Corporations Screw Everybody

The rhetoric I often read on ATS seems to be mostly that corporations have too much control and power. There are the apologists for big business that I wonder about but think most people agree that corporations, their owners and the power they weld are out of control.

I found this op ed this morning that is an accurate assesment of the recent history of the corporate take-over of the US. I know many will recoil from where the blame is put so will leave it up to each of you to read the article with, I trust, an open mind.

...corporations knew they had a responsibility to a number of groups. They had a responsibility to their workers, to their community, to their customers, to the institution of the company itself and to the stockholders.

Believe it or not, they actually cared about their workers making decent wages, their customers buying reliable products and the impact of their behaviors on the community.

When people got laid off, it was considered a "failure of management." Offshoring was unheard of.
But then things began to change.

Suddenly, thanks to Chicago School Boys like Milton Friedman, there was this idea floating around that CEOs and corporations only should do what was best for the shareholders.

Screw everyone else. Screw the community, screw the company, screw the customers, and, most of all, screw the workers.

...changed tax laws and rules, to turn CEOs more into shareholders than employees.

All of a sudden, CEOs were getting huge chunks of their salaries not from regular payroll, but from stock options (with a lower tax rate), something that had been previously illegal.

Because of that, CEOs began to care more and more about what was best for the shareholders, while saying screw you to the workers, to the communities, to the institution of the company itself (if they could chop it up and sell or merge it, that's just fine!) and to their customers.

Any loyalty to anyone or anything other than the stockholders was lost.

The above is an accurate recital of the changes to 'management' over the last forty years that have contributed to many of our ongoing problems (endless wars, massive pollution, a return to feudalism, degredation of public education, etc.)

I ask you to think about whether you agree with the above or not and share it with us.

Starr and flag just for the title . It's so true and there are many older people that do ,did see the thing change . I wanted to drop this vid with John Pilger talking about a bit of history and present situations we all share in the west . well worth a listen to imo a reply to: FyreByrd

a reply to: FyreByrd

Honestly, I am not 'in the know' about such things. But if the article IS true, who is responsible for altering the laws to allow the CEO's to profit in the way that was previously illegal? (Ultimately I realize that congress is responsible, in that they make/change laws of the land-- but did a group lobby for this?)

Side Note: Personally, I believe that lobby MONEY is the root of all laws that endanger our country's future. When lawmakers can profit from their decision, their vote, then their entire career is wide open to corruption of their inherent duty to the public. Lobbying is just fine... if it is words (spoken or written.) When money is involved, it is simply bribery.

Nice Thread Fyrebyrd, Yes, This pretty much sums up how we've gotten to the place we're at now. Ego, Hubris, Greed and Long Term Stupidity, so as to fuel short term gains for a few to live A Temporally Short Lavish Lifestyle. Star and Flag and Thanks for posting this L) Peace, Arjunanda a reply to: FyreByrd

So the complaint is that these companies are not paying their employees enough or that they have to much political power?

a reply to: new_here

The whole system of lobbyists/lobbying is a Petri dish for the virus known as corruption. It is the most fertile medium possible.

It creates a condition whereby big business has more of a say in congress than the average voter.

I am one of those who has been present during the changes the OP lists. I can say this without a doubt:

The assumption that all corporations take the attitude to screw this, that and the other guy is false.

You lump in there "offshoring". Also false...sending jobs overseas is not the "preferred" way of doing business unless the choice is staying in business or shutting down.

After all, if your company was facing the 2nd highest tax rates in the world, along with massively stupid govt regulations that require hiring a whole dept of people just to deal with the paperwork, along with paying higher wages and then toss in the general attitude of ignorant people chanting a mantra that all corporations are evil and hell yeah they will take their manufacturing overseas.

I have experience with the "massively stupid regulations" and a few other things as well. As I said before, I was working for a large corporation during the changes.

One does not need 15 govt departments and 43 individual regulations in order to control one aspect of one industry that may result in unethical behavior. All one needs is one law per potential abuse of ethics and then ENFORCE THE FREAKIN LAW!!. Passing additional regulations detailing which i should be dotted and which should not and rejecting the whole package because some bureaucrat does not like the paper it is written on is what our govt is now. Dealing with the govt is asinine activity at the most imbecilic level.

Hold those responsible for abuses accountable with penalties instead of a slap on the hands. Additional regulation makes it look like the govt is doing something when in reality they are just clusterfracking everything even more.

I blame the govt. Our leaders are supposed to lead.

a reply to: FyreByrd

there was this idea floating around that CEOs and corporations only should do what was best for the shareholders.

CEO's are people too. If I kill someone I face the law. If a policy they enact kills someone so should they.

At some point they became like Gods, immune to their decisions that affect us all.

Corporations may not be people but the controllers that run them are.

a reply to: FyreByrd

Corporations are amoral profit machines. Machines are very predictable.

Humans had a much more active role in leadership/stewardship before the rise of equity markets. Things like sustaining profit over longer term, relationships and human resources were emphasized.

Now with "shareholders" at the helm and mostly morality removed, there is virtually no limit on the profit machine activity. You can see some of the results; personhood, sovereign corporations, possibly corporations holding political office.

Case in point Koch enterprises. They made their billions in the coal industry, the industry was threatened and the corporate entity responded with various self-defense methods. One of these methods is buying influence with the USG Fascists. Sponsored science, straight up obfuscation. There is no regard whatsoever for biological life.

If/When human civilization recovers from the coming reset, I believe corporations, equity markets and banking as they exist today will be severely limited or banned altogether. They won't "let go" on their own, so it could end up like Hunger Games. Murican capitalism will happily and efficiently destroy the Earth. Think about it. 'Murican capitalists would gladly negotiate with ET's to enslave the masses and preserve their profit growth. They would cut safety costs at Nuke plants and lie about it. Any number of catastrophic scenarios are possible there.

a reply to: FyreByrd

It is so true. I went into the workforce in 1968 and have seen the changes in the psychology. S&F for the subject.

originally posted by: bbracken677








I blame the govt. Our leaders are supposed to lead.

"Supposed to" yeah but....

Our leaders are bought and paid for by the very corporations you are defending.

The Democratic Republic has been replaced by a Corporate Oligarchy. In a perverse way; brilliant social and government manipulation by the Bush era neocons!! Obama is just following the model set in place years ago.

The neocons don't give a **** which party is in the WH, congress, the house or the Judiciary; money talks; so does intimidation, promise of chushy jobs or board positions, campaign contributions. etc, the list goes on and on....

a reply to: FyreByrd

Was just pondering this issue over morning coffee. Corporate exploitation of the people goes along hand in hand with the seeming majority of Americans' faith in both controllers of the economy and market. Blind faith really, rising to a nearly religious trust and belief, in the righteousness of the value set upon their labor, and infallibility of economists and marketeers to misjudge in essence the very worth of their existence. The ultra successful corporation not only takes advantage of Americans' worship of capitalism as dictated to them, but also uses this unerring faith in the system as its very foundation. In the eyes of many Americans, whatever the market value is, is god.

originally posted by: olaru12

originally posted by: bbracken677








I blame the govt. Our leaders are supposed to lead.

"Supposed to" yeah but....

Our leaders are bought and paid for by the very corporations you are defending.

The Democratic Republic has been replaced by a Corporate Oligarchy. In a perverse way; brilliant social and government manipulation by the Bush era neocons!! Obama is just following the model set in place years ago.

Your the first person I have heard on this website call bush brilliant. You must believe that he is to pull off such a brilliant plan.

Money has always been the main deciding factor of laws in "murica" the rich have always run the country to. Corporations are just the target of the angst today.
Obama is going to run all the corporations out of business anyway so I'm sure that will fix everything.

a reply to: FyreByrd

I fail to argue with this statement:

Today the masters of mankind are multinational corporations and financial institutions, but the lesson still applies and it helps explain why the state-corporate complex is indeed a threat to freedom and in fact even survival. By now there are important elaborations of Smith's truism applied to the modern world. The most significant and sophisticated version that I know is by political economist Thomas Ferguson, what he calls his investment theory of politics which in brief, simplified, simply views U.S. elections as occasions in which the coalitions of private investors coalesce to invest to control the state. It turns out to be a thesis of quite predictive success over more than a century as he shows.

history.genius.com...

a reply to: FyreByrd

Yes.

Recall the "buy American" slogans. This slogan was hollered by both left and right to help secure the framework of the American economy. But did we? No. And why? Because we had been turned into mindless consumers by the relentless onslaught of the profit-machine. The corporations discovered the psychological power of Madison Avenue and worked their "ad-man magic" on the minds of a populace that didn't even know what psychology was, turning them into "beat the Jones's" materialists. Then, like baby puppies pushing and shoving for a teat they gobbled up whatever goods were being pushed by the machine of the moment. Fad after fad after fad. Inovation after inovation. Ad-on after ad-on. Bigger is better, more is better still.

Not enough profit? Sell more by selling cheaper. How to sell cheaper? Buy cheaper. Where? Over there where the product can be produced for peanuts and a bowl of rice. Not cheap enough to keep the puppies fed? Make it out of less expensive material so that it breaks more easily and the addicted must then buy another and another.

And for crying out loud, now, each and every night the TV's of the nation are promoting "flying bacon" doggie treats.
Enough Terry, enough. Thanks Fyrebird for the good thead.

a reply to: Hoosierdaddy71

Your the first person I have heard on this website call bush brilliant. You must believe that he is to pull off such a brilliant plan.

I don't think he was calling Bush brilliant. Bush was an economic dummy and a face for the machine. He picked his advisors at the behest of the machine that had surrounded his father who picked his machine from the pieces of the machine that had surrounded grandpa Bush. It was these guys that ran the country. Bush just signed the papers they presented to him making things "legal".

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71

originally posted by: olaru12

originally posted by: bbracken677








I blame the govt. Our leaders are supposed to lead.

"Supposed to" yeah but....

Our leaders are bought and paid for by the very corporations you are defending.

The Democratic Republic has been replaced by a Corporate Oligarchy. In a perverse way; brilliant social and government manipulation by the Bush era neocons!! Obama is just following the model set in place years ago.

Your the first person I have heard on this website call bush brilliant. You must believe that he is to pull off such a brilliant plan.

Read it again....

I said "Bush era" neocons. However I don't think that "W" was a fool, just easily manipulated by some very smart people with a diabolical agenda; WAR as a viable business enterprise.

Turn off Rush, and do a little research. If you want to criticize our current problems; here is where your focus and attention should be directed.

www.wnd.com...

www.theamericanconservative.com...

originally posted by: olaru12

originally posted by: bbracken677








I blame the govt. Our leaders are supposed to lead.

"Supposed to" yeah but....

Our leaders are bought and paid for by the very corporations you are defending.

The Democratic Republic has been replaced by a Corporate Oligarchy. In a perverse way; brilliant social and government manipulation by the Bush era neocons!! Obama is just following the model set in place years ago.

The neocons don't give a **** which party is in the WH, congress, the house or the Judiciary; money talks; so does intimidation, promise of chushy jobs or board positions, campaign contributions. etc, the list goes on and on....

So, basically, your whole complaint is geared at government. Who elected that government? It wasn't the corps. It was us.

Now, if you want to take issue with stupid voters, ask yourself who makes the voters stupid. How do they get that way?

It's not the corps. It's the schools, and who runs the schools ... government.

It all comes back to government which is run by people who want to stay in power. Corps want that too, but they are basically paying to play. Government also knows how easy it is to make corps into the perpetual boogeyman and bad guy. People allow this, too. Corps are fine with this because they are paying to play and it's part of the crony system. They'll let themselves be bent over that barrel as long as the other side is good. What do they care? People will complain but still spend money.

It all comes back to government and people being stupid, too stupid to see what's going on and too stupid to really do what we'd need to for change if we do.

Don't blame the corps. That's too easy and you're all supposed to. Blame the government, and blame yourselves for allowing it to happen.

a reply to: olaru12

First off, I was not defending, merely pointing out the error of lumping all corporations in the same hole. Disingenuous at best and anyone with half a lick of brains or experience knows that isn't how the world works.

Second, I am going to call you out on more stupid shist (and I do mean ignorantly stupid):

In a perverse way; brilliant social and government manipulation by the Bush era neocons!!

Really? You think this just started? The above statement illustrates a world of ignorance. Secondly if you think only "neocons" are responsible then I feel extremely sorry for you. Your blinders are huge... of magnificent proportions that dwarf the imagination. You have swallowed the standard lie. Do you think that Democrats and Republicans are truly 2 different parties? Can you possibly be that naive?

If that were the case then there wouldn't be tons of rich democrats.... oh wait, you think rich liberals are actually... oook.

Never mind that 6 or 7 of the richest congressmen are democrats. That is a meaningless stat, right? lol neocons.

originally posted by: new_here
a reply to: FyreByrd

Honestly, I am not 'in the know' about such things. But if the article IS true, who is responsible for altering the laws to allow the CEO's to profit in the way that was previously illegal? (Ultimately I realize that congress is responsible, in that they make/change laws of the land-- but did a group lobby for this?)

Side Note: Personally, I believe that lobby MONEY is the root of all laws that endanger our country's future. When lawmakers can profit from their decision, their vote, then their entire career is wide open to corruption of their inherent duty to the public. Lobbying is just fine... if it is words (spoken or written.) When money is involved, it is simply bribery.

Read the article and find out. It is true and well documented.

a reply to: FyreByrd

What article?