Posted on 02/04/2011 7:58:40 AM PST by SeekAndFind
:::sigh:::
Ok then folks, don’t shop at Walmart. Sheesh!
OTOH, many corporations have found that sucking on the federal teat is simpler than competing. So I sympathize in a certain way.
Might as well stipulate that you "have no objection to foxes per se. only to any hen-house run by foxes who eat the chickens to satisfy their appetites, rather than operating the hen-houses for the benefit of the chickens..."
It's the nature of large, bureaucratic organizations to act in their own interests to the detriment of the larger society, and of the sorts of people who rise to power within them to "use fiduciary positions for the benefit of their own wealth and power."
Agreed. My problem also is with the crony capitalism, not the big companies. Until recent years Microsoft had the smallest of lobbying presences in DC. They are much bigger their now after being pursued by government sharks.
I have no problem at all with the size of corporations operating completely within the free market.
It’s the unholy alliance between corporations and government that I have issues with. In a free capitalist society, no corporation, whatever its size, would have any more or less standing before the government than any private citizen.
Even issues that, on the surface, appear unrelated, are often favors given to big corporations in exchange for campaign donations. Environmental laws, for example: before construction can take place, environmental impact studies must be done. Often, despite the studies, groups such as the Sierra Club litigate against the prospective builder—resulting in huge costs to build before the first bulldozer is even brought on site to begin leveling the land. How can a small entrepreneur even begin to compete in such a situation?
And, yes, the Sierra Club and its ilk are just as much big corporations as GE or Enron.
I am afraid the table is being set for the return of Ross Perot. Not the Little General personally, but another similar candidate who will be rerunning the William Jennings Bryan campaigns. If the economy stays mired in this much longer, while the news media continues to headline corporate profits and banker bonuses, there’s going to be an emotional backlash to drive an economic populist into the race. Probably what Barry is counting on so he can slink into a second term on a 38% plurality.
Frantzie finally gets to his on trick pony bottom line.
Corporate Socialism / “Too Big To Fail” bump for later....
Yes, yes, but once upon a time, actually when it was first uttered and Jay Gould was vilified for saying it, the continuation of “The public be d*mned,” was “I work for my shareholders!” Now, it seems to be, “and the shareholders be d*mned, too. I got mine!”
Fiduciaries are paid to benefit the interests of that over which they hold fiduciary responsibility, not run it into the ground for their own gain.
Those that pay taxes (the rich and the corporations) have the power and the influence because they PAY for it.
Uh... Jay Gould was a notorious stock "operator", perfectly willing for other stockholders in enterprises in which he had taken a stake to take a beating when it was to his advantage.
OTOH, judging by the recent corporate profit levels, the current management of large American Corporations are doing quite wie by their shareholders.
Whether the means by which this is being accomplished are in the long-term national interest is another questions entirely.
Once an entity gets big it attempts to exert more influence than it is entitled to have.
Millions of people have died because of big religion, big government, big corporations.
I am a dyed in the wool capitalist but everything has reasonable limits that when exceeded become evil.
Take anything to an extreme any you will find bad things happen.
Unions were needed but became too big.
Water is needed to survive but too much causes flooding.
Oxygen is need to breath but increase the percentage in the atmosphere and fires would be uncontrollable.
Religion should be good and benign yet left to grow into huge institutions the evil can be seen by everyone.
Even such noble organizations like the Foundation for the Deaf turned evil when they tried to stop children from receiving operations to restore their hearing less they be deprived of the their deaf heritage. WTF is deaf heritage?
I bet the Free Trade Communists do not like our Founding Fathers after reading this....and yes, our Founding Fathers were not thrilled the big corporation (many of our Founding Fathers were self-made wealthy, with their own independent enterprises)
The problem with most corporations, especially Multi-National Corporations....is that they are SOCIALIST. Many take direct tax dollars from governments (Farm Bills, TARP, Bailouts, USAID)...and many others pay govt for special rights and priviledges. Of course, those who push Free Trade Communism have even more socialist protection (USAID, again...WTO, NAFTA, UN, by-passing US courts)
I can’t wait to read some of the posts on this thread and see how many will whine that “this writer is a liberal”. Read the article...this guy calls out both big govt and big corporations
Hey old man - go warm those eggs up.
RE: I am a dyed in the wool capitalist but everything has reasonable limits that when exceeded become evil.
This brings upo the question ...
How would we know if a company’s size is on the threshold of “reasonable limits”?
And if we can answer the above, how do we scale the limit back to what is “reasonable”?
You pose a great question SeakAndFind. It would seem to be much easier to spot an over sized anything after it has exerted undo influence so it might require a reactive approach rather than a pro-active approach.
The fact remains, very few entities remain a positive influence on society as they become larger.
We know the founders designed a LIMITED government but no percentage of government vs private sector.
There are limits on media outlet ownership in a given market.
There are monopoly limits on business but not on government. Maybe that would be a starting point.
It’s okay with you that they have gone socialist and are shaking down the treasury for the Keynan’s favored treatment? Goverment Electric, Government Motors, Government McDonalds Hamburgers, Government Banksters, government Google...?
We need to tackle the whole corrupt, rotten mess in power and make CEO’s as sorry they went fascist on our country as we make the politicans sorry they violated the constitution. No wonder Americans are angry. These people’s “free market” crap is a lie.
Stop big government, stop the problem.
Anything else is crap. And you seem to have some to sell, newb.
/johnny
You keep telling yourself that, oldster.
Our founders were not too fond of the East India Trading Company. In fact, it was their tea that was dumped into the harbor during the original Boston Tea Party.
In his book entitled "Unequal Protection", Thom Hartman described the great antipathy that our founders had for the East India Trading Company....
The above represents an example of how the writers who tell numerous half truths tell numerous complete lies by doing so.
Actually the history of companies (organizations of individuals who got together to run a business, and were recognized as such a unit) goes back to ancient Rome and the Maurya Empire in ancient India. The alleged oldest commercial corporation in the world, the Stora Kopparberg mining community in Falun, Sweden, obtained a charter from King Magnus Eriksson in 1347. [All well before the 17th century and the East India Trading Company].
The East India Trading Company was not just any company, it was a particular corporation with a particular pedigree - "approved by the Crown" and founded for purposes that would not only suit its investors but would serve the Crown.
The founders did not reject the idea of "corporations", they rejected the Mercantile system of the crown heads of European, the system that Crown corporations like the East India Trading Company were very much a part of.
The modern corporation has a very different pedigree, which stems from that rejection of mercantilism and a succession of laws in the early 1800s, around the world, in which corporations transitioned from being government or guild affiliated entities to being public and private economic entities. "Incorporation" became less a specific grant of the rulers and more simply following the rules of incorporation established by legislation.
Regardless of the pedigree, the essentials of "incorporation" was to affect the continuation of the entity - the organized and recognized unit - without interruption, beyond the deaths of any of its several "owners", whether they be partners or shareholders.
"So a disgust for great concentrations of financial power is built into our national DNA.",
No. A "disgust for great concentrations of financial power [commercial enterprise in the hands of government] was "built into our DNA"
"These numbers are staggering, but they should not be surprising. The American people were not pleased at all when the major banks and big financial institutions were showered with bailouts during the recent financial crisis.
While the methods employed were seen as "bailing out the banks", which those methods did do, the purposes were much broader and more systemic to the financial system itself and the economy.
"Bailing out the banks",
(1)underwrote some base line of invested wealth that millions of shareholders held in financial corporations, as individuals, in mutual funds and pension funds and other corporations - which had individual and institutional shareholders as well;
(2)preserved the 'insured savings' of regular savings accounts held in those banks, without additional and separate FDIC "bail outs" to do the same;
(3)slowed the "mark to market" decline of many forms of invested wealth derived from mortgages, so that time and eventual market forces could sort the values out without immediate full scale collapse of all those values.
Yes, some banks were kept in existence by the "bailouts" and without those bailouts they and their shareholders could, possibly, have been wiped out - and maybe deservedly so - and taken allot more with them as well.
Most of the big banks and big corporations seem to be thriving even while the number of Americans slipping into poverty continues to grow.
So lets all hope and pray that "the big banks" NOT THRIVE, and all their employees and all their individual and institutional (mutual fund, pension fund) shareholders, and all the businesses who serve them ALSO NOT THRIVE as a result. /sarc
The U.S. government has showered the big corporations and the big banks with bailouts, tax breaks and cheap loans and yet the big corporations and the big banks are not coming through for the American people.
So: (a)NO ONE can buy a home (mortgages), (b)NO ONE is buying any cars (car loans), (c) NO NEW bank credit cards are being issued, (d) Macy's, Target, Sears, etc., etc. are not issuing any new credit cards (underwritten by banks), (e) NO business of any kind can borrow any money, (f) etc., etc. etc. All true? No, all NOT true.
While there are many reasons to fault many things that some banks, the bank regulators, the Congress and the Federal Reserve have done, leading into and since the "financial crisis", the authors of the screed that begins this thread simply perpetuate myths about this nation, capitalism, free enterprise and corporations.
That's easy to do when there is so much populist angst to be used to take off into those myths.
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