OT: Public referrendums on destroying evil companies

[deccan]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
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.

I have to agree with that. Reminds of that time when people were complaining that Magic: The Gathering is an evil game because it has satanic icons on some cards.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

someone once told me that once MS releases a new OS, they make the old ones freeware. personally, i think there's about a 1.5% chance of that being true, but i decided to ask anyway.

[Fyron]

It is hardly true. They still sell Win 98 and 2000.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

well, i'd tell the guy, if i still remembered who it was.

[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.

[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 ]