Other People's Money. OPM. Regular readers know by now that it's what politics is all about. How to get it, how to use it for personal gain, how to leverage it to achieve personal goals, and how to deny those one doesn't like access to it. Today's edition of the OPM files takes place in my neighborhood.
Not in the same way a shareholder does. A worker gets compensated for work done. If the company goes belly up, the worker has lost a job, but has not lost an investment.
Sure, if the worker is happy, he or she will want the company to succeed, but losing a job is not the same as losing the capital an investor put into the company.
As for customers? What stake does a customer have?
If your business depends upon the product put out by another company then you sure do have a stake in the success of that supplier. Considering that the top ten percenters own ninety percent of stocks and are already well off, I think that the employees who can find themselves in these tough times with no income probably have more to lose than do stockholders.
Employees are not beholden to work for one company and can throw investors out the window any time they wish by going to work for another organization, which, most recently is the government on your/our collective I.O.U. Also, workers are not prohibited from ownership. Capitalism is the antidote to poverty, have you forgotten.
Stockholders don't necessarily know anything about the business. Investors in mutual funds may not even care about or know which companies the fund is in invested in. They're in it for the return and may care little for success of the business once they get their cut and then leave for for greener pastures leaving the workers holding the bag.
Being successful may mean that you are willing to do things which reward you in the short run but which hurt those less well off. Awful things like socialism get traction when capitalists behave badly wreaking havoc on ordinary workers.
If you're smart then you will give employees some say because they're closer to the customer than you are and they have a direct stake then in the restaurant's success. But, if you run the business solely for your benefit and are looking for just the largest possible return in the shortest time possible then it won't be long until your business goes out of business.
Workers employed by a company and customers who depend upon a company's products don't have a financial stake in that company's success????
Not in the same way a shareholder does. A worker gets compensated for work done. If the company goes belly up, the worker has lost a job, but has not lost an investment.
Sure, if the worker is happy, he or she will want the company to succeed, but losing a job is not the same as losing the capital an investor put into the company.
As for customers? What stake does a customer have?
If your business depends upon the product put out by another company then you sure do have a stake in the success of that supplier. Considering that the top ten percenters own ninety percent of stocks and are already well off, I think that the employees who can find themselves in these tough times with no income probably have more to lose than do stockholders.
Employees are not beholden to work for one company and can throw investors out the window any time they wish by going to work for another organization, which, most recently is the government on your/our collective I.O.U. Also, workers are not prohibited from ownership. Capitalism is the antidote to poverty, have you forgotten.
Capitalism is distinct from buying into the "divine right of stockholders " approach to business governance.
What does that even mean?
Why should anyone but the company's owners get to decide how a company runs?
Stockholders don't necessarily know anything about the business. Investors in mutual funds may not even care about or know which companies the fund is in invested in. They're in it for the return and may care little for success of the business once they get their cut and then leave for for greener pastures leaving the workers holding the bag.
If you switch to thinking of things in terms of personal risk, vs the nebulous "stake," then it becomes clearer.
As for the "already well off," that's utterly irrelevant. Should being successful diminish your rights?
Being successful may mean that you are willing to do things which reward you in the short run but which hurt those less well off. Awful things like socialism get traction when capitalists behave badly wreaking havoc on ordinary workers.
A question for you. If I put my life savings into opening a restaurant, should a dishwasher I hire have a say in how the restaurant runs?
If you're smart then you will give employees some say because they're closer to the customer than you are and they have a direct stake then in the restaurant's success. But, if you run the business solely for your benefit and are looking for just the largest possible return in the shortest time possible then it won't be long until your business goes out of business.