good old days'.
2
As the legendary ad man Bill Bernbach said after resigning all of his legendary agency's tobacco clients, "A principle isn't a principle until it costs you money."
And the beat goes on ...
4
In the words of Stephen Moore another one of Trump's "best people" and a preacher for the fraud of the "Trickle Down Theory of Economic Profit", who cares, we're makin money!
3
It's always about money.
2
Selling out the United States.
3
Everything these days has a price tag, doesn't it? Trump's reasoning not to punish Saudi Arabia for murdering Khashoggi was because SA is paying US so much $$. So, innocent lives also have price tags -- all for the sake of profit (and control/power).
"Google has been working on a Saudi data center, its first in the Middle East and an important hub for its cloud computing services, for more than a year. Revelations about Mr. Khashoggi’s killing had not derailed its plans. " Gotta get them stockholder bucks, right?
8
Bet on greed. You will win every single time.
10
Business people seem to have a God complex and think that we should all drop to our knees and worship them, but greed is their religion and it will be the destruction of humanity.
8
Of course AMC is doing business as usual. Its Japanese owners have no qualms about it.
4
Guess I am not going to AMC anymore. Which is a shame, you could buy black tickets on eBay at attractive prices. Dealing with Google is more complicated.
7
A former colleague once told me, corporations are not at all political.
If by apolitical he meant amoral, then the chase for Saudi money ( or any other tyrant’s) shows that he was right, if not quite in the positive spin he intended regarding the free market
He also said that the people, as consumers, can always boycott; this is only partly true, if there are alternatives, in this increasingly monopolistic and not so free market. (And abroad, where multinationals go, many citizens don’t even have a choice)
But he was completely wrong when he somehow ignored the outsize role of corporate lobbying in determining government policies, tax regulations etc. But hey, corporations are people too, only more powerful
Money rules, the rich get richer
6
What is the price of shame?
7
@Foregone Conclusion
$0.00
Sad to say.
Something else should be done. Maybe elect officials who care and act accordingly.
Currently, that's not the case.
4
Hear no evil. See you evil.
Just hear and see fancy ballrooms, lots of cash thrown about, glitttering gems, a wide smile on a young Prince.
Do step over the bone saw on your way out.
15
When money (and lots of it) and ethics collide, trust human greed to win out over and over again. As Machiavelli pithily observed: “Politics have no relation to morals.”
11
Every time you fill up, you're supporting petro-states both in the U.S. and abroad.
If you care about how your money is used, buy an electric vehicle and stop using natural gas. Otherwise, drill baby drill, and saw baby saw.
14
@vote with your pocketbook. i can stop filling my car anytime i feel like it. What i can't do is stop eating, flying, keeping a roof over my families head, or read this paper without lots and lots of carbon. If only your stop using carbon ideas were so simple.
2
"Many companies contend that they are, in part, helping to open up the deeply conservative society."
So now movie theaters are a right in Saudi Arabia? But potable water here in the U.S. has become a luxury. Truly dark magical thinking.
Really we're opening our corporations and our own government up to being [even more] hardened to and accepting more of the unspeakable and the horrifying. Comparable to if we were doing business with and palling around with Hitler during WWII.
Thank you for not letting this issue fade away.
24
I do business with and in Saudi. It’s not my job to judge their leaders. It’s my job to follow the law and maximize value.
4
@DRS
“Just following orders.”
25
@DRS
How about personal ethics?
10
Didn’t Saudi Arabia just brutally murder(with the help of the United States) 13 people at a girls school in Sanaa many of them the Young Girls?
7
Honesty, integrity and ethics are values that have no meaning in the contemporary business world. Sad but not surprised.
15
Businesses have a single goal – legally deliver the highest risk-weighted return on capital to their shareholders.
They don’t exist to serve employees or communities. Their mission is not to make political or social statements.
Businesses are neither moral nor immoral. They are amoral.
Anyone who is surprised that companies have returned en masse to Saudi Arabia simply don’t understand business.
4
@John
We didn’t say we were surprised; we said we were revolted. Still are.
It’s something you simply don’t understand.
14
@John How convenient not to have a shred of decency, greed rules.
5
Shameful! All trade should be suspended with Saudi Arabia...unless and until assassin prince Salman is ousted...and justice served. Meanwhile, those re-establishing commercial relations with him ought to be considered pariahs. But then again, when ethics is absent, selfishness and avarice jump in. And complicity, when money speaks.
16
The mental gymnastics it must take to convince oneself that he or she is doing "the people of Saudi Arabia" a huge favor by investing and profiting off the tyrannical regime and that it will "open up the deeply conservative society" is truly impressive. Of course they are all much more cynical than that and will say just about anything to get a piece of that sweet sweet Aramco cash
23
One excuse heard in this article is "People in Saudi Arabia have been living in oppressive regime and they need entertainment and thus AMC decided to go there"
Agreed!
What about the people of Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan and many other Muslim countries, where the Saudi funded dogmatic puritan version of Islam had rained havoc for them in last many years. Don't these people deserve entertainment and some basic human rights?
I guess, finally nothing matters, only money, as they say "Money makes the world go round" Why not then make peace with Russia? (After all Russia has the largest reserves of oil and gas)
But you know what, Oil and Gas is loosing its sheen very soon. Solar, wind, ocean and other renewable sources are making waves. The riches of Saudi are going to be obsolete very soon.
12
Ah... businesses, they warm yer ole heart, don't they?
The last thing that I expect from "business" is ethics.
Their object is to make money. Lotsa money.
And they have many ways of doing it. All unethical.
Walmart pays so little to its employees that they have to apply for food stamps.
And the government allows it instead of demanding that they pay a living wage.
In the last 30 or so years I have never seen a business stand up for any human rights.... well, except for the gays (not Lesbians), because gays fit right into that patriarchal thing.
It's all about the boys... as Saudi Arabia will tell you.
And then there is the matter of cold, hard cash.
Worldwide, every woman who works pays a kick-back of 20 to 50%.
Well, the ladies don't exactly see it like that. They think they are being paid LESS. But when a corporation is automatically swiping 20 to 50% right off the top, it's not a matter of "being paid less" - it is theft, pure and simple.
And our government encourages it, by shrugging and saying, So what? They are not equal to a man, any man.
It's not men who are being robbed every paycheck, now, is it?
Who should get reparations?
Women.
Every single one of us, worldwide.
Especially in any country where women are never paid equally.
Like Saudi Arabia.
Or the United States.
That is why businesses have no compunctions about doing business with Saudi Arabia.
They are just like - nay, exactly like! - that murderous land.
"Saudi reform"?
Now that's an oxymoron!
11
Businesses people always have, and always will, operate in some pretty risky situations. They will continue to do so as long as the rewards outweigh the risks. But the costs of doing business in Saudi Arabia has probably gone up since Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by the regime.
@W
There's 'risky', W, and then there's 'skanky'.
Bone saws make it skanky.
11
I would really love for the nyt or the Washington post to publish a complete list of public companies with ties to the Saudis because I for intend to divest from any of them. I will keep my money in cds if I have to
It’s not just one person; it’s the entire country of Yemen and the whole female population of Saudi Arabia .
50
Boycott all companies that do business with a country that uses a bone saw on journalists even if Jared Kushner says the prince is a great guy!
37
Kashoggi's death was only a temporary public relations problem because when there's loads of money to be made nobody really cares about anything else. The companies who made such a public show of "pulling out" of SA probably did so with sub rosa assurances that they'd be back as soon as the heat was off.
And of course anyone who has ever seen an organized-crime movie will recognize the "It is nothing personal" sentiment.
26
Saudi needs a lot of investment in everything
Especially in infrastructure and creating new businesses improving job market and allowing a more outgoing culture where people enjoy leisure
Time and spending money.
The young people will adjust, building a second economy apart from oil revenues.
The UAE maybe a good example for the start.
The country needs to continue to reform they have started, maybe accelerating at some points .
The wealth funds is actually not that much for the size of the country and the position they have as a oil producing nation. In comparison to Norway $900b and UAE 600b . Both much smaller countries and producer.
So they still need outside investors and should
Offer their wealthy citizens to invest at home and not so much overseas.
Does anyone else recall Jared Kushner telling trump administration officials to not be alarmed about the murder? To just wait it out and, "It will all blow over." Back to business as usual. Unforgivable.
43
@Ramba
Pretty close to an accessory to murder.... Says everything about his, and the Trump circle's, moral compass.
How is it that America thinks this is OK???
16
@Ramba
Thanks for the reminder. Kushner may be incompetent in countless areas (including all his White House-assigned assigned tasks) -- and is always seeking to feather his own nest -- but he seems to have a great instinct for how these "blow over" things work.
1
I hope all these businesses are targeted by their shareholders, the retirement funds who invest there and in the case of Google their employees.
19