A guide to corporate ethics

Our corporate sponsors have a Big Business mentality that is predatory, the ethics of the  world be damned. In a rational world the smoke and mirrors method of counting all the pretty beans leaves the rationalist dazed and outraged.  For the individual, it’s a short lived fantasy lark, unless they join hands, hearts, and souls with a corporation, for the betterment of all.  The safe family environment of a corporation sells the concept.
http://www.helium.com/items/2185958-corporationbig-businesscorporate-mentalityethics-in-businesscorporate-ethicspolitical-influence

Making high-speed rail a viable solution

High speed trains should have been a fixture in the United States years ago. Now that the government is offering more incentives for this purpose, there is no reason not to. The United States is the only highly civilized country that has no high speed trains. The reasons for this are political and corporate in nature. The low- level hostility between Amtrak staff and passengers trickles right on up through the channels of governmental and corporate entities.
http://www.helium.com/items/2258137-making-high-speed-rail-a-viable-solution

Failures of the US Prison System

More and more prisons are built every year. The United States just cannot get enough of them. 
http://www.helium.com/items/2258979-failures-of-the-us-prison-system

To legalize or to not legalize: Should marijuana be legalized?

The anti-drug stance of the United States costs big bucks.  And the underground economy brings in big bucks, with no tax liability at all.  It is difficult to sympathize with a country that spends so very much on a drug war that was obviously lost long ago, and one whose economy is upside down.  Not only is this anti-drug money being spent in huge amounts, year after year, also huge amounts of taxes are not being collected or paid out on the marijuana industry alone. And yet the marijuana industry is only a small portion of the total underground economy, millions as opposed to billions.
http://www.helium.com/items/2260721-legalize-marijuana

Should medical marijuana be legalized?

Sixteen out of fifty states plus the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana. It is a progressive notion, at once frightening and witchy. Nonetheless, the feds keep making raids and laying down the law, the federal law. Law is a precious thing, full of rights and honor, whether lacking in common sense or not.  
http://www.helium.com/items/2262271-should-medical-marijuana-be-legalized

What improvements are needed in today's prisons?

It would seem the worst of the worst go to prison, but such is not the case. Statistically, the United States locks up not only poor people, but a great many drug offenders. In 2005 there were two million inmates in the United States; of these two million, 25 percent were convicted on drug related charges. Drugwarfacts.org states that from 1990 to 2010 in federal prisons, drug convictions accounted for very close to half of all convictions. They state also that the amount of federal prisoners grew from 57,000 to 190,000 during this same time period.
http://www.helium.com/items/2276592-improvement-in-todays-prisons