Hi Randy, > Not really. A corporation is a legal entity. One thing that is wrong with > corporations is that the people running them can make bad, illegal or > rapacious decisions, and the can hide behind the shield of protection > a corporation provides.
I totally agree that there have been some cold-hearted and very bad people who have been in positions of power to run corporations. That doesn't make the corporations or the concept of a corporation bad in itself. > They are not personally liable. They certainly can be personally prosecuted if their business actions are criminal or unlawful, absolutely. They are not immune or shielded at all in such cases. > Another problem is that, by virtue of it's structure, a corporation is > ruled by the bottom line, it's quarterly earnings. A couple repercussions > of this are that, lets say a corporate CEO wants to follow his conscience > and maybe pay his Indonesian sweatshop works $2 a day instead of $1. > He can be ousted and replaced by someone who will do what is > neccesary to maximize profits. Or, a new CEO comes in, slashes > thousands of jobs, the quarterly earnings increase, stock goes up, > he and his pals ditch in their golden parachutes, the workers are > screwed, the company possibly ruined. This has become a whole > genre for certain executives. I completely share your disgust in this. >There is a movement for corporate reform or abolishment as we know it. It's the structure. I have no problem with people wanting to clean up corporations but I think it should come from within and not necessarily from some outside movement of people who have never worked in a corporation or know anything about them and who just don't like the idea of them or have some vague notion that they are all evil. I have heard instances of the shareholders themselves going after of some of the top executives in recent years. There has been a growing movement on the part of shareholders to try to abolish the golden parachutes and obscene excecutive bonuses. Let the shareholders who are the owners deal with the problem. Don't assume all they care about is the bottom line. > Enron. The papers say the heads of the company will probably not > get jail time, that what they did may not have even been illegal, but, had > they robbed a store instead of ripping off millions and screwing their > own workers, they would have been in trouble. Is it any wonder > people say there is something wrong with this picture? People desperately need to stop believing as gospel everything they read in the papers. When was it decided that newspaper writers were suddenly the experts and fount of all knowledge on everything that happens in the world. It's ludicrous to rely on them for total knowledge and analysis on any given event or topic. Enron is just starting to be investigated and it is inherently a complex situation that is not going to be easily summed up overnight. > Jello Biafra (political activist, Dead Kennedys) believes we should > put a $100,000 cap on earnings. My problem with this is, who > runs it? You're back to a bureaucracy like Russia. Don't know > what the answer is. Bill Gates has an obscene $90 billion. Others > starve. You tell me. People who talk like Jello and Michael Moore about calling for caps on earnings and 70% income taxes scare the hell at of me, when I'm not laughing (uneasily) at them. Who made them our rulers and overlords? They call themselves "democratic" and want to confiscate people's property and earnings? They are bald-faced hypocrites - like I'm sure they are going to personally divest *their* millions and give them all away tomorrow. > You can't seriously be contending that corporations do not have > influence and privledge in the halls of power, and that they never > get away with anything! I mean, really...... Never contended that at all. Just saying that they usually get caught and dealt with when they do something unlawful. As I said before, you often are not going to hear the whole story as it progresses recited every night on the news because of confidentiality. Don't worry I also want every creep who does wrong in business weeded out, too! Kakki
