Posted on 01/13/2012 6:14:08 PM PST by VinL
Furthermore, making a profit is only one component of owning a business. Whatever happened to the idea that you are responsible for your workers and to the larger community? Too often, people feel like just pawns in a ‘game’ of ever increasing largesse for the top dogs. The big shots are always the winners – often getting payouts in the millions when their companies fail — and the “losers” are left to figure out how to eat or buy clothes for their children. (A new study found that $100 million “golden parachutes” have become commonplace for failed CEOs).
Romney’s “class envy” claim is predicated on a lie we often here from the uber-rich and their defenders: the highest goal and achievement for Americans is to be wealthy, when all most people want is to be able to provide a decent lives for their families…
The unlikely hero in this tale has been Newt Gingrich, who has been making the most coherent argument for ethical capitalism. Says Gingrich, what we want is, “a free enterprise system that is honest. . . fair to everyone and gives everyone an equal opportunity to pursue happiness.” Criticizing Romney’s brand of free enterprise, (Newt)said, “It’s not fine if the person who is rich manipulates the system, gets away with all the cash and leaves behind the human beings.”
Be still my heart.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
So ethical capitalism is not the subject of this thread?
Conservatives don’t care about his taxes, his profits and his greed. Greed is good. Conservatives care about attacking and defeating liberalism.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Are you a fing psychopath?
Yes I see, your posting method is much more fun than real communication LOL.
I'm not trying to be funny with my statement, Antonius. I'm not saying so what to what God would see, I'm saying so what if the man makes the wrong choice, because he is free to do so on this earth in this country.
I do believe the man will have to answer for that decsion in the afterlife, but he may well not have to answer for it here. Freedom gives us the opportunity to be right or wrong, good or evil. That is our ethical choice as intelligent beings.
Indeed. And the rest of us are free to tell him to go to hell when he subsequently asks for our vote for elective office.
We certainly are free to make that decision. Is it possible that Romney made unethical decisions? Yep. Is it possible that Newt was unethical in presenting an argument that there is such a thing as "ethical capitalism" in as much as it shifts the judgement of people from those using a tool to the tool itself? Yep.
However, having said that, I will vote for either one of these men if either is an opponent of Obama, because I believe both men are more ethical than Obama, whom I believe is purely evil. Once again we are stuck with choosing the lesser of two evils.
This place has gone Orwellian.
Newt is also a bad actor in our system, and it is evidenced by his mis defining of our system.
Why define our system when your target is an individual within that system?
Newt is a loose cannon, and his poor aim is destructive.
Yawn. Not interested.
The car is your example, not mine.
Please define “unethical car”.
I certainly understand that sentiment. The result may well be the great evil wins, which I have also contemplated allowing to happen, but since that contemplation, I have decided I cannot allow that.
I don’t like any of our candidates at this time except for Santorum. Sadly, it does not appear at this time that his candidacy will be viable, just not in the cards. But I have decided that I am going to set aside my personal distaste and sometimes disgust in order to try and defeat Obama.
I fear doing otherwise may have a devastating result.
End of the line, huh Chris. Can’t define your existential concept of capitalism without reference to markets; nor without refernce to goods, and the manufacturers of the same, and the end users. That’s why your argument failed, nice try though.
I don’t envy Romney’s money. I do believe, however, that Romney’s bain methodology was unethical and, if all the details were specifically known, I think we’d find some illegality as well.
Excellent analysis, VinL. Thanks.
We cannot remind people enough that Romney is unelectable. He's lost all but one election he's ever been a part of.
He was totally inept as governor of Massachusetts, cut and ran because his numbers were so low, and left us with ObamNeyCare.
The social conservative base will reject him due to his pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-tax, anti-family positions.
And now your point: a country club aristocrat in a time of depression and unemployment.
All of the above says he's just flat out unelectable.
Not so, Hoodat. Read the following from Murdoch's conservative paper, the NY Post:
Former Dade CEO Scott Garrett, who managed the business for the first few years after the takeover, said Romney "was far more in tune with what was going on throughout his firm, and even the portfolio companies, than you might expect."Bain reduced Dade's research and development spending to 6 to 7 percent of sales, while its peers allocated between 10 and 15 percent. Dade in June 1999 used the savings as part of the basis to borrow $421 million. Dade then turned around and used $365 million from the loan to buy shares from its owners, giving them a 4.3 times return on their investment.
A Dade executive, who requested anonymity, said he confronted new CEO Steven Barnes after a boardroom meeting within a week of the distribution.
"You really think it's a good idea to borrow, you know, one times sales?" he asked.
"Oh. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's fine," Barnes responded. "You know companies do that all the time."
The executive then told Barnes, "Well, that'd be like me going out and borrowing the amount of money I make in a year and then trying to pay it off and pay for my house and feed myself and everything else. That doesn't make sense." The executive said he let it drop after that.
In August 2002, Dade filed for bankruptcy. Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/ad_mitt_mistakes_jRmd2LHaPIb0bbNn1ZkgaJ#ixzz1jQC1Lm9j
Spot on.
When immorality is introduced into the family, the family itself becomes a breeding ground for all sorts of evils--domestic abuse, addiction, sloth, poverty, mental illness, etc.... Notice, by saying this, I am not condemning the family as an institution in any way. I am condemning the corruption of the family.
Well said.
Anyone who ignores the moral code in the Judeo-Christian bible is GOING AGAINST AMERICA'S FOUNDING FATHERS.
"Greed" is just another word for avarice and covetousness. The Bible makes it crystal clear that it is a moral failing.
Guys like Rush who glorify "greed" as the quality of a good and worthy capitalist, are contradicting God and the Bible.
Desire motivates the righteous capitalist.
Greed motivates the amoral capitalist.
When Rush, and even my beloved sainted Walter Williams, tout "greed" as a worthy quality in a capitalist, they are actually advocating that for someone to be a "good" capitalist, they must embrace amorality.
a'moral (adjective)
1. outside the scope of morality, not concerned with or amenable to moral judgments
2. without moral standards, not caring about good behavior or morals
Wow, good catch Mt FRiend. That kind of business practice is clearly skirting the boundaries of illegality. I didn’t even have a clue that this was going on, but if you have corporate raiders running a business this is exactly the kind of predatory scheme one would expect if the purpose in raiding the company was to loot it and then scuttle the ship.
What are you doing up so late? Or are you just up early?
At least you can sleep at night. Most of the companies Mitt and other tear apart have already been mismanaged to the detriment of the company and the workers - management hoses it and the workers are the sacrifice. Capitalism in it's purist form is no different than Fascism in its purist form. Without ethics, it's a bain rather than a boom - hence the child labor laws and OSHA which enforced humane conditions, but also ate into the sacred profit.
I'm a Capitalist and wholly endorse Capitalism. It just seems that some folks on FR are so into the purism BS that they forget to actually think about what they bitch about. Newt is not attacking Capitalism, he's attacking the grind-people-into-the-dirt-to-protect-the-investors-after-greed-and-mismanagement-have-screwed-the-workers philosophy so many seem to apporove of.
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