Not even this, it's increase profits next quarter.
Corporate behavior would be ridiculously different if they weren't so short term.
Corporate behaviour would be different if they were treated like the citizen they claim to be.
The prison would be filled to the brim, and we could release people that were imprisoned for smoking pot or something to make place for people destroying the planet.
Where companies will sacrifice the next 2 years for a good "next quarter".
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Depends on the corporation. Silicon Valley, for example, is often all about the next quarter. Older companies that have been around longer have a longer view and tend to be more focused on long-term results.
This is pretty ignorant actually. Companies pay millions to have CEOs that are invested in long term strategy. How you ask? With stock bonuses that will perform better if the company does well.
Bullshit. Listen in on an earnings call and hear them sweat and spin.
Many do, but many seem to not. I didn't mean to generalize them all, but I see way too many decisions that boost the next quarters or few quarters at the expense of long term health, and these decisions get rewarded with stock price bumps. Then the decision makers eject when its time to pay the price.
I own or used to own some of these stocks, and it annoys me when they do. I want to hold these companies, not pump and dump them.
Don't forget:
The problem is not that they choose to do this, it's that they're allowed to do it.
More than allowed! The system (society at large, capitalism, etc...) forces them to think this way!
It's not that CEOs just happened to be evil. It's a material conditions problem. Anyone who becomes a CEO has tremendous pressure to become evil. You could even argue that the steps you would have to take to become a CEO are morally problematic. So the pressure to become evil starts early. As soon as you enter the job market.
It's easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.
The system we have right now isn't accurately described by "capitalism", and reusing the same word that describes the industrialization process is really tone-deaf.
People like to imagine "capitalism" as some machine entity that we can disassemble.
It's people.
People who either inherited or earned too much money through various means, nefarious or otherwise. They in turn have enough money to buy other people's decisions who are in a place to make these laws but also want more money themselves so they in turn can do the same.
The only way to change capitalism is a full system reset, and to enable restrictions on net worth. Every single position from president all the way down to the smallest assistant needs a full re-roll, no exceptions.
"If the customers are buying and the money multiplying and the PR people lying and the lawyers are denying, who cares if some things are dying!"
That song went too hard for Illumination Entertainment to greenlight it.
Ed Zitron's podcast, Better Offline, has been discussing the rot economy for multiple episodes. The idea of "number go up" being the only metric that matters makes a lot of sense for how we got here.
great title btw
Or, y'know... Vote Democrat and have a chance to save your children from climate Armageddon.
I feel like "Vote Democrat" is 0.5 step forwards while "Vote GOP" is 50 steps backwards. Really wish we had ranked choice voting and a handful of viable other viable parties like other democracies around the world!
Magical thinking peaks somewhere around blaming natural disasters on the profit motive.
Magical thinking peaks somewhere around blaming natural disasters on the profit motive.
Does it? We’ve pumped so much carbon and methane and other worse substances into the atmosphere (or into the earth, in the case of fracking) in pursuit of that profit and that’s directly affecting the severity and frequency of some of those natural disasters. Obviously natural disasters exist anyway, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t demonstrably making the situation worse.
Was the soviet union also pursuing profit? If we stopped having profit seeking, would that mean less carbon and other pollution?
If so, how do you figure? Do you not think economic activity would have happened if we’d been doing all our stuff from the goodness of our altruistic hearts?
Like, what kind of economic system doesn’t pollute?
Sure...we are not at all at fault. Our demand for disposable tech junk and cheap Chinese trinkets is the corporations fault. Tech corporations made cryptocurrency and set up crypto farms?
I'll give you oil corps all day long, but most of the rest is on us. We did it. We fucked ourselves. We demanded that the planet burn while we meme about climate change on Twitter, as it single handedly eats enough power to run a town.
Let the downvotes commence. Lie to yourselves all you want, but that doesn't makes us less guilty.
A lot of this can be attributed to corporations and the (b/m)illionaire class forcing us all into a position where we too have to try and find a way forward, and a way to get wealthy. Those needs lead to things like people working multiple gig jobs like Uber Eats; trying to monetize crypto or basically any hobby we can think of; distracting ourselves with junk because we can’t come to terms with the fact that our lives are all lacking because the ruling class is constantly draining us dry.
There is always a link back to the ruling class with these things.
Why are minority neighborhoods fucked? Because the ruling class doesn’t see them as profitable; because the landlord class sees their land as a commodity and drives them out, or takes over and continues to gentrify.
Why can’t anyone afford rent? Because the landlord class drives prices up simply because they can. What do people in desperate times like this do? They seek out what they consider “easy money” such as crypto, selling hobbies, etc. Drop-shipping junk on Etsy and even buying it for themselves.
We live in a country that forces downward pressure on everyone that isn’t swimming in money.
“But what about people in tech that get paid well?” — they are still trying to seek their own shortest way out due to constant burnout because of layoffs and “line go up” pressure. Yet again, the ruling class is at the root of the problem.
For your last part in tech jobs being paid well. You might wanna mention how the tech companies worked with each other to keep salaries down by not hiring other companies ex-employees.
I would post a reference but I can't find the news article I read, this was sometime in the 90s and 00s. I'm sure there is some fuckery still going on. Google has really gone downhill since I can't even find it.....I used to be revered at my old job for my "Google Fu" and now I feel lost...
I don't disagree with that at all. What I dislike is when people try to fully "pass the buck" and play the victim when they are also part of the problem. Ultimately we agree at the core level. As I said, the problem are not corporations, the problem is the core concept of capitalism that puts us in a rat race and in desperate need for something, anything, to make us feel better about a miserable existence, as well as the oppression of a ruling class who's only interests are their own.
Our demand for disposable tech junk and cheap Chinese trinkets is the corporations fault.
Yes, it is. With wages being paid by corporations so low and absolute necessities such as food, shelter, and medicine so expensive, most of us can't afford anything better.
Tech corporations made cryptocurrency and set up crypto farms?
They literally did, yes.
most of the rest is on us. We did it. We fucked ourselves
It's not every day you see delusions of grandeur, victim blaming and a mea culpa in the same sentence. Probably because that's ridiculous.
We demanded that the planet burn
[Citation needed]
we meme about climate change on Twitter, as it single handedly eats enough power to run a town.
Nope. No real person uses "enough power to run a town" to meme. That's corporations and billionaires you're thinking of.
Lie to yourselves all you want
Nah, no need. We have you for that.
