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October 6, 2009I don’t see how, in this day and age, a corporation can continue to pander to shareholders, when the shareholders don’t give a rat’s ass about the company. All shareholders these days are just speculators, and half the time, they are shorting.
And , in a broader perspective, even if investers were in it for the long haul, as in days past, it makes no sense for a corporation to have to keep pandering to owners of shares that were issued 20, 40 or even 100 years ago. Enough already . Find other ways to raise money and free up management to make better products and better services. Fuck the shareholders.
Do you agree? If so, when will this nonsense end?
I am not a socialist nor a communist. I despise socialism. But corporations are not the only way for capitalism to thrive. Goldman sachs wasn’t an corporation until 1999, and becoming a corporation destroyed the investment banking industry, in a very real and literal sense. There is no more Bear Stearns, no more Lehman, no more Merril Lynch. Even goldman sachs had to become a holding company.
When your only concern as management is to show 20% profit growth every quarter, it basically means that pieces of paper are more important than making good products. GM and Chrysler made better cars relative to the competition, before they became big, beaurcratic corporations.
It’s a mutually beneficial relationship: the shareholders invest capital, the corporation provides a return on investment.
What, they should just love each other, swear friendship forever and call it good? That’s not capitalism, the economic system that’s lifted more people out of poverty than all the alternatives combined.
Horaayy..there are 5 comment(s) for me so far ;)
CORPORATION = Satan
Leave it while you have your soul
They kill and spill blood of weak just for sake of profit
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Only if Socialism and Communism take over. Looks like we’re well on the way to that too.
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It’s a mutually beneficial relationship: the shareholders invest capital, the corporation provides a return on investment.
What, they should just love each other, swear friendship forever and call it good? That’s not capitalism, the economic system that’s lifted more people out of poverty than all the alternatives combined.
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I think it’s just the opposite. Karl Marx predicted in the early 19th century that corporations would grow in power until eventually they were so big and powerful that governments could no longer regulate them. At that point they’d realize they didn’t belong to or bear allegiance to any particular country, and they’d become ‘global capital’, wandering the globe for the cheapest labor and resources and the richest markets. So far, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Since Ronald Reagan, the GOP has taken the attitude that it is simply wrong and immoral to regulate corporations, or to hinder them in any way in doing whatever they can to maximize their profits and return on investment in the short term. The Democrats are not much better, believing in the necessity of -some- regulation but being ineffective.
The current national discussion we’re having in the US about health care provides an excellent example. EVERY plan politicians of EITHER party come up with has the ‘incidental’ effect of subsidizing the existing handful of health insurance companies that already owns all our health care. The whole system is run for their profit; actual health care is seen as an unnecessary cost to be minimized however possible. Even that ’socialist’ Obama’s campaign was largely financed by health insurance companies, so he’s not about to do anything to do them out of their profits or their control over the whole system of US health care.
So what you really mean by your question is not ‘Have corporations gone obsolete’ but ‘Has the original purpose of corporations gone obsolete, which used to be to provide a product or service in a free, competitive market in hopes of making a profit?’ Instead corporations have subsumed our government, and are growing into global economic hegemony.
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I agree with "It’s that Guy". Many books could be and have been written on this subject. In my opinion, international corporations already own most governments. If some leaders do something different than what their financial backers are asking of them, then by political or physical force they won’t be the leaders for long. This is the centuries old shift from an honest Monarchy to so-called Democracy. The business communities have slowly bought the Kings and ruined all virtue so that they owned them. Then the Kings were removed and power to the uneducated mass of people was offered in it’s place. That power was and still is not controlled by voting, but by the financial backing of the business elite. Also, Communism is just a concept which is never achieve due to the greed of those in power. They might be socialists trying for communism, but it never will work as some will always want the power and luxuries that go with the power.
The world is going "global" is the popular propaganda given now by our leaders and corporations. Stop and think sometime what that really means. When we have one world government, our lives will be shaped by those who’s only desire is to rape the planet for whatever they can get regardless of those they kill in the process. So, far from corporations becoming obsolete, the business elite are finally getting what they have been trying for the last few centuries, "corporate government".
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I paused to have a look over the cliff as everyone else was jumping and decided that maybe it was a good time to re-consider my options.