I certainly didn't mean to imply that you thought it should! But the idea that moral obligation to shareholders trumps all does seem to be a common (if not explicit) argument.In case you're curious, I have asked, but I have yet to get a decent answer. Any takers? :P
My apologies. I ought to have known better than to read such an implication into your post.
I am not a taker, but I'm going to guess that any actual answer would commence with disbelief in the common good and thus insist that individuals operating ruthlessly in their own self-interest produce the highest of all goods. That kind of thing made sense to my economics teacher, but he was a real loon with a big enough bank account to shelter him from anything short of a murder rap.
DuPont is another one that I dont like. My mother just had her lawn sprayed with Imprelis last month. Now all her plants are dying, including her garden. She is not allowed to eat anything from her garden nor plant one next year. She will most likely lose her 4 white pines and her blue spruce. She cant bag or mulch her lawn clippings nor allow them to blow onto her neighbor's ground. Imprelis was never tested on animals as far as my (limited) research has found, so it was deemed safe. Too bad we didnt know not to eat out of the garden till now. ( I have a 5 year old daughter).
I certainly didn't mean to imply that you thought it should! But the idea that moral obligation to shareholders trumps all does seem to be a common (if not explicit) argument.In case you're curious, I have asked, but I have yet to get a decent answer. Any takers? :P
My apologies. I ought to have known better than to read such an implication into your post.
I am not a taker, but I'm going to guess that any actual answer would commence with disbelief in the common good and thus insist that individuals operating ruthlessly in their own self-interest produce the highest of all goods. That kind of thing made sense to my economics teacher, but he was a real loon with a big enough bank account to shelter him from anything short of a murder rap.
No apology needed...I did (inadvertently) imply it. Plus, you know...written communication and all that. :P
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Coca-Cola
Gap and Nike
A lot of clothing and footwear manufacturing by global brands is franchised so that the head can avoid looking at what the hands are doing and change production base very quickly.
What really gets me is how many people believe that any of this crap is unusual. No folks, this is exactly "business as usual."
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Because getting counseling for a man beating you is the same as getting a manicure or pedicure... according to Faux, I mean Fox News
I think the issue is more having a guest of that persuasion on as an "expert," then not even calling her on it.
I admit that it might have been unrealistic to hope that anyone would have read the report of the Reece Commission...it IS 2,086 pages long, cover to cover, but I did have hope. Silly me.
Pfft. I haven't even finished Ultimate Magic yet.
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You're absolutely right, and I apologize. Government and corporations should NEVER come up in the same discussion, because the two are kept completely apart by a vast gulf of morality and goodness that is absolutely impossible to cross.
Expecting people to have read a 2,000 page report from over 50 years ago is pretty naive, however, and affecting superiority over your having read it kind of makes you look like a pretentious blowhard, imho.
** spoiler omitted **You're absolutely right, and I apologize. Government and corporations should NEVER come up in the same discussion, because the two are kept completely apart by a vast gulf of morality and goodness that is absolutely impossible to cross.
Indeed, Sieglord, we do have the Government Folly thread for things like what you have brought up. This one focuses on corporations mucking things up on their own with no help from anyone.
I thought it was about boring communist hate.
I thought it was about boring communist hate.
Oooh, look a flame goblin! I'll get an extra 1d6 of fire damage when I use him as a back up weapon -- "Here, goblin goblin goblin..."
I thought it was about boring communist hate.Oooh, look a flame goblin! I'll get an extra 1d6 of fire damage when I use him as a back up weapon -- "Here, goblin goblin goblin..."
I can throw ill-made bombs for you. Freaking liberal.
I can throw ill-made bombs for you. Freaking liberal.I thought it was about boring communist hate.Oooh, look a flame goblin! I'll get an extra 1d6 of fire damage when I use him as a back up weapon -- "Here, goblin goblin goblin..."
It'll be like having a giant's wand! You know where they tie a kobold sorcerer to a stick.
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This seems to be the right thread for this.
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This seems to be the right thread for this.
F$~$. Now I've got to write an angry letter threatening to cancel stuff.
You're like a conscience.
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How can you mention it so many times without realizing that fox news is itself a product of corporate malfeasance?
Rupert Murdoch wanted to make money off of people not satisfied with reality based news, so he founded a news organization devoted to stirring up right wing hysteria, and selling add space to people who profited off of right wing hysteria. He hires republicans, and gives them money for their elections just to give the networks pre conceived narrative the air of credibility. It owns the republican party... just to make it newsworthy.
Just so people don't get the idea that corporations eeking people out of every last time is a new phenomenon, we have...
The east india company.
-This was England's version of Walmart, Blackwater, and savings and loan all rolled into one. They could print their own money, execute people, and even wage war... with their own mercenaries and or british troops.
-England effectively subcontracted out its conquest and brutal subjugation of the indian subcontinent through the company.
-You may remember the boston tea party. chances are you remember it wrong. It was not a matter of raising taxes. In fact, the tea act was going to LOWER the price of tea for colonists by allowing the east india company to skip the trip to London (required by law) entirely. It would be as if walmart was allowed to ship products from china in without tarrifs. Why on earth would the british allow that to happen? Because people that owned the company were in parliament who wrote the damn law, and most of parliment owned stock in the company. A loss of their nations tax meant very little to them compared to their own personal wealth.
Why were the americans upset? Imagine being their competitors. You had to either pay the tax AND compete against a larger company, or not pay the tax and incurr the added costs of smuggling.
In 1954 The US invaded Guatamala on behalf of United fruit to help it maintain its monopoly. The secretary of state's lawfirm represented dole fruit in court, and the director of the CIA was a member of the board for United fruit.
The US also seems to have pressured columbia into committing the banana massacre of 1928 for the same company.
Cheney. haliburton. oil. Iraq. You know the rest.
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People I remind you this is about corporations not government -- take it elsewhere.
- I think its pretty rare that a corporation can do real harm without involving the government somehow. Most of the harm corporations do is by latching on to the government like a mind controlling parasite and having the government enact policies, with our money, that are in their interests. Its called the military industrial complex for a reason.
Exxon drug this out for over twenty years
I'll try to get back and catch up on the thread.
People I remind you this is about corporations not government -- take it elsewhere.
- I think its pretty rare that a corporation can do real harm without involving the government somehow. Most of the harm corporations do is by latching on to the government like a mind controlling parasite and having the government enact policies, with our money, that are in their interests. Its called the military industrial complex for a reason.
Well said.
Well said.People I remind you this is about corporations not government -- take it elsewhere.
- I think its pretty rare that a corporation can do real harm without involving the government somehow. Most of the harm corporations do is by latching on to the government like a mind controlling parasite and having the government enact policies, with our money, that are in their interests. Its called the military industrial complex for a reason.
Hm... let me see...
The NFL, The tobacco companies, Enron, Wal-mart have all done real harm without the government being involved (directly or indirectly actually).
Nike has done real harm out of our country without breaking any laws or having government help in doing so.
Now is it easier to do harm with the government implicit or brought on board? Sure. But people don't need the government to do harm, and neither do corporations.
Wells Fargo is the same way with its harassment of costumers (those on time and those behind both). It doesn't take broken laws, or even government aid to allow harm to happen -- only a callousness of soul.
I'd tend to further generalize matters: Power corrupts. Add a lack of accountability and you have a recipe for disaster, be it in government, in a corporation, or anyplace else.
What I take exception to is the implication that the government is inherently more corrupt and abusive than private industry. I just don't see any evidence of that. *shrug*
Well said.People I remind you this is about corporations not government -- take it elsewhere.
- I think its pretty rare that a corporation can do real harm without involving the government somehow. Most of the harm corporations do is by latching on to the government like a mind controlling parasite and having the government enact policies, with our money, that are in their interests. Its called the military industrial complex for a reason.
Hm... let me see...
The NFL, The tobacco companies, Enron, Wal-mart have all done real harm without the government being involved (directly or indirectly actually).
Nike has done real harm out of our country without breaking any laws or having government help in doing so.
Now is it easier to do harm with the government implicit or brought on board? Sure. But people don't need the government to do harm, and neither do corporations.
Wells Fargo is the same way with its harassment of costumers (those on time and those behind both). It doesn't take broken laws, or even government aid to allow harm to happen -- only a callousness of soul.
Your example of Wells Fargo is amusing. don't they effectively owe their existence to government bail outs?
If the government had let the markets work those ass hats would have gone bankrupt like they deserve. Instead the government subsidizes and protects ass hattery.
In my example Exxon are scumbags for how they handled the damage they caused, but they used the courts to do it.
I'm not making the argument that big corporations can only do harm with the state's collusion, but government is frequently partnered with giant corporations to do harm. To pretend otherwise is inconsistent with the facts.
I have several more energy sector examples, but I'm not sure when I'll have time to post them.
I'm not making the argument that big corporations can only do harm with the state's collusion, but government is frequently partnered with giant corporations to do harm. To pretend otherwise is inconsistent with the facts.
That's one way of looking at it. Oddly, I view it more of a case of the government failing to rein in the most egregious corporate abuses (often because the mechanisms available to government for doing so have been dismantled by laissez-faire advocates). Calling that "partnering with giant corporations" is what I find to be "inconsistent with the facts."
The NFL
-Stadiumcare: welfare and tax breaks for stadiums. Also not particularly harmful.
The tobacco companies
-Were allowed to lie and say that their product was safe. They're currently in violation of dozens of FDA rules but they're allowed to get away with it.
Enron
Caused the californian energy crisis to profit off of it.
Wal-mart have all done real harm without the government being involved (directly or indirectly actually).
-Pits towns against each other so they don't have to pay taxes, pays its workers nothing, and then teaches the workers how to apply for food stamps.
Nike has done real harm out of our country without breaking any laws or having government help in doing so.
-They lobby to keep tarrifs from going up on chinese products.
Now is it easier to do harm with the government implicit or brought on board? Sure. But people don't need the government to do harm, and neither do corporations.
-The level of government involvement seems to directly correlate with the amount of harm. Get stadiumcare= minimal government involvement and minimal harm. Invade countries for oil= huge government involvement and huge amounts of harm.
I'm not making the argument that big corporations can only do harm with the state's collusion, but government is frequently partnered with giant corporations to do harm. To pretend otherwise is inconsistent with the facts.That's one way of looking at it. Oddly, I view it more of a case of the government failing to rein in the most egregious corporate abuses (often because the mechanisms available to government for doing so have been dismantled by laissez-faire advocates). Calling that "partnering with giant corporations" is what I find to be "inconsistent with the facts."
It goes far beyond allowing corporations to do bad things because of an incompetent regulatory structure. There are many many examples of the government facilitating bad things.
We have been over this several times in the Government folly thread, but when corporations bribe government officials the guilt is not exclusively the corporations. We disagree entirely on this, and if we want to continue to debate whether government of business does more evil we might want to do it on my thread so we don't mess up this one.
I don't dispute for an instant that there are lots of big businesses doing truly wretched things, and I have a lot of examples I'd like to post.
Your example of Wells Fargo is amusing. don't they effectively owe their existence to government bail outs?
If the government had let the markets work those ass hats would have gone bankrupt like they deserve. Instead the government subsidizes and protects ass hattery.
In my example Exxon are scumbags for how they handled the damage they caused, but they used the courts to do it.
I'm not making the argument that big corporations can only do harm with the state's collusion, but government is frequently partnered with giant corporations to do harm. To pretend otherwise is inconsistent with the facts.
I have several more energy sector examples, but I'm not sure when I'll have time to post them.
Wells Fargo would have existed in some form or fashion without the bail outs and these aren't new practices from them -- they've acted this way for decades so it's not something that's government caused.
Enron didn't use the courts to do its damage -- the prosecutors simply couldn't prove that those in charge were the ones responsible because the ones in charge basically claimed to be incompetent.
You are ignoring the tobacco companies, and the fact that the government -- didn't cause the harm -- it had to come in after the harm was done and try to control damage.
This is actually a re-occurring theme with corporations -- they deal the damage cause the harm and then everyone calls for the government to fix it and then blames the government after everything is cleaned up.
It simply doesn't follow the facts. Consider the power company involved with the Erin Brockovich case which was turned into a movie -- government wasn't involved in the slightest.
NFL -- the harm from their monopoly goes beyond stadium welfare -- consider the number of times they ignore probes and their own investigations into concussions in the NFL -- in fact recently they stopped an investigation early so they wouldn't have to hear the outcome and couldn't be liable for what they found out (that everyone already knows -- crashing your head and body into someone else or being slammed around is bad for your brain).
Nike has lobbied to keep tariffs down -- but then so has everyone else -- and this isn't the harm I was specifically talking about: I was referencing the child labor they had been using in the past (which supposedly they don't do any more).
More examples for the tobacco companies would include the fact they are doing everything they did through the 1990's all over again in India as we speak. They know what their products do and instead of using truthful advertising they are using almost the exact same promotional material in India they used here through the years.
What Wal-mart has done has no government involvement at all either -- yeah they are being horrible -- but the government isn't involved... unless you want to call for the government to get more involved in our businesses and prevent these sort of practices...
Also the consider the foreclosing crisis -- yes the government back lots of those loans -- but it didn't tell the banks to have people lie on applications, it didn't tell the banks to fraudulently foreclose on people and it didn't cause the corporations to be asshats -- the corps have done that completely on their own.
Did they use government backed loans to do it? Yes. Could it have happened without government backed loans? It has and still does so yes. Did the government cause the situation to happen? No -- it tried to offer a means to help people buy houses -- that was then corrupted and deregulated (by the conservatives at the beset of the industry) so that people wouldn't be able to stop it.
It goes far beyond allowing corporations to do bad things because of an incompetent regulatory structure. There are many many examples of the government facilitating bad things.
We have been over this several times in the Government folly thread, but when corporations bribe government officials the guilt is not exclusively the corporations. We disagree entirely on this, and if we want to continue to debate whether government of business does more evil we might want to do it on my thread so we don't mess up this one.
I don't dispute for an instant that there are lots of big businesses doing truly wretched things, and I have a lot of examples I'd like to post.
And I don't dispute for an instant that there are lots of examples in which the government does, in fact, collude with big business to do terrible things. But your point about polluting this thread is well-taken.
Wow, your definition of not causing harm and mine are entirely different. You argue in bold print that the government didn't cause harm in the tobacco issue. The government subsidized the industry, bought its products and gave them out for free to millions (maybe tens of millions) of Americans when they probably knew the dangers.
Yet you can sit there and make the argument with a straight face that government has no blame. You say it didn't cause the harm. How can you possibly believe that? Again this isn't just a case where the government turned a blind eye; the government actively subsidized and promoted smoking, but somehow in your view they are blameless. That is an absurd argument.
I'm not arguing that all corporate malfeasance is the fault of the government, far from it, but it cannot be argued reasonably that the government causes no harm with all of its corruption and incompetence. We are clearly at an impasse, and I can't imagine any amount of evidence will impact your position. We aren't even disagreeing about the level of culpability; you position seems to be that the government is blameless. If I understand your position correctly your argument is just silly. I didn't even post here to have this debate, but it's tough to ignore a position as faulty as the government having no blame regarding tobacco etc.
EDIT: This is in reply to the post above Bugleyman's.
Wow, your definition of not causing harm and mine are entirely different. You argue in bold print that the government didn't cause harm in the tobacco issue. The government subsidized the industry, bought its products and gave them out for free to millions (maybe tens of millions) of Americans when they probably knew the dangers.
Did they? Are you sure? The earliest reports that really piled on evidence happened between the 1930~1950's, and the definitive report was in 1950 in the Journal of the the American Medical Association... right around the end of ww2. So yeah there was some evidence that might have proven that smoking was bad for you before then -- however consider how hard it's been (and still is) to get anywhere with climate science and global warming... you think proving smoking was harmful was any easier?
So did the USA government buy cigarettes in bulk and hand them to soldiers? Sure -- did they have any actual proof that this was harmful? No -- did they have any reason to think asbestos was harmful at the time?
Personally I am willing to let some unintended harm to pass as a accident. From 1950's on however what the cigarette industry did was willing misinformation and specific market targeting after it was known and declared by congress to be unhealthy.
So the government did what current conservatives wanted -- they warned you there were dangers and let you make your own decision -- and then the companies stepped in and start with the 'its cool, everyone is doing it, and its safe see? I'm smoking and I'm not dead." Stuff.
Is the government blameless in all cases? No -- does that mean they are willingly complicit? Not so much.
We are in fact arguing over culpability -- if you are complicit then you should be culpable -- you are arguing that the government is in most cases complicit with the harm done.
So either you stand by that or you don't -- don't try and tell me you aren't saying that in this post when your previous post said the exact opposite.
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bump
I don't pretend to understand this, but I thought I'd pass it along.
Wow, your definition of not causing harm and mine are entirely different. You argue in bold print that the government didn't cause harm in the tobacco issue. The government subsidized the industry, bought its products and gave them out for free to millions (maybe tens of millions) of Americans when they probably knew the dangers.Did they? Are you sure? The earliest reports that really piled on evidence happened between the 1930~1950's, and the definitive report was in 1950 in the Journal of the the American Medical Association... right around the end of ww2. So yeah there was some evidence that might have proven that smoking was bad for you before then -- however consider how hard it's been (and still is) to get anywhere with climate science and global warming... you think proving smoking was harmful was any easier?
So did the USA government buy cigarettes in bulk and hand them to soldiers? Sure -- did they have any actual proof that this was harmful? No -- did they have any reason to think asbestos was harmful at the time?
Personally I am willing to let some unintended harm to pass as a accident. From 1950's on however what the cigarette industry did was willing misinformation and specific market targeting after it was known and declared by congress to be unhealthy.
So the government did what current conservatives wanted -- they warned you there were dangers and let you make your own decision -- and then the companies stepped in and start with the 'its cool, everyone is doing it, and its safe see? I'm smoking and I'm not dead." Stuff.
Is the government blameless in all cases? No -- does that mean they are willingly complicit? Not so much.
We are in fact arguing over culpability -- if you are complicit then you should be culpable -- you are arguing that the government is in most cases complicit with the harm done.
So either you stand by that or you don't -- don't try and tell me you aren't saying that in this post when your previous post said the exact opposite.
Of course I'm not sure . That's why I used the qualifier "probably". I didn't say that the government should have banned smoking then or now. I said that they promoted it. Do you dispute that? You are the one who said that they "didn't cause the harm". You did not argue that they didn't knowingly cause harm; you said they "didn't cause the harm". That is simply false. Even if I accept that the government didn't know that smoking was harmful until the 1950's they still actively subsidized and promoted smoking well beyond the 1950's. Do you dispute that?
Are you arguing that the government didn't promote and even mandate asbestos after it was know to be harmful? Are you arguing that the government has no blame?
If the cigarette industry was guilty of wrong "from the fifties on" then so was the federal government who actively subsidized and promoted cigarettes. I don't see any other logical conclusion. Your argument that the government is not "willingly complicit" when they actively support and subsidize an activity that they know kills people "from the fifties on" is just nonsense. It is utterly absurd.
I am most definitely arguing that the government is in most cases willfully part of the problem. I have argued this with tedious regularity. I have no idea what your last sentence means.
A simple summary would be that private business, corporations and individuals sometime do horrible things. So do governments. To argue otherwise seems shockingly silly to me.
This seems to be you argument. If I am misunderstanding or mis-characterizing your argument please help me to understand what you really mean.
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S&P 500 profit by downgrading US government debt.
Again, I don't pretend to understand matters of high finance (I'm a communist goblin Teamster, after all) but I watched Inside Job yesterday and I thought it was interesting that S&P downgraded the USA's credit rating when, back in 2008, they were giving the toxic CDOs from the subprime housing market AAA status until right before the market crashed.
I also think it was Alexander Cockburn who opined that if something like this had happened in the 18th-century, the financiers would've been hanged. Not that I'm advocating a return to 1700s-style justice; I'm only advocating hanging financiers.
Also, it occurs to me that maybe medieval Christianity had a point in outlawing usury.
S&P 500 profit by downgrading US government debt.Again, I don't pretend to understand matters of high finance (I'm a communist goblin Teamster, after all) but I watched Inside Job yesterday and I thought it was interesting that S&P downgraded the USA's credit rating when, back in 2008, they were giving the toxic CDOs from the subprime housing market AAA status until right before the market crashed.
I also think it was Alexander Cockburn who opined that if something like this had happened in the 18th-century, the financiers would've been hanged. Not that I'm advocating a return to 1700s-style justice; I'm only advocating hanging financiers.
Also, it occurs to me that maybe medieval Christianity had a point in outlawing usury.
The rating agencies are so jacked up it's hard to know where to start.
Moody’s Escapes SEC Lawsuit, Now Moves to Shield Itself From Liability
I'm not making the argument that big corporations can only do harm with the state's collusion, but government is frequently partnered with giant corporations to do harm. To pretend otherwise is inconsistent with the facts.That's one way of looking at it. Oddly, I view it more of a case of the government failing to rein in the most egregious corporate abuses (often because the mechanisms available to government for doing so have been dismantled by laissez-faire advocates). Calling that "partnering with giant corporations" is what I find to be "inconsistent with the facts."
I agree- its' weird to hear you(BT) say that corporations can do bad all by themselves. Up until now you've said that the only way corporations can do bad things is by parterning with the government, and you've posted several examples of this in various threads.
S&P 500 profit by downgrading US government debt.Again, I don't pretend to understand matters of high finance (I'm a communist goblin Teamster, after all) but I watched Inside Job yesterday and I thought it was interesting that S&P downgraded the USA's credit rating when, back in 2008, they were giving the toxic CDOs from the subprime housing market AAA status until right before the market crashed.
I also think it was Alexander Cockburn who opined that if something like this had happened in the 18th-century, the financiers would've been hanged. Not that I'm advocating a return to 1700s-style justice; I'm only advocating hanging financiers.
Also, it occurs to me that maybe medieval Christianity had a point in outlawing usury.
The rating agencies are so jacked up it's hard to know where to start.
Moody’s Escapes SEC Lawsuit, Now Moves to Shield Itself From Liability
JUST had a debate with the wife about this yesterday.
I agree- its' weird to hear you(BT) say that corporations can do bad all by themselves. Up until now you've said that the only way corporations can do bad things is by parterning with the government, and you've posted several examples of this in various threads.
Well, you guys have been "hanging out" with BT much longer than I have, but I never took that (corporations can only do bad with gov't collusion) to be his position.
I can't believe the strike ends at the border of my state!
Well, you guys have been "hanging out" with BT much longer than I have, but I never took that (corporations can only do bad with gov't collusion) to be his position.
I agree- its' weird to hear you(BT) say that corporations can do bad all by themselves. Up until now you've said that the only way corporations can do bad things is by parterning with the government, and you've posted several examples of this in various threads.
I think it's more of the case of 'internet miscommunication' -- after all there's only so much that can be put into a post, and the lack of non-written communication doesn't help.
However I do agree that deregulation tends to lead to horrible abuse.
Yeah this goes in both threads.
Like i said. Can't pry em apart with a crowbar...
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Welcome to privatization.
Welcome to privatization.
Welcome to the police state. You do realize that the judge was in on this too, right? And why exactly arent charges already brought against those companies?
Welcome to the police state. You do realize that the judge was in on this too, right? And why exactly arent charges already brought against those companies?Welcome to privatization.
Oh, I'm very aware the judges (that were bought) are in on this too.
On the other hand, I'm fairly sure the "that were bought" answers your second question.