|
HootTheOwl posted:That Trump documentary looks more like a trailer for a lovely reboot for a soap opera about the trials of a rich family. Kinda like Dallas only with much shittier actors.
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 14:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 17:07 |
|
|
https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-founder-of-panera-bread-explains-the-economic-forces-that-led-to-trump The Founder of Panera Bread Explains the Economic Forces that Led to Trump
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 14:39
|
|
|
HootTheOwl posted:That Trump documentary looks more like a trailer for a lovely reboot for a soap opera about the trials of a rich family. Kind of like how we are supposed to feel bad for the Corporate Lawyers in the show Suits, despite them being unethical monsters who protect their corporate clients from any kind of accountability.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 14:47
|
|
|
Rex-Goliath posted:https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-founder-of-panera-bread-explains-the-economic-forces-that-led-to-trump How is this not a ClickHole link? I'm not making a joke, that's a serious question. Why does this article exist, and in the New Yorker of all places? And why is it actually insightful? Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Nov 26, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 15:06
|
|
|
Vincent Van Goatse posted:How is this not a ClickHole link? Shaich went to a really liberal college in Worcester, Massachusetts .
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 15:19
|
|
|
exploded mummy posted:Shaich went to a really liberal college in Worcester, Massachusetts . *as in, as ethical as a public owned corporation in America's capitalist system can be, limited by their usage of a franchise system that insulates them from direct interaction with the workers in the majority of their locations.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 15:34
|
|
|
exploded mummy posted:Shaich went to a really liberal college in Worcester, Massachusetts . I can confirm that Clark is insanely liberal, yes. In fact, most of the Worcester area colleges are pretty fuckin' liberal, whether it's Holy Cross, WPI, Clark, Becker, Worcester State, or Anna Maria. That said, Clark puts them all to shame and it's been doing so for a very long time.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 15:39
|
|
|
exploded mummy posted:Shaich went to a really liberal college in Worcester, Massachusetts . In retrospect I think I meant that post more of a scream of existential crisis than a question, really.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 15:46
|
|
|
Fritz Coldcockin posted:I can confirm that Clark is insanely liberal, yes. In fact, most of the Worcester area colleges are pretty fuckin' liberal, whether it's Holy Cross, WPI, Clark, Becker, Worcester State, or Anna Maria. That said, Clark puts them all to shame and it's been doing so for a very long time. My brother is an alumnus, so I know that fact well.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 15:50
|
|
|
Vincent Van Goatse posted:More of a scream of existential crisis than a question, really. New USPOL title if I ever heard one
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 15:54
|
|
|
It's really weird how completely the 'increased profits for shareholders above literally all else' thing became the unquestioned almost universal gospel of American business. You'd think it would be moderated by a certain amount of pragmatism, but it literally isn't. Maybe it's compounded by a lot of executives not planning on or expecting to be around long enough to feel the effects of it, but you'd think more people would pause and ask what the gently caress is that going to lead to. You see it in basically every industry and even in well-established companies it erodes the internal corporate culture and destroys brands.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 16:09
|
|
|
No one actually answered the main question: is the article insightful?
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 16:10
|
|
|
I thought the question was WHY is it insightful
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 16:17
|
|
|
enraged_camel posted:No one actually answered the main question: is the article insightful? It basically uses Panera Bread as a jumping off point to discuss the problems with Milton Friedman's shareholder theory of value -- that the sole primary duty of a corporation is to enhance [in effect: short term] shareholder value, period, end of story, and everything else (employees, the environment, long-term survival, etc) are secondary. Basically it's capitalism as a long-term prisoner's dilemma; when *everyone* is only seizing short-term advantage, all of society ends up burned on the pyre of each individual's short-term advantage. It's a decent short article as far as it goes. Herstory Begins Now posted:It's really weird how completely the 'increased profits for shareholders above literally all else' thing became the unquestioned almost universal gospel of American business. You'd think it would be moderated by a certain amount of pragmatism, but it literally isn't. Maybe it's compounded by a lot of executives not planning on or expecting to be around long enough to feel the effects of it, but you'd think more people would pause and ask what the gently caress is that going to lead to. When a prisoner's dilemma collapse happens it happens fast.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 16:19
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:It basically uses Panera Bread as a jumping off point to discuss the problems with Milton Friedman's shareholder theory of value -- that the sole primary duty of a corporation is to enhance [in effect: short term] shareholder value, period, end of story, and everything else (employees, the environment, long-term survival, etc) are secondary. Yeah, I read it just now. I didn't know the whole "companies must only care about shareholder value" thing originated with Milton Friedman. Although I'm not surprised. quote:n the summer of 2017, Lynn Paine and Joseph Bower, two Harvard Business School professors, published a piece in the Harvard Business Review arguing that the idea that profits are all that should matter to a company’s leadership is a relatively new one. They trace it to an essay by the free-market economist Milton Friedman, which ran in the Times Magazine in 1970. In the piece, Friedman outlined what he called the “Friedman business doctrine,” which holds that ideas of corporate social responsibility, which had become popular in the business world, were undermining the American way of life. “The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned ‘merely’ with profit but also with promoting desirable ‘social’ ends; that business has a ‘social conscience’ and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers,” he wrote. Instead, he went on, “They are preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these last decades.” The article caused a sensation, and Friedman’s idea that managers of companies were nothing more than “agents” of shareholders was taken up by economists and business school professors, who helped build it into the dominant attitude in the United States and beyond. What a shitfucker.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 16:29
|
|
|
Stockholder value and making big numbers go up up up is the original buttcoin*. *hairless tropical grassland primates has always been irrationally stupid and gatheedr whatever token that makes it feel good. Also Stakeholder value is the other school of thought that oppose Stockholder V. iirc
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 16:42
|
|
|
Freshwater economics can go get hosed, it's the intellectual underpinning of neoliberalism as an ideology
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 16:50
|
|
|
Maximizing in an unconstrained way for a single value in a system usually fucks with the system, and if it's the right variable it can cause failure of the system. Maximizing for shareholder value needs to die.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 16:55
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Basically it's capitalism as a long-term prisoner's dilemma; when *everyone* is only seizing short-term advantage, all of society ends up burned on the pyre of each individual's short-term advantage. Yeah I mostly posted it because it seems like even CEOs are openly questioning the value of Friedman’s sociopathic worldview. Just another example of the pendulum slowly shifting direction that we’ve been seeing lately
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 16:58
|
|
|
Eh, in a technical sense Friedman is correct: his theory of shareholder value accurately describes the legal duties of business executives in the framework of American capitalism. Viewed *descriptively*, he's accurate. A few things are left out of that analysis though, such as that 1) that legal framework could be changed and 2) excessively high executive salaries should inherently violate that same fiduciary duty to shareholders, but somehow that part is just "business judgment" while every socially conscious or long-term decision a CEO might make ("let's not pollute our kid's drinking water?") somehow violates the duty. Basically, the theory is just correct *enough* to be an unassailable pretext for the executives' self-interest. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Nov 26, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 16:59
|
|
|
Rex-Goliath posted:Yeah I mostly posted it because it seems like even CEOs are openly questioning the value of Friedman’s sociopathic worldview. Just another example of the pendulum slowly shifting direction that we’ve been seeing lately My question is whether businesses are being actually socially conscious nowadays, i.e. pulling advertising from Fox News shows, taking stands that cause chuds to boycott them, etc; or whether it's all calculated and performative and aimed at shareholder profits in the end anyway Like that classic Bill Hicks bit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:03
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Eh, in a technical sense Friedman is correct: his theory of shareholder value accurately describes the legal duties of business executives in the framework of American capitalism. There is actually no law that dictates business executives must maximize shareholder value. They don't even have a fiduciary duty to do so. https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-value-myth/ quote:Contrary to what many believe, U.S. corporate law does not impose any enforceable legal duty on corporate directors or executives of public corporations to maximize profits or share price. The economic case for shareholder-value maximization similarly rests on incorrect factual claims about the structure of corporations, including the mistaken claims that shareholders “own” corporations, that they have the only residual claim on the firm’s profits, and that they are principals who hire and control directors to act as their agents. Finally, there is a notable lack of persuasive empirical evidence demonstrating that individual corporations run according to the principles of shareholder value maximization perform better over time than those that are not. Worse, when we look at macroeconomic data—overall investment returns, numbers of firms choosing to go or remain public, relative economic performance of “shareholder-friendly” jurisdictions—it suggests shareholder value dogma may be economically counterproductive. Part I concludes shareholder-value ideology is based on wishful thinking, not reality. As a theory of corporate purpose, it is poised for intellectual collapse.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:04
|
|
|
Data Graham posted:My question is whether businesses are being actually socially conscious nowadays, i.e. pulling advertising from Fox News shows, taking stands that cause chuds to boycott them, etc; or whether it's all calculated and performative and aimed at shareholder profits in the end anyway Businesses are amoral. They have bad reasons for doing anything. Getting them to do good things for bad reasons is the best we can hope for. The key is giving financial incentives to do socially responsible things. Then they can blindly maximize value for their shareholders while the rest of us benefit from it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:07
|
|
|
Data Graham posted:My question is whether businesses are being actually socially conscious nowadays, i.e. pulling advertising from Fox News shows, taking stands that cause chuds to boycott them, etc; or whether it's all calculated and performative and aimed at shareholder profits in the end anyway Oh, that's gonna happen. The question is whether the system as designed encourages socially conscious behavior or discourages it. The really interesting thing in that article to me was that it pointed out that the most successful companies these days (amazon, facebook, Panera, etc.) have all actively avoided going public until after they were very well established, because they needed to build long-term structural strength and going public too early would have left them eviscerated by short-term-focused vulture capitalism. Our corporate stock system is not structured to encourage long term growth, it's structured to encourage short term cannibalism.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:08
|
|
|
Data Graham posted:My question is whether businesses are being actually socially conscious nowadays, i.e. pulling advertising from Fox News shows, taking stands that cause chuds to boycott them, etc; or whether it's all calculated and performative and aimed at shareholder profits in the end anyway many companies are in fact responsive to PR concerns out of self interest in preserving public perception of their brand. for example papa johns after firing their racist founder is now running PR to try and rehabilitate their image. this is obviously insufficient however since a) it's mostly reactive b) the public eye can't be on everything every company does forever c) some companies don't give a poo poo since their business is evil to begin with
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:08
|
|
|
Data Graham posted:My question is whether businesses are being actually socially conscious nowadays, i.e. pulling advertising from Fox News shows, taking stands that cause chuds to boycott them, etc; or whether it's all calculated and performative and aimed at shareholder profits in the end anyway The test, of course, is whether I do something good even if it harms me and reduces my social standing (which these corporations obviously fail)... but the real question is does it matter if i'm doing a moral thing for the right reason, and which reason is right? And can individual morality be scaled up to an organization? Should it be? Probably not! Edit: also there is a significant group of institutional investors who identify public corporations who have large stores of unexploited goodwill and proceed to invest heavily in those corporations, force a change of leadership, and "churn" the goodwill into investor dividends, so it's not like a CEO can just choose to focus on the longterm. Tibalt fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Nov 26, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:11
|
|
|
enraged_camel posted:There is actually no law that dictates business executives must maximize shareholder value. They don't even have a fiduciary duty to do so. Ehhhhhhhhhhhh, but see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co. The duty is there in the caselaw. It's essentially unenforceable because the business judgment rule means that a corporate ceo can defensibly argue almost anything is, ultimately, in the interests of shareholders, but Friedman wasn't just mythologizing out of whole cloth.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:13
|
|
|
Does my selfish desire for heaven outweigh my personal fear of hell Or do I do things for ~other reasons~
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:15
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1067079061028200448
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:17
|
|
|
Panera's...complicated. They are riding the peak of, and substantially controlling the course of, the craze for "natural" food products in the US, with a pretty sophisticated messaging and regulatory approach. It's made them shittons of money, but it's also helped drive a movement that's doing major, systemic harm to public understanding of science, and feeding into all sorts of chemophobia beliefs.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:24
|
|
|
Holy crap. Man, I'm beginning to think that starting a trade war with China and viciously attacking our other trade partners wasn't such a great idea.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:30
|
|
|
Tibalt posted:Am I being a good person because it makes me feel better about myself, because it makes others think more highly of me, or because I'm innately good? You should start watching The Good Place if you haven't been doing so. This is pretty much the driving question behind the latest season. As for the morality of corporations, they're pretty much incapable of being moral due to their structure. Someone willing to put profits behind good work will only last as long as the top brass agrees that's the right plan, and once that inevitably fails it's back to short-term profits. Due to the nature of capitalism, once the profit-seekers get their claws in they'll never be ousted, since the people powerful enough to do so will overwhelmingly also be profit-seekers.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:31
|
|
|
Data Graham posted:My question is whether businesses are being actually socially conscious nowadays, i.e. pulling advertising from Fox News shows, taking stands that cause chuds to boycott them, etc; or whether it's all calculated and performative and aimed at shareholder profits in the end anyway Most of them have programs but it's that second part "performative and aimed at shareholder profits" some times when they do that the brand gets hosed by it. There are case studies but I don't remember the specfics. So they are taught it has to be real. But you know how that goes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:33
|
|
|
They're closing the one in my town......all these chuds that voted for Trump because they thought every business would magically do well once he was President are probably *regretting that now. *and by regretting it I mean finding some way to blame Democrats for it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:33
|
|
|
Mahoning posted:They're closing the one in my town......all these chuds that voted for Trump because they thought every business would magically do well once he was President are probably *regretting that now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55sjaEDJ65k
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:37
|
|
|
Mahoning posted:They're closing the one in my town......all these chuds that voted for Trump because they thought every business would magically do well once he was President are probably *regretting that now. Everything was going fine... AND THEN THE BLUE WAVE HAPPENED edit: to contribute, mums the word from the administration on Ukraine: https://twitter.com/emilyctamkin/status/1067091969934004225 Chilichimp fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Nov 26, 2018 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:37
|
|
|
Mahoning posted:They're closing the one in my town......all these chuds that voted for Trump because they thought every business would magically do well once he was President are probably *regretting that now. They didn't vote for him because they thought businesses would do well; that's just what they told you and everyone else. They voted for him because of racism, and that poo poo's still going pretty strong. I have no doubt that on the next Cletus Safari the New York Times goes on that these people will have the same attitudes that the soybean farmers in Iowa who are taking it up the rear end had: "Well, I guess I gotta take one for the team because MAGA!"
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:39
|
|
|
Chilichimp posted:Everything was going fine... AND THEN THE BLUE WAVE HAPPENED I smell shitposts in the US News thread...  The Occupation, an account of the occupied US border by Melissa del Bosque for The Intercept.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:39
|
|
|
Lightning Knight posted:I smell shitposts in the US News thread...  https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1067032724563787776 https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/1067095971962732544
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 17:07 |
|
|
https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1067084457952387073
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2018 17:48
|
|
