Life is one big corporate scam!! !! !

Post Reply New Topic

I'm going to become a corporation rather than stay an individual. I'd get more rights, more freedom, less responsibility and the government would be bending over backwards to help me!

goodbye to individuality! in todays corporate world it's not economically viable to be an individual any more...

Indeed, life is just a corporate scam. And i say, don't buy into that s**t. And incase you don't achieve enlightenment you will only suffer for the rest of your life.(All 4 or 5 days of it.)

I had a economics lecturer/professor who lived in a communist country for about twenty years and hated it. Yet, he would still say that the biggest problem with economics is that most of it involves magic tricks with numbers. You have to ask yourself, is either idealogy a benefiting principle or merely just an established principle.

No I am certainly not going to take Corporate Indoctrination Classes, as someone here suggested. There is not one corporation on this earth that is sustainable. We are rapidly using up the earth's resources, and we will end up living in our own trash if something doesn't change.

How dare you say that the corporation system works - half the world is starving!! !

And trying to blame ordinary people for the mess is like blaming a woman for being raped in my opinion!! The corporations do have a duty to take responsibility for their actions, just like anyone else.

Something that your economics teacher probably has never taught you is that sometimes it is good for the economy and the people to run certain industries (state owned) at a loss. This keeps decent jobs in the area and props up other industries that may make a profit.

For instance:

Steel Industry (state owned) runs at a loss.
provides jobs
provides cheap steel to other industries e.g. shipbuilding.

Ok, along comes big business and takes over the state owned company. It decides it is not profitable and shuts it down or exports it to China.
workers lose their jobs, mass unemployment, social problems, families lose their homes.
no cheap steel. The shipbuilding industry is also forced to close.
other small business dependent on the steel and shipbuilding industries also forced to close.
people leave the area to look for work elsewhere - the area becomes abandoned and suffers from lack of further investment. Perfectly good, but unprofitable, raw materials for making steel are not used.

This has been the story of the decline of British industry, and that is why we are running into problems now economically. Sure, individually, companies are making record profits, but overall, it is impossible for every company and every person to make a profit without having limitless resources to start off with, and the earth doesn't have limitless resources.

I'm not sure if your reply is to me or to a mixture of people, as its kind of all blurred in together.

I think it was another poster that suggest macroeconomics, not I, and just to clarify also, i hope you don't think i ever said or think the corporation system works. The reason why I liked him as a professor is because he had experienced both communism and capitalism firsthand and treat economics as less than numbers and more as responsibility. I for one think modern economics is flawed because sink-source relationships are the undeniable result of capitalist works. I think both of those idealogies try to maintain a status quo but forget that resources are finite, no matter how much we have. I for one believe that the price of oil, based on current production, is flawed as it is based on such dynamics. Once again referring to my economics lecturer (who might I add, teaches Engineering Economics) so as you might understand, he strictly emphasis and I agree, that a profit is just a number, it is the real world value that is important. I think maybe you are slightly confused because of what other people have said. I don't agree with you exactly as you make some rather large generalizations, but I agree with some of your ideas, even before you had posted this thread. I believe that if the concept of finite resource dynamics is not introduced and soon, we will reach a capacity point, similar to the prediction that half the world oil supply will be used up in the 90s, that what will happen is as resources dwindle, there will an over-demand which result in a panic of mammoth proportions, similar to the great depression, that could quite possibly destroy the entire system. This has been predicted by multiple forecasters and is extrapolated from logical observations.

I come from an area where the main industry was in fact a steel mill, the largest in Australia, until it was closed down in 1999. The unemployment level after it shut down was something like 17% and has only just recently come down to the national average. I understand the domino effect quite well as I've had to deal with it personally.

I put more faith in people than I do in ideologies and that was my point. You have to know whether a system is benefiting the people or is just still in place because, well, it was there already. One of my pet peeves are people who manipulate numbers on paper to give the meaningless trivial significance.

It's intellectually dishonest not to give opposing viewpoints the opportunity to persuade you. If you are really seeking the truth, you have nothing to fear from hearing both sides.



What resources are those, besides oil (about which there is still a lot of disagreement)? We're not likely to run out of most metals for a long, long time. We might run into problems with platinum eventually, as we find more and more uses for it, but that has to do with limited supply, not corporations.

As for oil, I don't think the situation is as grim as a lot of people make it out to be. We have more proven reserves now than at any other time in history. Eventually, whether it's in fifty years or five hundred, we'll have to kick the oil habit, but we'll figure out an alternative. Necessity is the mother of invention, and you should have faith in human ingenuity.



Starvation is a political problem, not an economic one. There is plenty of food in the world for everybody; the problem is that some regions are unstable and it's not possible to get the food to people who need it. Unfortunately, it turns out that starvation is a useful political tool for dictators, so many of them have a vested interest in making sure their populations don't get fed.

ETA: Look at Zimbabwe, for example. A few years ago, they had a very healthy agricultural industry and exported food to nearby countries. Mugabe, in a bid to grab more power, "redistributed" the land to cronies who ran the farms into the ground, and now starvation is rampant. The problem isn't a lack of money or resources; the problem is purely political.



Sure, and corporations do deserve some of the blame. But they are not solely responsible for the situation you describe. Corporations can only fill an existing demand. If they sell cheap imported goods from countries with poor labor laws, it's only because people want to buy them.



You'll probably be surprised to learn that this is taught in economics classes. It's a useful tool to boost the economy during a recession, just like tax cuts or a drop in interest rates.

It's not a good idea in a healthy economy, though, because it ret*ds growth by restricting the free flow of money. You complained earlier about corporations not being sustainable...well, a company operating at a loss is not sustainable by definition. It's essentially a form of welfare, using taxes to temporarily increase economic stability at the cost of overall growth. In the long run such a system would make everyone poorer, but in the short run it can mitigate the effects of a recession, and so it has its uses.



How does "big business" take over a state-owned company? Over here, it's always the opposite that happens: the government stepping in to regulate private industry. I certainly can't imagine that's less the case in the U.K. or Europe.



This reasoning is predicated on the belief that people in your country are more important than people in China. Personally, I believe that a person is a person no matter what country he or she is in.

When jobs go to China, people there now have jobs when they had none before. You complain about people in your country losing homes, but people in China are able to keep theirs because they have a new job. The negative effects you experience locally are offset by positive effects elsewhere.

Just as an aside, China has its own problems. The only reason it's able to offer such cheap labor is because it's artificially tying the yuan to the value of the dollar (or, very recently, a combination of various currencies). This has the effect of making Chinese goods and labor very cheap to other countries, but the practice is parasitic and not sustainable.



This part is just plain wrong. Steel would be cheaper as a result of moving jobs overseas. That's why companies move jobs overseas: to cut costs and lower prices. The shipbuilding industry would be stimulated by lower materials costs, creating new jobs to make up for the ones that were lost.

I can't respond to the rest of your example, because it rests on this mistaken assumption. All I can say is that the beauty of a capitalist economy is that the system, left to its own devices, tends to move toward greater efficiency. Greater efficiency means high growth, and higher growth means richer people and better jobs.



This is a common misconception. There's a concept in game theory called a "zero-sum game." A zero-sum game is one like poker where, in order for one person to win money, another person must lose that money.

But economics is not a zero-sum game, and treating it like one is a fundamental error. Wealth isn't a fixed resource; it can be created, and it is possible, at least in theory, for every company to make a profit and for every person to be rich. It won't work out that way in practice, of course, because sometimes people are dumb, but that can't be helped.

Jeremy

It is a personal comment and not a personal attack. Advocating the disintegrating of corporations inf favor of a socialist system is an aspect of your overall political ambitions, which entails a communitst revolution. Which brings me back to the question, do you ever think about anything else?

Then don't make personal comments.

Wealth can be created by plundering resources from the earth, which we rapidly running out of......

Corporations can control people by using market manipulation.

For instance, I tried to get a video for my birthday (costing £5), but they had stopped doing videos. Instead, my only option was to buy a DVD (costing £35), which didn't even work, and had to be returned to the shop.

The scam is that the corporations stop the supply of certain products if they do not produce massive profits, even though they may be popular and still work fine. Instead, they introduce a new product that does exactly the same job but costs ten times as much, so the corporation makes much bigger profits.

They do the same thing by controlling the supply of things like oil and food on a large scale. By limiting the amount of a material that people have come to rely on, the corporations are making massive profits by selling at a high price!! ! They have turned the Katrina disaster into a money making opportunity. I find that disgusting, since ordinary people cannot afford their heating bills anymore.

No, wealth can be created even with a fixed amount of resources. And I'm still waiting to hear what these resources we're "rapidly running out of" are.

Jeremy

I think you picked a bad example. Most people were ecstatic to dump VHS in favor of DVD. Saying they "do the same job but cost ten times as much" is not true at all. DVDs offer much more than VHS, and they cost about the same as VHS used to. Sure, VHS tapes are cheaper now (when you can find them, that is), because hardly anybody wants them anymore.

Also, what movie was it that you wanted that cost £5 on VHS but £35 on DVD? That sounds like an awful lot for a DVD, unless it was an entire season of a TV show, or a box set of a bunch of movies or something, in which case £5 for the VHS version sounds awfully cheap.



Oil is a better example. Oil companies form what is known as a "Cournot oligopoly," which pretty much means what you say: they manipulate the market by varying the supply of a commodity. This can inflate the price of oil above the perfect market equilibrium.

However, it seems strange that you object to this, given how concerned you are about the consumption of natural resources. One of the side effects of a Cournot oligopoly is that it conserves the product by limiting production. In effect, oil companies are making sure that our oil supply lasts us as long as possible. Isn't that what you want?

I suspect there's no pleasing you in this area. If oil companies limit production to conserve the oil supply, you complain that poor people can't heat their homes. If oil companies increased production and prices dropped, you'd be saying the evil faceless corporations are bleeding the planet dry to make a few bucks.



Supply decreased during the Katrina disaster. That means there wasn't enough oil to go around, which means that someone is going to be left without it. The question then becomes, how do we decide who is going to be denied oil?

Now, if the oil companies had left prices the same, that means that you're going to have the same number of people going to the gas station to fill up, but some of them are going to get turned away because the gas station will run out before everybody gets what they want. That means that the question of who will be denied gas is decided pretty much by random.

On the other hand, if the oil companies raise prices, it forces the consumers to prioritize. Those who can get by without gas will do it (e.g. by taking the bus, riding a bicycle to work, cancelling a vacation, etc.). This applies to things like natural gas and heating oil, too: when I got the news about heating bills going up, I turned down the thermostat in my house and started wearing warmer clothes. When prices increase, the people who are denied gas are decided on a priority basis. People will find a way to get by with less, and if there's still not enough to go around, recreational uses will be the first to go. This is a much, much better way of doing things than choosing randomly, because it ensures that gas is available for those who really need it.

The fact that oil companies make a larger profit (briefly) when this happens is mostly irrelevant. The truth is, it's the best way to make sure a limited resource gets put to the best possible use. It would be nice if prices could stay low and there could be enough oil for everyone, but when production drops that's unfortunately not an option.

Also, I don't know about over there, but most gas and power companies here have very good programs to provide cheap or free heat and electricity to low-income families. Lots of people donate to cover the costs. The system works very well.

Jeremy

Capitalism and corporations can certainly be good if kept in check, but when they're not-which I believe is the case in the U.S right now-it's a problem, and I think that's what RobertN is talking about here (my apologies if it's not though). Please excuse my ignorance of economics, I am speaking based on what I know of corporate involvement in politics, which has been an interest of mine for awhile. I trust the facts and opinions of those who have posted here who have a knowledge of economics-otherwise I might not have started this post with those first seven words.

Corporations exert quite a powerful influence on politics, and generally not for the common good either, and it is to serve their own interests. Politicians certainly share the blame, but corporations are just as responsible. For instance, organized labor is, among other things, necessary to keep corporations in check; however, participation in organized labor has decreased quite a bit in the last few decades. One reason for this is because of corporate involvement in politics. Corporations pour in donations to and lobby candidates that oppose organized labor and would support the appointments of judges to high coursts who oppose organize labor-in general, conservative Republican candidates. You might argue that the people vote for these candidates; however, this is very complex. In many cases, right-wing media and right wing candidates have been quite successful into convincing people that organized labor is bad using the techniques politicians and pundits usually employ- exaggerating, manipulating statistics, playing upon people's religious beliefs, etc.-sorry if that seems oversimplified, it's too complicated to explain here (for an in-depth examination of the way people have been manipulated in this way, read What's the Matter with Kansas, by Thomas Frank). Union-busting certainly does not serve the best interests of the people.

Corporations also lobby and pour donations to candidates who vote to keep environmental laws as lax as possible. Just look at the current administration for example-it received some hefty donations from oil companies, and a number of people in charge of environmental policy, as well as a number of judges the administration has appointed to high courts, have close ties to them-for instance, I believe at least one was once a lawyer for ExxonMobile. Lax environmental laws are also definately not in the best interests of the people. Even if it doesn't contribute heavily to global warming (I know this issue is being debated) it puts mercury and other chemicals in the water, it contaminates the air we breathe, and puts chemicals in our food and everyday objects, among other things.

In addition, major media outlets are generally part of a larger, sometimes massive corporate conglomerate-NBC news, for example, which is owned by General Electric. The corporate influence on the media has made news less reliable, much more prone to propaganda or advertising, particularily when it serves the best interests of the corporation and less in-depth, all working to give the people a less than accurate view of the state of the nation and the world-some stories are barely mentioned at all. To some extent it's true that they are just giving the people what they want, but it is more than likely they are also serving their own interests as well by controlling what the people see and do not see. You're not very likely to see a news story-or at least extensive news coverage-about the wrongdoings of a particular corporation on a news station that they own. This is not in the best interests of the people, and can in fact be dangerous for democracy. People cannot possibly make informed decisions at the polls when they do not have the right information. The corporations could-and perhaps already do-conceivably exert so much control over politics that basically almost all of their actions serve their interests-no organized labor, no increased minimum wage (a lot of the politicians that many corporations support are against increased minimum wage), lax environmental laws (this has already happened), increasing difficultly for people to file suit against them (this is already happening with the judicial appointments of the Bush administration). Even though all these things are against the people's best interests, if they control the media-which they do to a great extent-we could be manipulated into believing they aren't. And even if we knew, we wouldn't be able to do much about it. It's hard to right now. I have to go to alternative news sources to get any reliable information regarding corporate and political behavior.

Increased efficieny is certainly a good thing; however, in some cases this efficiency comes at a cost to humans and the environment. Take agribusiness for example; not only has it displaced the jobs of many farmers or potential farmers, it pollutes, mistreats it's animals, and puts chemicals in the food products that, while generally not immediately dangerous, can be harmful in the long-term; for instance, beef cattle is commonly injected with a growth hormone that contains estrodiol, a synthetic form of estrogen; estrogen is a known carcinogen. It is believed that there is a direct link between beef that has been injected with hormones and the increased incidence of prostate and breast cancer in the U.S (prostate cancer has increased in incidence by 88% since the 1970's). Chickens are injected with so many antibiotics it is feared that certain strains will become resistant, which could be very bad if humans are infected. And those are just a few examples; corporations pollute, put toxins in the water (and it can be very difficult to file a suit against them for this, to boot), and put chemicals in food and household products all in the name of efficiency. And working conditions suffer as well; for instance, working in a poultry processing plant in the U.S is considered one of the ten worst jobs to have in this country. The workers are discouraged or even punished for taking bathroom breaks; some vomit from the horrible stench. There are probably many other examples of similar jobs.

It's definately true that cheap imported goods exist to some extend because people want them, but many people also probably can't afford anything else (some are certainly working at corporations), or companies like Wal-Mart take away people's choices. I know a lot of people who are committed to buying American, but that is becoming very difficult to do.

I feel it's important to point out that upward mobility in the U.S is largely a myth. Most people stay within the economic class their parents were born into. Working hard does not always get you somewhere. And a person's intelligence shouldn't have to have so much to do with it as long as they use what they have. People cannot control how smart they are.

I agree that corporations care about people's feelings, but I think that only applies when those feelings can lead to profits. I have a feeling most corporations would just love to see an end to minimum wage laws and labor unions. Many spend millions, if not billions, of money each election cycle supporting candidates who either do not support increased minimum wage or think it should be abolished altogether (see the 2004 Texas GOP platform; they stand for complete deregulation which I'm sure includes minimum wage) and who are against labor unions. All this at the expense of the happiness and economic stability of their workers. I'm sure they don't lose any sleep about the horrid conditions some workers face in overseas sweatshops as well as right here in America.

I'm sure corporations improve people's lives in the long-term, but I don't think it's worth all the suffering they help to cause in between. Reading about just one example of a worker working for a corporation and receiving very low wages for very difficult work is almost overwhelming; I can't imagine thousands of people going through this. I'm not saying there shouldn't be any of course, but they should much, much more closely regulated than they are now.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Do you ever think about anything else other than having a communist revolution or Vetivert?

Sean, if you don't have anything useful to contribute, then go elsewhere.....

You just admitted you made a personal comment, but then you contradict yourself saying you haven't....

I know you are just trying to wind me up.

btw. midge, I agree with most of what you say.

Personal comments are allowable here and are made fairly frequently. Personal attacks (aka flaming) are what you get into trouble for. I don't have to wind you up because you do a perfectly fine job of that yourself without any external stimulus. Do you think about anything besides a communist revolution and Vetivert? Judging by your inability to answer or dodge the question, I'm beginning to thing that the answer is, in fact, yes.