Companies post record profits

Amid all that austerity and a record number of people on foodstamps, companies across the board have been posting record profits. I wonder, where does that money come from? Even considering profits abroad, less affluent countries cant compensate a serious drop in consumption in Europe or America.

That means if people are not better off than they were 10 years ago, a lot of citizens must be giving their very last dollars to Apple, Samsung, Papa John and Starbucks.

If people do not start living within their means and just do not buy it, if people bend over backwards to give all those companies money, whom pay out minimum wage and offshore profits, what incentive is there for the decision makers to change a thing? Before you let a CEO go without his huge bonus or see a stockholder go without Dividends, you sacrifice your retirement, maybe put even the roof over your head at risk to get that gadget or have that vacation. Your financial woes are not becoming the financial woes of those further up the foodchain.

Start living within your means. Buy used on ebay, if you are strapped for cash, start saving the little you have instead of throwing it at one of the SP 500, tell them I just do not have it, instead of I will be there for black Friday. Only when half of the country living below the poverty line becomes the problem of those further up the foodchain will they come to the table and be looking for a fix.

Nothing will change unless the people change.

This is the fallacy of capitalization. The corporations suck as much as they can from the people. It is not sustainable and never has been. Another way to express it would be that greed increases exponentially. It cannot last, once you have bled the people dry your entire society collapses.

P

Originally posted by pheonix358
This is the fallacy of capitalization. The corporations suck as much as they can from the people. It is not sustainable and never has been. Another way to express it would be that greed increases exponentially. It cannot last, once you have bled the people dry your entire society collapses.

P

Is there something stopping you from being a shareholder of that company and reaping the same benefits that they do?

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by pheonix358
This is the fallacy of capitalization. The corporations suck as much as they can from the people. It is not sustainable and never has been. Another way to express it would be that greed increases exponentially. It cannot last, once you have bled the people dry your entire society collapses.

P

Is there something stopping you from being a shareholder of that company and reaping the same benefits that they do?

I would say yes.. Their ideology. They believe in production for need and not for profit.

reply to post by Merinda


It is going to have to come to this I think or maybe we should indeed just go ahead and hit rock bottom. That's what psychology says right? You can't come out of denial til you hit rock bottom. Something in our national logic has got to give otherwise we are just putting band-aids on boo boo's and we're are going to forever be doomed arguing what a boo boo even is.

We saw a shift towards sanity this past election (and I don't even like Obama) but maybe we should have just let it go, leave the mindset of let's stop the blood loss and just bleed out. Let's go ahead and drop Corporate tax rates to 0%... hell let's end income tax all together, let's call the corporate bluff about American jobs and wages. Let's bust all the unions and throw out all financial regulations and labor laws.

Let's see if these poverty level defenders of the exploitative corporate mindset are prepared to work for slave wages 80 hours a week. Let's see how long their hero worship lasts.

Maybe then, finally we can have that great march on the Oligarchs in DC.

reply to post by Merinda


Of course companies have record profits.
That's their bag...that's their entire reason for being.
Profits.
You think they will post record losses?
Maybe to fit another agenda...

We would think this is all common sense.
You know, the whole "living within your means" idea.
If you don't have the money, then you don't make a purchase.
There's no need for credit. That was created to make bankers more money.
They found a way to allow us to fill our greedy desires (TV seduced) and buy more crap.
All without ever having the money to actually buy the product to begin with.
But for people who are obsessively consumed with programming coming from their TV's...
They think that buying things they don't need is normal. It's American.
They will even argue with you if you tell them differently.
(I've been in a few heated discussions about this particular subject)

I don't think it's American at all.
This mindset is brainwashing/programming at it's finest.
It's consumerism and could almost be called the newest religion.

I believe we've truly been brainwashed into a false meaning of being American.
If being an American stands for spending all your money and time buying into their economy...
I want nothing todo with it.

I'd rather be truly free and able to live without their system.
But we all know they don't want you to think that.

reply to post by havok


So lets start an ATS village in like Australia or something?

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by pheonix358
This is the fallacy of capitalization. The corporations suck as much as they can from the people. It is not sustainable and never has been. Another way to express it would be that greed increases exponentially. It cannot last, once you have bled the people dry your entire society collapses.

P

Is there something stopping you from being a shareholder of that company and reaping the same benefits that they do?

You would need an income that allows you to safe.

Originally posted by pheonix358
This is the fallacy of capitalization. The corporations suck as much as they can from the people. It is not sustainable and never has been. Another way to express it would be that greed increases exponentially. It cannot last, once you have bled the people dry your entire society collapses.

P

If you mean the worker, yes, naturally. They try to get as much as possible for as little as possible.
If you are trying to say, they suck the consumer dry, well nobody is forcing you to buy that Ipad, or to order at Papa John. If you are throwing money at the fortune 500 although you cant afford it, you are playing in their hands, your economic hardship is not their problem, as long as you keep giving them money before you start saving for retirement, but it is all your decision, it is all in your hand.

there are indeed record profits being made and why wouldn't there be since the corporations are enjoying the fact that they can increase or maintain productivity while laying off workers and saddling those still working, with the increased load.

shameful is a better word for it instead of successful. there is nothing successful about increasing production load on a dwindling workforce and giving them nothing, in the form of appreciable raises, for their effort.

this is a time in our economy's evolution where just before the end they fleece all remaining profits from the people, shortly before they collapse.

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by pheonix358
This is the fallacy of capitalization. The corporations suck as much as they can from the people. It is not sustainable and never has been. Another way to express it would be that greed increases exponentially. It cannot last, once you have bled the people dry your entire society collapses.

P

Is there something stopping you from being a shareholder of that company and reaping the same benefits that they do?

Yes, it is a thing called ETHICS.

P

Originally posted by pheonix358

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by pheonix358
This is the fallacy of capitalization. The corporations suck as much as they can from the people. It is not sustainable and never has been. Another way to express it would be that greed increases exponentially. It cannot last, once you have bled the people dry your entire society collapses.

P

Is there something stopping you from being a shareholder of that company and reaping the same benefits that they do?

Yes, it is a thing called ETHICS.

P

It's unethical to own stock now? My point was that the company is public, and anyone can own a portion of it. Ethics, really? That's a pretty weak argument. 20 bucks says you give money to some other organization just as bad or worse.

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by pheonix358

Originally posted by boncho

Originally posted by pheonix358
This is the fallacy of capitalization. The corporations suck as much as they can from the people. It is not sustainable and never has been. Another way to express it would be that greed increases exponentially. It cannot last, once you have bled the people dry your entire society collapses.

P

Is there something stopping you from being a shareholder of that company and reaping the same benefits that they do?

Yes, it is a thing called ETHICS.

P

It's unethical to own stock now? My point was that the company is public, and anyone can own a portion of it. Ethics, really? That's a pretty weak argument. 20 bucks says you give money to some other organization just as bad or worse.

If somebody finds fault with certain companies he can buy the stock of companies he does not find fault with. Or find other means of saving. The whole point I am making, those complaining about companies paying wages that are too low, making people work 14 hours a day or whatever, you all complain, but instead of reacting to the poor treatment and saying, I will not spend money on stuff I can not afford, I am going to save for retirement instead of buying an ipad, or buy a used ipad and buy bonds from the difference, you all show up for black friday.

So you live below the poverty line, yet you give all those companies, Target, wallmart, other, your last dime instead of saving, resulting in record profits.

If those companies keep making record profits, because you do not draw the line and keep your money, where is the incentive for those who sit at the levers of power to do something about the legions of people falling below the poverty line?

Originally posted by pheonix358
This is the fallacy of capitalization. The corporations suck as much as they can from the people. It is not sustainable and never has been. Another way to express it would be that greed increases exponentially. It cannot last, once you have bled the people dry your entire society collapses.

And the sad thing is the capitalists don't care about our future. They have their own futures nicely sorted.

My rant to the madding crowd...

Capitalists are not concerned with a long term sustainable economy, they want to rape us right now and for as much as they can. The capitalist economic system is not based on our needs, Human needs, it is simply exploitation of the majority by a minority class.

Society will collapse under capitalism. In fact parts of society collapse under capitalism every day. The only reason it appears to work is because no one really pays attention to the details. Capitalism only works for a minority of people at any time. The poor will always be the majority, no matter how hard anyone works. Yes the lazy always end up at the bottom, of course they do, but so do a huge amount of hard working people.

The state has told you how to think by the time you reach high-skool. Unless people do some serious reading and deprogram themselves, society is lost.

You really do not get it. Now you want to blame the people, the Mums and Dads and the children for the predatory actions of companies. These same companies that introduced planned obsolescence, that shift jobs to places where workers have no rights.

I still have a frypan that is over half a century old. It works and it works very well. Buy one these days and I am lucky to get 2 years out of it.

Yes, blame the little guy, he can't fight back.

P

Originally posted by boncho
It's unethical to own stock now? My point was that the company is public, and anyone can own a portion of it. Ethics, really? That's a pretty weak argument. 20 bucks says you give money to some other organization just as bad or worse.

It's unethical to profit from others labour.

"Public" companies are capitalist companies. Most owners are private owners not workers from the company.
Also it is based on profit and someone can have more shares than others giving them an economic advantage.

What stops workers buying shares? Unequal economic competition.

The acknowledged aim of socialism is to take the means of production out of the hands of the capitalist class and place them into the hands of the workers. This aim is sometimes spoken of as public ownership, sometimes as common ownership of the production apparatus. There is, however, a marked and fundamental difference....

Public ownership is the ownership, i.e. the right of disposal, by a public body representing society, by government, state power or some other political body. The persons forming this body, the politicians, officials, leaders, secretaries, managers, are the direct masters of the production apparatus; they direct and regulate the process of production; they command the workers. Common ownership is the right of disposal by the workers themselves; the working class itself — taken in the widest sense of all that partake in really productive work, including employees, farmers, scientists — is direct master of the production apparatus, managing, directing, and regulating the process of production which is, indeed, their common work.

Anton Pannekoek 1947 Public Ownership and Common Ownership

reply to post by ANOK

"Public" companies are capitalist companies. Most owners are private owners not workers from the company.

Just take a look at some of the public companies that have been driven into the ground post continuous losses because they are paid for by the government, through taxes of the people. If the government has shown us anything in the last 100 years, its how they are adept at mismanaging money.

There is no system incorruptible or that hasn't been exploited. But you missed the point I was making anyways...

reply to post by pheonix358

These same companies that introduced planned obsolescence, that shift jobs to places where workers have no rights.

I still have a frypan that is over half a century old. It works and it works very well. Buy one these days and I am lucky to get 2 years out of it.

So if everyone owned a frying pan that lasted 50 years, and all the frying pan makers jobless, and the frying pan manufacturers went out of business. Would you be blaming them again for not having jobs available to people?

Originally posted by boncho
Just take a look at some of the public companies that have been driven into the ground post continuous losses because they are paid for by the government, through taxes of the people. If the government has shown us anything in the last 100 years, its how they are adept at mismanaging money.

There is no system incorruptible or that hasn't been exploited. But you missed the point I was making anyways...

I agree with you, I do not support public companies. Socialism is not public companies, it is workers common ownership.

What point did I miss?

Originally posted by boncho
So if everyone owned a frying pan that lasted 50 years, and all the frying pan makers jobless, and the frying pan manufacturers went out of business. Would you be blaming them again for not having jobs available to people

You have to understand socialism is not about making profit. No jobs would be lost, people would just either produce something other than frying pans, or work less hours.

Producing products that don't last is a waste of resources and part of the problem. We need a sustainable economy, that doesn't waste resources to turn them into profits.