Can We Reform Corporations to Make them Responsible?

That is interesting that you would promote reckless business practices in the name of "freedom".

Let's eliminate OSHA, NTSB, SEC, FINRA, etc. so we can be more "free".

 

Jesus Deckard does it matter? good grief.

What does that money given go to?

 

Does the truth matter?

 

does it matter whether Ted Turner currently own CNN or not?

 

That's true in some cases, but there's plenty of lobbying that is about freedom from regulation. Banks regularly lobby to be allowed to do what they want. Oil and gas companies lobby to reduce environmental regulations. All sorts of companies lobby to reduce safety regulations. On and on.

 

And if you had less regulation you would have less of this kind of lobbying. I already addressed environmental regulations.

Not that i condone 0 regulations, but if the government did not regulate or give out subsidies, then why would a company have lobbyists?

 

If having lobbyists donating "campaign funds" to a politician was illegal, why would a company have lobbyists?

 

They wouldn't - as I pointed out, that would be because they would have gotten what they want (freedom to do what they want).

 

a) you can offer votes/support instead of money.

 

So we agree then, a big government guy (such as glynch) complaining about lobbyists is silly because his demand to limit company's freedoms is the cause.

 

This would be preferable to the legalized bribery we have now. I'm OK with the NRA or a union offering to endorse a candidate, I am NOT OK with the NRA or a union funding politicians.

 

why? what do you think campaign donations are used for?

I also think cause/effect can be misleading. Some voter sees politician X is supporting some bill and got a donation from company Y who benefits from the bill and assumes the donation is the motive. It could just as easily be politician X supports the bill on moral grounds and company Y decides to donate to his campaign because he supports the cause.

 

Campaign donations are used for reelection purposes while politicians are still in office, but then can be spent at the person's discretion once they are out of office.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/camp...mbers-campaign-funds-retire/story?id=10203316

 

I'm not saying I disagree, but is this really any more insane than the notion that middle class incomes should always be growing? I hear an awful lot about how wages for the middle class have been stagnant (adjusted for inflation) over the past thirty years and what a huge crisis and injustice this is.

 

The only reason this is a crisis or injustice is the fact that incomes in the highest wage brackets have gone up, dramatically. None of these gains in the economy have made it down to lower and middle class workers even though their increases in productivity have been the primary drivers of the gains in the economy.

 

Why don't we reintroduce debtor's prisons as well? The whole point of a corporation is so that people can take on ventures so risky that they themselves would never take on persona liability, that's why they are called Limited Liability. The very first corporation ever in the world is some Dutch shipping company, where, if each investor was liable, would've resulted in huge losses every time a ship sank (which was a lot back then), but because of LLC, they could keep the risk within the firm and start one of the great trading eras of history.

Without the concept of corporation, we would still be relying on governments to fund EVERY big project that is too big for individual investors to carry out (eg think back to colonial empires).

 

The concept of corporation by nature is neither good nor bad but they are run by people who can do things good or bad. One reason why we see many of the problems with corporations is that many of those running corporations either ignore that there moral responsibilities, or at least issues greater than the bottom line, to how they run them or just buy into the idea that they, like the corporation, are amoral actors whose purpose is to maximize profits.

One way to address this would be to reform laws that limit the corporate veil protections for actions taken by the those who run it. So that decisions made by the leadership of the corporation have potential legal liability not just on the corporation but on the individuals running it. Another way would be for shareholders and boards to hold executives more responsible for what happens to I am not saying to completely do away with the corporate veil but it shouldn't be a complete shield in regard to problems.

One very troubling trend we have seen is that CEO's for corporations that even do poorly still get big payouts and golden parachutes. At this point executive compensation is almost divorced from the actual performance of the company.

 

judoka - corporate veil is not a complete shield for individuals. It shields from contractual liability...but individuals are still liable for their own negligence or intentional acts. They're still liable criminally for crimes they commit.

 

Absolutely, but I would add that eliminating these agencies doesn't mean those functions would not exist.

Customers demand standards of safety and quality whether government imposes them or not.

 

Actually, it matters a lot. After Turner sold CNN, it is no longer the same. For instance, they declined to hire Keith Olbermann because he is too liberal.