OT: Libertarian outlook..

Corporations are not

My experience is very different. Corporations are not people, but they are run by people who have empathy, sympathy..... and honor. Or at least the corporations that I have worked for were run by such people. I am sure there are corporations run by people lacking these qualities, but it the people that lack these qualities. The corporations are not different from the people that run them.

=20 Dan

=A0From a friend of mine:

Most corporations (by law) exist solely to advance the shareholders immediate financial interest. This is the most common interpretation, as has been championed by people like Milton Friedman. As such, corporations are amoral (not necessarily immoral). Where possible, they seek to privatize gains and externalize (some might say socialize) risk/costs.

Corporate law has some interesting history. At the formation of the US Constitution, corporations had much more specific charters, and short lifespans [and of course these were state, not federally controlled]. Some interesting and questionable legal events have drastically changed matters. But I don't hear Tea party types talking about rolling these laws back.

And I thought corporations were set-up to raise capital for expansion, create more jobs, and also limit liability of the owners. Sounds like a reasonable idea. And many small businesses use S-corporations just to limit liability. Who wants to get sued and lose their home if they make a mistake?

-Bill

friend of mine:

Actually not true. I have known perfectly sound individuals behave exactly as the company wanted them to when motivated by bonuses that effectively corrupt morality. Typical behaviour is salesmen who lie through their teeth to bring in orders whilst knowing full well what they have sold cannot be delivered. Finance guys paid a bonus based on how quickly they extract money from customers and how slowly and how many ingenious ways they can find to avoid paying suppliers.

They are amoral to borderline immoral. The latest one to get a serious kick in teeth for trying to force its suppliers to give it a 2.5% rebate on annual spend for 2010 was Serco. It backfired on them...

Others have recently got away with this trick and for 5% at that.

I know of another major UK company with nominal 60 day payment terms and by rotating around three roughly equivalent suppliers for standard components is permanently on the stop list of two of them so they can typically extract around 150 days free credit. Their finance director is very proud of this arrangement and boasts of it. The order is too big for any of the three main suppliers to walk away. They crucify most of the smaller companies they deal with too.

You will. They are barking mad. It will be interesting to see what they do now that they are in a position where they have to make decisions as opposed to rant at largely sympathetic crowds of other teapots.

Regards, Martin Brown

strengths

on

link:

Corporations started as a method to limit liability, there is some interesting case law involving British East India Company. Not that = there was no issues with early textile mills and mines.

Arcane historical questions about corporate charters aren't imminently threatening to wipe out our country. Meanwhile, the Federal government is spending so much money that we're having to buy our own debt to fund the government. That is.

The latter, ergo, gets first priority, and 2nd, and 3rd.

-- Cheers, James Arthur