When you stop competing in the innovation and production of
products people want and need you become uncompetitive. We have to turn
this
ship completely around and get back to doing things the way we did when
we
were successful. Continuing to do what we have done since Reagan set the
agenda is a recipe for disaster. Corporations have to be regulated and
managed for the good of the country and not simply for the stockholders.
---------------
Lots of lip service was paid to "the stock holders," but that's
is all they got. [other than the shaft]
Look at what the IPOs for all this paper were and look at the
current prices,espically the banks and brokerages. The
stockholders have taken a haircut down to their toenails.
[e.g. GM stock currently $3.75-4.55]
http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.htm...ory_quote_link
-------------
snip
But after GM shares dropped earlier this week to ==a 50-year
low,== Smith and other local retirees are concerned about the
company's future --and their nest eggs.
Shares on Monday hit $9.92, tying their lowest point since Sept.
13, 1954, according to the Center for Research in Security Prices
at the University of Chicago. The price is adjusted for splits
and other changes.
snip
---------------
for complete article click on
http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/bu...es_for_gm.html
Repeated efforts have been made to limit executive compensation
to something rational, and to impose other reforms, but these
have always been defeated by the boards, generally appointed by
the CEO. Nothing short of time in the federal pen has worked.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/200...08-ebbers.html
Corporate governance is now totally out of control. Lord Acton
was correct when he observed "power corrupts and absolute power
corrupts absolutely." Unfortunately for the officers and
directors of these corporations, the world is far larger than the
boardroom and corner office, and their absolute power was a
hallucination, as they are now discovering. The downside is that
they are taking the rest of us along for the ride as they go over
the cliff.
The underlying reason for the absolute refusal of Detroit
management to even consider a bankruptcy filing is that *ALL*
contracts are then subject to court review and abrogation,
including executive employment contracts w/golden parachute
provisions and "perks." It is highly likely these will be among
the first contracts nullified by the court, to be followed
immediately by "pink slips" for all the board members and senior
executives, and quite possibly "claw back" of their "performance"
bonuses and stock option profits for prior years.
Back in the 1920s the big companies all had what they called interlocking
directorates. Basically, this was just an old white boys network of bigwigs
that were members of many boards of directors. Everybody was on the boards
of everybody else's companies. It was a real nice deal for those in on it.
Today we have basically the same sort of thing. Nobody on any of these
boards of directors ever says anything is too much for the management. Why
would they? That is why they are on the board, to help the managers and to
make money for themselves. It's just more of the same old boys network we
saw in the past. It just makes you wonder if things are ever going to be
fixed. By now we know exactly what the greedy capitalist pigs do when you
give them the change to do it. So the question is whether the new
administration is going to reign them in like FDR did or will they just go
along with them like they have in the past. With the two parties acting as a
duopoly that rubber stamps the decisions of the corporations it's no wonder
why we are in this mess. I for one will be very disappointed if the Obama
administration goes along with this corruption like everyone else has since
1980.
Hawke