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Speaker 1: Last August, the members of the business Roundtables signed a

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Speaker 1: document promising to be kinder and gentler. The CEOs of

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Speaker 1: one eighty one large corporations vowed to run their companies

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Speaker 1: to benefit their employees and their communities, not just the shareholders. Now,

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Speaker 1: the New York Times slamming those corporations for ditching their

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Speaker 1: promises of a gentler capitalism during the coronavirus shutdown. According

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Speaker 1: to the Times, key signatories of the pledge are laying

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Speaker 1: off workers, and they aren't adequately protecting the employees with masks. Instead,

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Speaker 1: they're paying dividends to their shareholders while our planet is

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Speaker 1: under assault from a pandemic. The Times quotes a worker

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Speaker 1: who was furloughed by big hotel chain. He complains that

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Speaker 1: the hotel made billions and billions of dollars, but the

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Speaker 1: money didn't go to the employees. Now he can't believe

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Speaker 1: the company told him we don't need you. There are

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Speaker 1: apparently a lot of people that don't understand that the

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Speaker 1: first purpose of business is to make If a hotel

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Speaker 1: chain doesn't have customers, the company can't afford to keep

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Speaker 1: the staff employed to sit around and do nothing. The

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Speaker 1: same thing goes for media companies. This New York Times

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Speaker 1: article doesn't mention that The New York Times has laid

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Speaker 1: off people many, many, many times for the same reasons.

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Speaker 1: Capitalism is not gentle and it isn't welfare. It is

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Speaker 1: viciously competitive, it's bloodthirsty, and it's what makes the world

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Speaker 1: go round.