Corporate greed

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Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
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#61
you can believe in something that might give 'long term growth potential' but also get it totally wrong , like those dot com bubbles that burst, and sub prime housing that caused the GFC. oh and goldrush.

Gold runs out eventually. As will oil.
 
B

Blackpowderduelist

Guest
#62
Does anyone work in a small business? Or own their own business.
Or ever worked in a corporation?

Well anyway Im just wondering what your take on it is. Are the bosses or CEOs of the big corporates genuinely good and honest people just making a buck are do you think they are evil and taking more than their fair share?

many business usually starts-up small but there are some business have thousands if not millions invested just to get off the ground. Where does the capital come from?
What about smaller businesses being bought out by larger ones? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Should some be state owned or is it better for everything to be private and in the hands of a very few elites?
It's best for all to be in private hands, what needs to happen to keep corporate greed on check is for us to learn to continue with out the latest and greatest, and to live within our means.
The reason a car is $30000 is because we will voluntarily go into debt to buy one. Of we all said nope we will not go into debt for a stupid car, bug off. They would build them more affordable. Of course we would have to stop allowing govco to hand them money, and stop making regulations that drive up the cost of producing new cars.
Debt is how the rich devour the poor.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
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#63
I am so depressed with my job now.

Im entitled to a ten minute break for 4 hours work but I'm not allowed to sit down and eat anything.
it takes about five minutes to go to the bathroom and get stuff sorted and then. come back and by that time you only have five minutes to sit down and eat. which is hardly anything. Maybe a bite of a sandwich. too bad if you want HOT food.

and there are no stools to sit down on the job you on your feet all that time.

and I dont even get a living wage. why should I work when Im treated like a robot. I also have to ask for a break when Im desperate to go and get told off for having it a minute longer.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,188
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#64
It's best for all to be in private hands, what needs to happen to keep corporate greed on check is for us to learn to continue with out the latest and greatest, and to live within our means.
The reason a car is $30000 is because we will voluntarily go into debt to buy one. Of we all said nope we will not go into debt for a stupid car, bug off. They would build them more affordable. Of course we would have to stop allowing govco to hand them money, and stop making regulations that drive up the cost of producing new cars.
Debt is how the rich devour the poor.
I dont know anyone who can afford a $30000 car. ?! If you dont have the money for a new one you just buy one second hand.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
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#65
but obviously there must be a few people who can afford that amount.
houses now go up for auction to the HIGHEST bidder. so someone must have the money at hand. I dont know how.
 
B

Blackpowderduelist

Guest
#66
I dont know anyone who can afford a $30000 car. ?! If you dont have the money for a new one you just buy one second hand.
Which is my point. However when ya look around at the roads and the parking lots people are buying them and therefore going into great debt. And culturally americans are in debt.
 
B

Blackpowderduelist

Guest
#67
I am so depressed with my job now.

Im entitled to a ten minute break for 4 hours work but I'm not allowed to sit down and eat anything.
it takes about five minutes to go to the bathroom and get stuff sorted and then. come back and by that time you only have five minutes to sit down and eat. which is hardly anything. Maybe a bite of a sandwich. too bad if you want HOT food.

and there are no stools to sit down on the job you on your feet all that time.

and I dont even get a living wage. why should I work when Im treated like a robot. I also have to ask for a break when Im desperate to go and get told off for having it a minute longer.
Who do you work for
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,188
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#69
Which is my point. However when ya look around at the roads and the parking lots people are buying them and therefore going into great debt. And culturally americans are in debt.
mm not in my area, btw dont live in america.
But I was shocked that some people had 3 car garages as normal when I did go over there a decade ago. Everything was huge, in portions and size.
 

inukubo

Active member
Jun 27, 2019
169
166
43
45
#70
The CEOs and boards of large publicly-traded corporations are under constant tremendous pressure from shareholders to increase their profits quarter to quarter, so it leads to a lot of short-sightedness in terms of strategy, leadership, and sometimes character. In general, I don't think CEOs are any worse or better than any of us: there are good CEOs and bad CEOs, both from a leadership and character perspective. They are also easily susceptible to following what they perceive as being popular in the eyes of the public, hence the widespread pushing of social agendas recently. From a shareholder's perspective, if your CEO actually increases the value of the company, he or she is worth the high pay, but in a lot of cases CEOs end up sacrificing the long-term prospects of a company to make it look better in the short run and get the quick, big payouts and leave for another company before the shareholders get wise. So there is definitely a lot of room for improvement in how company performance is measured and CEOs are compensated.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
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#71
what if everything was not-for-profit, and companies were just run on how good they were to people.

Or would that just not work?
 

Billyd

Senior Member
May 8, 2014
5,217
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#72
what if everything was not-for-profit, and companies were just run on how good they were to people.

Or would that just not work?
Take a look at just how most non profits use their money. They are greed on steroids.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
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#73
Take a look at just how most non profits use their money. They are greed on steroids.
can you name one, Im drawing a blank right now, what do you mean?
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
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#74
hmm seems cant name any.
Just wondering who the greedy non profits are.

Local govt could be termed greedy as I worked in one before and after amalgamation of seven different councils into one. suddenly the salaries of those at the very top management skyrocketed and the workers at the bottom were slashed. It happens so often in mergers and almagamations that it just seems like its a given.

a lot of working conditions these days is no better than slavery.
 

ZNP

Well-known member
Sep 14, 2020
36,400
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#75
It is important to recognize that CEOs are members of an exclusive club. Yes, someone like Zuckerberg can start his own company but at some point the investors bring in the "pros" to be the CEO, CFO, and COO. You might think by "pro" we mean someone who is real good at their job and in a sense they are, the problem is their concept of their job and your concept are two very different things.

I used to be a stock broker and I would see a CEO drive one company into the ground, into bankruptcy and then immediately get hired to be the CEO of another company. That particular CEO is an expert at bankrupting companies. Why would you hire him? Because I can make money on a stock if it goes up or down, just so long as I know ahead of time what it is going to do. But wait, the CEO and board of directors cannot sell their stock without triggering all kinds of legal issues. Exactly, this is why I say it is a club. If I have a portfolio of 25 stocks, I can take a loss on one stock as long as I make out like a bandit on the other 24. Because this guy bankrupts the company and lets all his friends know, they in turn help him out. How do I know? They all sit on the boards of each others company and you can do no wrong, your company goes bankrupt and then you are hired immediately somewhere else.

So when you are talking about the Fortune 500 companies it is a very tight club and the amazing thing is how many of these very busy professionals are members of FreeMasons, a secret club that requires you to promote anyone else in the club that you can promote or in some way benefit their business. If they are bidding on a contract you give them the inside baseball on how to win that contract, etc. This is why the percent of CEO's that are sociopaths or Satanists are about 25x that of the general population.
 

Karlon

Well-known member
Mar 8, 2023
2,528
1,135
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#76
Does anyone work in a small business? Or own their own business.
Or ever worked in a corporation?

Well anyway Im just wondering what your take on it is. Are the bosses or CEOs of the big corporates genuinely good and honest people just making a buck are do you think they are evil and taking more than their fair share?

many business usually starts-up small but there are some business have thousands if not millions invested just to get off the ground. Where does the capital come from?
What about smaller businesses being bought out by larger ones? Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Should some be state owned or is it better for everything to be private and in the hands of a very few elites?
it's tough to know what really goes on in a company even they seem to be legit. But me being a business owner, I see lots of ways for people to charge extra or so called "secrets" they initiate. I know some people charge an "aggravation" fee for customers who are unruly & socially inept. Is it illegal or unethical? Maybe Jesus would say so. But to charge more on a Saturday or a holiday is quite popular & legit. capital comes from relatives, friends & investors. too many variables to consider on small business "buyouts". Basically, for a young business owner who is offered a buyout, what I have usually seen, is the seller stays on as an overseer, silent partner or advisor to keep his income alive. For me, I started my business all on my own with a used Craftsman mower.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,188
113
#77
it's tough to know what really goes on in a company even they seem to be legit. But me being a business owner, I see lots of ways for people to charge extra or so called "secrets" they initiate. I know some people charge an "aggravation" fee for customers who are unruly & socially inept. Is it illegal or unethical? Maybe Jesus would say so. But to charge more on a Saturday or a holiday is quite popular & legit. capital comes from relatives, friends & investors. too many variables to consider on small business "buyouts". Basically, for a young business owner who is offered a buyout, what I have usually seen, is the seller stays on as an overseer, silent partner or advisor to keep his income alive. For me, I started my business all on my own with a used Craftsman mower.
I think many bosses keep their employees in the dark about where their profits go.

But I notice they might casually brag about their overseas holidays, or the work they are doing on the lifestyle property they can afford which none of their own employees can afford. For some small busineses owners they may not even give an end of year bonus to their staff, maybe a just a box of biscuits?

And often the staff have to pay for their own party if they want to do anything social. I think workers lok forward to the end of year dinners and things they dont have to pay for, if just once a year it shouldnt take much to show you appreciate your workers.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
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#78
I found put that the founder of one of the private schools I worked in kept $2 million dollars in donations for himself. He got 12 months home detention but was actually sentenced 7 years in jail

The worst are those white collar criminals who think nothing of robbing and stealing in house. Thats why that school is falling apart and the children arent getting any benefit. Their parents are being ripped off. They just want to build their own brand.
 

ZNP

Well-known member
Sep 14, 2020
36,400
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113
#79
I found put that the founder of one of the private schools I worked in kept $2 million dollars in donations for himself. He got 12 months home detention but was actually sentenced 7 years in jail

The worst are those white collar criminals who think nothing of robbing and stealing in house. Thats why that school is falling apart and the children arent getting any benefit. Their parents are being ripped off. They just want to build their own brand.
I think that the only solution is home school. In NYC the mayor put an additional $500k into our public school of 400 kids after getting elected (I suspect he did this city wide so we are talking tens maybe even hundreds of millions of dollars). As a result the amount of money spent on the public school in NYC was comparable to the suburbs. You may think that is a good thing. No, it was a total and complete rip off.
They bought new desks, little triangles that had to be put together with three other desks meaning that 100% of the time the kids had to work in groups of four throughout the year in every class. No suburban school would put up with that. Also, we were forced to get rid of our desks that no one was complaining about and take these which no one wanted, but we didn't have 60k for tutoring. 60k for tutoring was far more needed than the 500k for this garbage furniture which was some big huge contract for one of the donors. In addition, in the suburbs they have one person whose job it is to take kids who are disruptive out of class and let them do the work in a small room with a few other students. This person's salary would be around 50-60k a year. In the city we didn't have that either so these kids who are disruptive have to stay in the classroom and make it harder on everyone else to learn, like running in a 3 legged race.

So what is the result, you look at the money spent on the schools, you look at the education of the teachers and the salaries of the teachers and it seems that everything is equal between the inner city and the suburbs when in reality it is a fixed game designed to hold those kids back and give the suburban kids an advantage.

Public school is a place where huge bucket of money are dropped and a bunch of corrupt parasites known as politicians get rich off of it. They want the education to be bad because that way they can campaign each year to get more and more money to "fix the problem".

You want to fix the problem, get rid of the politicians running it. Hence, homeschool is the way. Get 10-20% of the population to homeschool and then you can force them to give the homeschool the money that goes for each student in the public school (10-15k a year). Imagine a small homeschool being run out of a church with 3 or 4 sunday school classrooms and a couple of retired teachers and a variety of parents volunteering a certain amount of time each week. You would have a far better school.
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
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#80
the private for profit school have just greenlighted an extra school building that looks like it will be constructed then fall apart in a few years time as it has no eaves, the existing school building is actually leaky they bought for a bargain and pocketed the difference

The library was housed in the ground floor just above the basement (that flooded) and my office was underneath the stairs where when it rained, there would be a waterfall inside.

The primary principal micromanaged and bullied the staff so many left, and the preschool had no books.
In a staff meeting, the principal boasted he bought the cheaper photocopiers and saved $10,000 but tell that to the disgruntled students who had so many problems trying to print assignments on the copiers that half the time DID NOT WORK