What Peter Drucker Would Be Reading
Recent selections from around the web that, we think, would have caught Peter Drucker’s eye:
1. Why Apple Needed to Apologize: China’s media recently gave Apple lots of unwelcome attention over the company’s policy on warranties. It eventually culminated in an apology to China’s consumers by Apple CEO Tim Cook. Commenters have both praised and criticized Cook for backing down from a fight. Jena McGregor of the Washington Post thinks Cook made the right move: “Some battles are not worth fighting, and this was one of them. For Cook, the critical importance of the Chinese market meant the apology was worth it, whatever the source of the complaints—or the underlying reason for them—may have been.
2. Obamacare’s Biggest Challenge May Be Coming This Fall: The Affordable Care Act has survived multiple challenges from its opponents. But bloggers at the National Constitution Center say that an equally challenging stretch awaits over the next year. “In October, the ACA faces a daunting task, when as many as 24 million people will start to sign up for private health insurance exchanges run by the government, starting in January 2014,” they write, offering an overview of next steps.
3. The Pension Fund That Ate California: The nation’s largest pension fund for government workers, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, has been beset by corruption scandals and shortfalls. How did it come to this? Steven Malanga asserts in City Journal that several decades of insider dealing and politicized investments are to blame. He writes, “Such dubious practices have piled up a crushing amount of pension debt, which California residents—and their children—will somehow have to repay.”
4. Dx Comment of the Week: Last week, when we asked about the Supreme Court’s role in setting policy on same-sex marriage, reader Judie Forbes had this to say:
All marriages are civil unions, but not all civil unions are marriages. When two people marry, they get a license from the state and after taking vows, sign it, and have it witnessed and sent to be recorded. The procedure for a civil union is the same. But the marriage itself may come in various forms, which include many different religious and cultural traditions…
Why is government into marriage? … The real solution is to strip the word ‘marriage’ from the law and substitute ‘civil union’ or another phrase for two people choosing to share their lives, property, and families.