Free Arrested Development and Philosophy by J. Jeremy Wisnewski William Irwin Kristopher G. Phillips, J. Jeremy Wisnewski Page B

constantly referring to his expensive suit, which, he tells different people at various points in the episode, is valued at $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $6,300, and finally $3,600 (for the pants alone). Then, at the Christmas party, Gob fires all of the employees for laughing when Tom—whom George Sr. had once fired at a previous Christmas party for joking that the company’s numbers haven’t been adding up because “George has been into the kitty” (an obvious reference to George’s Sr. affair with his secretary Kitty)—toasts Gob by reluctantly saying that “Gob seems like he’d be a really smart boss” and that “he’s a great magician.” As some consolation, the next day Michael throws another Christmas party for the employees at the banana stand to assure them that they have not really been fired.
    The Bluth Company motto of “Family First” is also illustrated in “Staff Infection” when Michael wants construction site workers to work without pay. The company is behind on payroll and won’t have any money to pay its employees until the zoning committee gives its approval to the Bluth Company’s plans for a new subdivision. It’s a Saturday, and Michael advises the foreman to “keep [his] head down, power through, you know, and sacrifice.” Because the Bluth Company puts “Family First,” Michael has no qualms about making employees sacrifice on a sunny weekend for the sake of the family.
    International Business: “Light” Treason
    The Bluth Company’s “Family First” motto gets them into trouble with the CIA—well, at least the CIA East—when George Sr. makes a deal to build homes in Iraq. Because U.S. corporations have been prohibited from doing business with Iraq since the early 1990s, George Sr. says that he may be guilty of some “light” treason. In “Exit Strategy” we learn that, unbeknownst to the CIA East, the CIA West—which shares the other side of a cubicle with the CIA East—had helped set up a deal in which the Bluth Company built homes in Iraq for Saddam Hussein. The CIA West arranged this so that they could wire the homes with listening devices in the hopes of learning if and where Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The Bluths, CIA East agent Richard Shaw says, are “unintentional operations victims.” “We feel terrible,” he later adds, “because this is really our mistake.”
    Of course, the Bluth-built Iraqi homes have some of the same problems as the shoddily built U.S. model home. In “Let ‘Em Eat Cake” a television reporter in Iraq reports from one of Saddam’s mini-palaces; the palace looks just like the “Seawind unit” the Bluths live in and even has some of the same furnishings. As the reporter is explaining that U.S. troops are living in some of these houses, a soldier knocks off the same part of the balcony railing that George Michael did in the U.S. model home earlier in the episode. The reporter notes that the home has sustained a lot of damage, but that most of it is due to “shoddy workmanship.”
    Moral Development Arrested
    By putting themselves before the people who use their products, their employees, and their community, the Bluth Company often makes unethical decisions at the expense of others. Typically, their immoral behavior results in only a short-term benefit, which is soon wiped out by the long-term consequences created by the same behavior. Although it turns out that George Sr. is not guilty of treason—light or otherwise—the company has other problems concerning shady bookkeeping and defrauding investors. While George Sr. is innocent of wrongdoing in building homes in Iraq, he appears guilty of various SEC violations. Seeing the authorities coming to get him, George Sr. calls the office and tells them to “empty the account” and start shredding documents. He later tells Michael that the SEC has been after him for years. From watching the pilot alone we can see why someone might have tipped off the SEC about the Bluth