On 08/17/2012 11:42 AM, Han wrote:
I don't think that (much as I'd want to) we can overturn the SCOTUS
decision that corporations are people (which I disagree with, as
previously noted, but it is now the law of the land). But it isn't right
that people can freely associate in claok and dagger groups that don't
reveal their identity.
So now you don't think we have a natural right to privacy? I hate to
tell you this, but the cornerstone of any despotic dictatorship is
remove said privacy and thereby force people to either lie or openly
state their opposition to the regime so they can either be "reeducated"
or "removed". Privacy is pretty important. If you don't think so, imagine
being forced to vote where everyone could see your choices ... say like
the pigs in the various unions want...
....
Let the corporations be good citizens, rather than enrichment vehicles
for greedy executives.
This is a leftie talking point and it is wrong. The percentage of any corporation's
(at least any one of size) spends on executive compensation pales by comparison
to their other big line items. Usually, the biggest single line item
is either natural resource extraction/use or bargaining unit labor. I once
worked at an airline where we calculated that if all of us non-union
folks made $0 per year, it would have had NO effect on the profitability
of the company... that's how much more the union labor and fuel costs were
in the scheme of things. Interestingly, that airlines selfish unions
complained just as you have about excessive exec comp, bought the
company by pledging their pension funds as collateral, and promptly
flew the company straight into bankruptcy. The US taxpayer now gets to
make good on a significant chunk of those pensions.
The real problem here is that corporate execs do not own ENOUGH of their own stock.
They don't have enough of their income tied to the performance of the company. Why?
Because the whiny left howled when this was the case. When Jack Welsh left GE with
100+ Million in retirement, the the social justice chimps screamed about excessive
compensation. What they failed to note is that he made this over a period of decades
*by increasing the stock value* of which he was given/bought quite a bit. He had an
incentive to make the company prosper.
But noooooooo, we can't have people actually making lots of money because they
did well, can we now? So ... the accounting rules were changed to force
the recognition of stock options in a way that created a significant disincentive
for companies to make that a big part of executive compensation. In response,
execs started demanding higher and higher salaries ... which, of course, are not
correlated to corporate performance, but are contractual obligations.
In short, the idiot left created the exact environment they are now screaming
about. But that's no surprise. This is what happens when you put the Smelliest
Generation of the 1960s in charge of anything. The only thing they actually know how
to run is their mouths.
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Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/