OT: Public referrendums on destroying evil companies

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by DavidG:
Hmmm some intersting stuff there... and also a lot of funny crap. One one of the pages it suggest McD is causing world hunger by promoting the meat culture. Like if it wasn't for McD we'd all be vegitarians and there'd be enough food for the whole world. And McD is responsible for global warming cause of all that methane cows produce. Like if McD's dissapeared tomorrow we all start eating salads.

Does it really say McDonalds is responsible for these problems? Or are you reading it in Rush Limbaugh style, pushing the claims to their most absurb extreme in order to avoid having to consider them? I think it says McDonalds contributes to these problems, actually. And they certainly do as one of the largest food companies on the planet. It's not so simple as saying that the 'free market' determines this, either. If not for McDonalds advertising vast numbers of people would eat differently. Corporations are not just passive receivers of market forces. They also create them. Just like Walmart has a measurable effect on inflation nation-wide by its push to reduce prices, McDonalds has a real effect on peoples' diets world-wide through its huge advertising campaigns.

[Cyrien]

I don't have anything against McDonalds either. They are a well run business as fast food goes, good marketing, and they aren't a monopoly. I have in the past traveled extensively and in many cases I would see more Burger Kings than McDonalds. I will admit that was at least five to ten years ago for foreign nations that were located in Europe so maybe things have changed.

Sometimes they do things that are stupid such as suing in Scotland for the exlusive rights to McDonald.

I don't really like the food and much prefer Whataburger for quality but every now and then I do get a light craving for McDonalds and go have one and that is it until a few months later when I will have another one or will be in a rush and it is what is available.

Is McDonalds evil? Nah. Just a super corporation and at least in my book not one of the bad ones as at least it isn't a super global monopoly with control of all or almost all fast food everywhere.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by deccan:
This is an incredibly incendiary statement. So all big corporations are sleazy and immoral by default? Or is it the basic drive for profits itself that is immoral?

What are you asking for precisely? If McDonald's has broken any laws, then of course they should be punished for it. Perhaps you want to campaign for some additional laws to regulate companies like McDonalds. You are free to do so.

In the meantime, you are also free not to eat at MacDonalds and ask your friends and family members to do the same, in the same way that other people can decide for themselves whether or not McDonalds' practices are really horrible enough to make them boycott the firm's products. This is simply the court of public opinion.

Personally, I do eat at McDonalds from time to time, though not often, and it doesn't bother me the least.

This is an incredibly funny statement. How could it possibly be 'incendiary' to say that sleazy corporations are sleazy? Yes, since corporations have more influence on the writing of laws that govern corporations than the 'general public' (non-wealthy ordinary people) they are pretty much sleazy by default.

What would happen if athletes controlled the various sports governing bodies, and manipulated them to stop testing for steroid use? Obviously, athletes who did use steroids would start winning competitions and not getting caught, so they'd be making all the money and the honest athletes would be frozen out. In a relatively short time, you'd have almost nothing but steroid using atheletes in the national and international levels of most major catagories of sports. Would it then be 'incendiary' to say that these athletes are all steroid using cheats? I think even the few who were not using them and somehow staying in the competition would understand why people would say that.

As I hope anyone who watches the news is well aware, corporations have been writing their own rules for decades, with only the occasional break due to some huge scandal or other to reign them in a bit. All those Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, etc., executives were/are buddies of GW Bush and Dick Cheney and were personally visiting the White House to tell Santa-Bush what sham regulation they wanted as recently as Last year. Only the collapse of their companies has exposed the extreme cheating and stealing they were up to. You think there aren't hundreds or thousands of other executives doing the same thing but with just a tad more sense?

And no, I don't eat at McDonalds. Can't stand the food anymore. I wonder now how I could stand it when I was a kid.

[Baron Munchausen]

There are so many comments missing the point about the definition of a corporation that I can't see how to reply to them individually. So I'll make one general statement:

The problem with the current definition of a corporation is that it limits the liability of the corporate officers too much. You can pretty much murder people with impunity and get off with your corporation being fined, whether by actual government regulators or by lawsuit doesn't matter. It's only a monetary risk no matter how many lives you ruin. This is literally gambling with peoples' lives and thanks to the 'corporate person' being such a popular business dodge it extends into every area of life.

From the alphabet soup of chemical dumpers at Love Canal who never had to pay squat for their pollution, to the Ford Motor Company deciding to ignore the known problems with Pinto gas tanks, to the various pharmaceutical companies who ignored the obvious health problems with breast implants for decades, an the tobacco companies who waged open propaganda campaigns to disguise the problems caused by smoking, there is a clear pattern of both the executives and the 'corporate Boards' that are supposed to supervise them skirting both the law and common sense in their quest to make a buck. And why not? Even in the crash of Enron Ken lay has come away with 100+ million dollars while his employees have had even their retirement savings reduced to dust. I hear there are some lawsuits underway to recover some of that money from him, but they will be breaking new legal ground if they succeed. IF these people knew they could actually pay the penalty for their crimes, and be sent personally to prison, or at least have their fat executive bonuses confiscated, I think we'd see a great deal more responsible behavior. But that would require changes to corporate law. Guess who writes that? The corporations themselves, and then they give it to some bought congressman, senator, or President to push through the system. Somehow I don't think we're going to see real reforms any time soon.

[ October 28, 2003, 02:34: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
...
Saying that the people who are sufficiently informed can avoid buying certain products is a ridiculous non-solution.
...

Really, PvK? Because if non one buys a corps products..the corperation GOES BACKRUPT. This is gennerally considered a bad thing for them.

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Yes, really! Because the percentage of people "who are sufficiently informed" is small enough that megacorps don't care, particularly once they've dominated a market. Some corporations don't deal much or at all in public sales anyway (e.g. Gator, chemical manufacturers, research companies).

And please define what you mean by benifical, because using just that I know of more than a few people who would leave McDonalds and the other corps you listed alone, but close down MM, Shrapnel and quite a few others you would like to see stay in one piece.

When I wrote "corporations should only exist to do beneficial things", I didn't mean to say that they should be destroyed if some people don't appreciate what they do. I was reacting to people seeming to say that corporations just abstractly needed to exist. However, I didn't mean to say that a corporation should need to justify its existance.

However I do think that when their behavior causes problems, someone ought to consider controlling that behavior. Corporations certainly can't be counted on to do it themselves, because they their whole purpose is generally to maximize their own profits, by doing whatever they can get away with. This can and does frequently get way out of control, and in the case of megacorps, on a vast scale compared to what mischief individual humans can do.

PvK

[ October 28, 2003, 01:44: Message edited by: PvK ]

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:

quote:

---

Originally posted by DavidG:
Hmmm some intersting stuff there... and also a lot of funny crap. One one of the pages it suggest McD is causing world hunger by promoting the meat culture. Like if it wasn't for McD we'd all be vegitarians and there'd be enough food for the whole world. And McD is responsible for global warming cause of all that methane cows produce. Like if McD's dissapeared tomorrow we all start eating salads.

Does it really say McDonalds is responsible for these problems? Or are you reading it in Rush Limbaugh style, pushing the claims to their most absurb extreme in order to avoid having to consider them? I think it says McDonalds contributes to these problems, actually. And they certainly do as one of the largest food companies on the planet. It's not so simple as saying that the 'free market' determines this, either. If not for McDonalds advertising vast numbers of people would eat differently. Corporations are not just passive receivers of market forces. They also create them. Just like Walmart has a measurable effect on inflation nation-wide by its push to reduce prices, McDonalds has a real effect on peoples' diets world-wide through its huge advertising campaigns.

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No it said McD contributes to the problem. But even that is ridiculous. The one I read was just a rant by a hardcore vegitarian. I dislike McDonalds but one can hardly blame them for the fact that we eat meat. Do you really think we eat more beef becuase of McD's?
Now if you want to critisize McD's for pushing unhealthy junk food on us and being a major contirbutor to the rise in obesity (and god knwos what other health problems) well I couldn't argue with that.

[deccan]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
How could it possibly be 'incendiary' to say that sleazy corporations are sleazy? Yes, since corporations have more influence on the writing of laws that govern corporations than the 'general public' (non-wealthy ordinary people) they are pretty much sleazy by default.

It's incendiary because you are saying, "You're rich therefore you must have done something bad in order to get so rich, therefore you are evil." Whatever happened to presumption of innocence?

If the authorities have suspicions, then it is okay for them to investigate. If investigations turn up evidence of wrongdoing, then I'd be happy to say that that corporation is sleazy. Otherwise, I do not believe that it would be fair to call corporations and even as you seem to imply, rich individuals, sleazy by default.

In McDonald's case, what is it precisely that you think they have done wrong?

[deccan]

Originally posted by PvK:
I didn't mean to say that they should be destroyed if some people don't appreciate what they do.

Hey, PvK, you named the thread "Public referendums on destroying evil companies".

[Fyron]

Deccan, didn't you know that if you are not a poor Joe-schmo, you are by default a sleazy scum-bag? Even though the majority of wealthy people are honest, hard-working people that got their money by working long hours, taking great personal (financial) risks, etc., they are still sleazy. Sounds like a lot of stereotyping is going on here to me...

[Fyron]

Keep in mind that were it not for corporations and other large businesses, you would most likely not be able to own a car, the computer you are using right now, or have canned foods, packaged foods, processed foods, or even much food that you did not grow yourself or was not grown within a couple of miles of you (very problematic for large cities ), nor be able to buy much in the way of cheap (comparatively based on quality versus cost) clothing, shoes, furniture, etc. that you did not make yourself, have a house that you did not build yourself, and so on. All of these things would be way to expensive if they were made by small companies that were not able to produce on such a large scale as to be able to lower costs to more affordable levels. It takes a lot of capital to get production costs down so that prices can be relatively low (as well as to develop methods to reduce such costs, allowing other companies to copy them). Small businesses and cottage industries rarely have that capital.

[ October 28, 2003, 08:00: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]