As much as I love freedom and capitalism...

[Craftergrl]

I think there should have been some changes done many years ago in regards to US publicly traded companies.

1. Much like insider trading, it should be illegal for any publicly traded company to make stock part of their executive compensation packages.
Corporate CEO's have upset the lives of millions of people all in the name of raising stock prices of which they have a personal self interest. They layoff thousands and tens of thousands of people in order to manipulate the stock price on Wall street. The FTC should have the authority to put an end to this BS. :mad:

2. Corporations should be given tax breaks and incentives for having less than %1 employee turn over in a tax year. If they make their employees happy, I think that deserves a reward.

3. Corporations should be steeply penalized with taxes for laying off more %.01 of their total labor force in a tax year. Room should be given in order to keep the company in business after all...but not that much room.

4. Any company that outsources parts of their company outside the US but then imports goods or services back to the US should be severely penalized. :nuke:
An international company that is doing business in say India that provides goods and services to India should be able to hire locals. But if they out source their helpdesk to India and route all US calls to India...they should be <insert applicable torture method here>.


Employees invest part of their lives to make a company successful. It's way past time to stop these greedy people causing so much turmoil and suffering in US families. :grr:


Just my thoughts...

[zbdent]

1. On #1 ... they'll happily allow this, but ...

Pete Rose will never, EVER be in the hall of fame ... and it was never shown that he bet on baseball ...

[KG]

2. corporations should be outlawed, and a bounty placed on CEOs

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. And right after that, we should do away with all the products they make.

Will you start with that corporation manufactured computer you are reading this on?

[KG]

11. only a corporation could make my computer?

[A HERETIC I AM]

15. Only a corporation can make them in such large quantities as to make them affordable...

Back when small companies made computers they cost thousands and thousands of dollars. The corporations ability to raise capital - funds needed to build the factories, through the issuance of stock and flotation of debt securities - is the precise thing that put that inexpensive computer in your hands.

Posts like yours seem to me to be little more than misplaced anger. It is like when i was a little kid, there was always some other kid in the neighborhood or in school who, when confronted with something he didn't understand from one of the other kids, would go to the default "You must be a commie". He wanted to hate but he didn't know what to hate. But EVERYBODY hates the commies!

Suggesting there be a bounty on the heads of CEO's is like saying "I don't like this situation, so you must be a commie."

It makes you look silly and it is the position of the misinformed.

[KG]

22. so, it doesn't take a corporation to make my computer.

but hey, if you want to believe in the fairey tales about capitalism, corporations and price points and such, really, who am i to disturb your reverie?

[A HERETIC I AM]

24. Yes, please, please don't disturb my reverie.

It is important to my well being that I continue down this deluded path I am on.

Before i go, perhaps you can enlighten me as to how precisely you would go about the authorization process for the "bounty" program you promote.

Will it be by decree? Popular opinion? What about all the corporations that actually do provide services and products you use - perhaps even enjoy every single day, up to and including that huge multi-national that made the plastic that went into the keyboard you are going to type your next post with?

Look, I think I understand why you would say what you said. You see Corporations and their respective Chief Executive Officers as faceless, foul, mean spirited entities that are out to screw you over.

My perspective is that is not the case. Are some CEO's evil bastards? Absolutely. Rupert Murdoch comes to mind as one of those types that deserves your ire. But there are many, many thousands of corporations in the world and the overwhelming majority of them are led by people that do indeed have the interests of their customers, their employees and even the planet as a whole at heart. To make a blanket statement like you made - that there should be a bounty on their heads is a point of view that is irrational and pointless.

Change that which you can change. Tolerate the tolerable. Shun what isn't. Be a responsible consumer.

Or become a hermit or a monk.

[roody]

13. Their charters should be revoked if they are not doing

good for the world.

[gravity]

18. Don't all corperations benefit society?

Some corperations are greedy and evil, but they all provide a needed service to society.

[roody]

23. Well let's see, there are those corporations that produce

cluster bombs. The poison dog and cat food, etc.,etc.

[whoneedstickets]

3. A few good ideas here...

..but protectionism (#4) is akin to saying "We want to keep our wealth and keep developing counties in poverty" since typically their most important comparative advantage is the cost of labor. Preventing companies from outsourcing is also preventing investment in developing economies.

Should our progressive impulse stop at the water's edge? Should we be against jobs moving to countries in poverty? Rather than prevent outsourcing, we need a system of government that truly supports displaced workers and those with obsolete skills (unemployment insurance, training, health care not linked to job holding and even a negative income tax).

[bbgrunt]

5. I understand your point, but the ideal of "free competition"

in a global economy is just as much of an illusion as the idea of "free competition" within the U.S. The problem with this sentiment is that these corporations have shown their ability to play one country off against another. The Mexicans workers have not benefitted from NAFTA. Instead, they have become economic slaves to an even more remote and powerful source of control than their own government.

This idea of equalization through free trade is an illusion. All that will happen is that the American worker will now also be put in the same position of powerlessness as workers in the 3rd world countries. If you think that income distribution has become too skewed, just wait a little longer.

the only way to prevent this from happening is to have a strong countervailing force to corporations--either unions or government. However, you need strong concerted interest by the populace to make these institutions work in this direction. I'm afraid we've become much to overworked, amused, self-interested, poorly educated and distracted to tend to such concerns about the public common interests.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Free trade is good for corporations only

"Free trade" as it is currently constituted means that jobs can be exported, but workers cannot move freely. In other words, my job could move to Mexico or Canada overnight, but I would need to apply for a visa in order to follow it, and I would most likely be turned down.

Did you know that Mexico's standard of living has gone DOWN since NAFTA?

[katsy]

4. May I suggest adding one more?

5. If a public company reserves XX thousand bonus options - XX% of those options must be allotted to the non-management workforce. Workers should share in company ownership.

[gravity]

7. My thoughts

1. Bad idea, and actually hurts the average stock holder. You want the CEO in charge of the corporation to share the financial risks in their decisions and benefit from the awards. Look at our own president for example, when you make financial decisions with other people's money at stake, you are more likely to recklessly spend the money. Instead just increase laws that protect the public, and increase transparency with the cooperate finances so investors won't get screwed.

2. Good Idea, but 1% is too low of a number. Assuming that people in the work force for 50 years(for easy math), there is going to be a natural turnover rate of 2% no matter what. Companies also have finical incentives to have a low employee turnover rate, since it is expensive hiring and training new employers. It also reduces a company's freedom to fire people who are incompetent, which could end up costing the business more money.

3. I don't think that will work. If a company is losing profits and is risking bankruptcy, they have to lay off workers in some cases. It's not a black and white issue. There are arguable justified lay offs, some jobs become obsolete, and there are times when they are for pure cooperate greed.

4. I don't think they should ban outsourcing entirely, but there should be penalties like tariffs, and they should give tax incentives to keep workers in the states.

I believe that we should just have better safety nets and government programs than increasing business regulations. In many cases these regulations create economic inefficiencies, which can hurt society as a whole in the end.

[Craftergrl]

20. I understand your point...

And if CEO's would take into consideration the lives of their employees before making these decisions I wouldn't have a problem.
Let me give you a real life example.

Ross Perot sold EDS to General Motors Corp. EDS' stock went up with GM's stock. I think it was $45 a share.

When GM decided to spin EDS off on it's own again the stock dropped accordingly to like $35.

I was there during this time.

The CEO announced layoffs. They layed off 9000 people even though we had a record year in profits; 25 billion that year.
I had been there 6 months and I was able to keep my job. But there were others around me that had been there 19 years that got laid off. For what? The top execs were investigated by the FTC for unloading a bunch of their own stock before the news of the spin off when public. None of them served any jail time.

All those people were put out on the street by a bunch of greedy SOBs that should have been jailed.(at the very least)

The problem with the CEO sharing in the financial risk is that focus on themselves and don't give a rat's ass what they do to everyone else.
I've seen too much of it. And it's BS.

MCI used to have quarterly lay offs. Every quarter.... Same as Novell Inc. People end up walking around the office like zombies because of the stress.

I'm not making sentionalistic claims. I really mean this stuff. It's time the government step in and regulate this crap for the good of every US citizen, because they are clearly incapable of making the right decisions on their own.

[treestar]

9. #4 is for what purpose?

Because people born on American soil are inherently more deserving than people born elsewhere?

[Xithras]

14. From the perspective of government, yes.

The purpose of the government of the United States is to serve the citizenry of the United States. While I do hope for improved economic conditions elsewhere in the world, our government is supposed to serve US. When it comes to the economy, therefore, the primary goal of the US government should be to improve the economic well being of Americans. If regulating American companies to maintain a stable American job base can do that, the option should be pursued.

The job of the government of India is to pass laws that benefit Indians. The job of the American government is to pass laws that benefit Americans. Since no government exists at a global level to equalize resources between nations, this is the situation we're stuck with.

[ChromeFoundry]

16. Very well put.

Surprising, how many people on here feel that the U.S. should be the economic caregiver to the world as it's duty, but not to the poverty within it's borders. How we should welcome all the world's poor and criminal elements into our borders without question- supply health care, social service and protect illegals under our bill of rights.

I'm sick of hearing this protectionism word thrown around like a disease. I pay my taxes to my country to guarantee my freedoms, and the social structure to support my fellow citizens. My tax dollars are not to be used to benefit corporate interest and economic growth of foreign lands.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. I would ban performance-based bonuses for executives unless the

rank and file workers also got proportional bonuses. After all, it's the workers who do the actual work, and the CEO can make all the plans he wants, but they'll fail if the workers aren't competent and willing to work hard. For example, if the CEO's official salary was $2 million and he was given a $1 million bonus, then all the workers would have to get a bonus equal to 1/2 their annual salary.

This would cut down on over-the-top bonuses.

[Jcrowley]

12. Are you conflating the two?

An interesting aspect of propaganda is in how underlying assumptions are inserted as if they are truisms.

One could not create a more psycopathic and destructive way of organizing our economic and social arrangements than what has been done under the guiding principles of capitalism. Which boil down to organized greed.

Take a look around the world.

[leftofthedial]

17. loving freedom and loving capitalism

are mutually exclusive,

like loving peace and loving Exxon.

[gravity]

19. Capitalism is freedom

When you have freedom, capitalism naturally evolves. The only problem is when it gets out of hand, and allows some people to take away their freedom. With proper regulations though, the government should be able to keep capitalism in check.

[leftofthedial]

21. it gets "out of hand" at pretty much the exact point

at which it ceases being socialism.