With fuel prices going up and other energy prices soaring can big energy companies justify their record profits?
It’s easy to blame Government but it is really out of their hands as any decrease in tax will be seen as an oportunity for these companies to maximise their profits.
Seriously the long term implications of these price rises is very damaging for our economy and surely it will plunge us into recession.
Could anyone explain to me these companies logic or is it just as I suppect “pure greed”?
Big business and morality are an oxymoron - innate conflict of interests. Business is for making money.
Morality is having a conscience, knowing what is right from wrong.
If it conflicts with making a profit in business it is wrong. Big Business’ obligation is to return a profit to shareholders, and safeguard the shareholders or owners investment.
A recent study determined that big or corporate busness is psychologically psychotic - if it was a person they would be classified as psychopathic. Watch the Apprentice? Their behaviour is rude, aggressive, ruthless and unforgiving. And thats for the chance of a senior management position internship. How they sleep at night is beyond me, that they exist is apalling, that we admire them is not one of the highlights of Human Achievement…Just a thought from Erma Bombeck - Your not remembered for working hard,long or hardest, and we don’tr get paid enough to die working. Hope this clarified it for you.
The “morality” of big business–specifically, it is “profit.”
The function of a Corporation (in its modern form) is to maximize profit. That is their sole function.
where morality is concerned (and here I refer to what one might think of as traditional morality such as right/wrong, social justice, ect…) the corporation cannot act in a manner contrary to it’s primary directive–PROFIT.
The above is an oversimplification, and generally does not address most peoples confusion as to why corporations commit morally questionable acts. I will give you a sort of basic 101 explanation–but there is much i will have to leave out.
In the beginning…. corporations were chartered agreements to fulfil certain task or objectives… such as building a canal or railroad. The purpose of the corporation was to accomplish its chartered task–basically it had a built in sunset clause–once it was completed, the corporation was disbanded and everyone moved on.
Through various legal mechanisms, the corporation has evolved into something like a “super-person.” They have all the rights and priviledges of “person” staus under the constitution, without having the liability or (even life-expectancy!) of an actual human being. Corporations are otherwise protected under the constitution as “persons.” In fact, far more 14th amendment cases have been brought forth on behalf of corporations than on behalf of human beings!
The underlying problems with the corporate structure are as follows:
1) As a profit machine, morality is reduced to a simple cost benefit analysis.
2) There is a constant pressure to reduce inputs and externalize costs.
“Cost externalization occurs anytime a company makes money while damaging the environment or another element of the public interest (e.g., human rights, public health and safety, the dignity of employees or the welfare of our communities). Examples of cost externalization include tobacco companies killing hundreds of thousands of people every year and auto manufacturers and electric utilities polluting our air. In each case, a corporation creates a cost that, under existing law, must be borne by the public.” (footnote #2)
3) There is little to no criminal liability for executives for the behavior of a corporation.
4) There is no life-expectancy for a corporation–they do not die or expire.
“Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property…
Corporations are the legal fiction at property is a person”
This is a simplification.
It’s not that Corporations or their Execs are evil–it’s that the system is fundamentally flawed and extremely undemocratic.
No, the problem is how you are looking at the problem. You are blaming corporations for supplying goods and services you demand. Anything that reduces profits reduces supply, so prices will rise even further if you go after the profits and the world will be less well off because of it. The profits are the outcome of choices made by consumers, governments and other businesses. Higher prices are not inherently damaging to the economy particularly once it adapts to them. The recession is not being caused by oil prices, they are a result of the falling dollar, that is the result of people not paying their mortgage payments. The recession is the result of people not paying their mortgage payments.
Oil executives are simply the inadvertent beneficiary of failed mortgage regulation as are the shareholders.
Oil is a commodity, which means its price is set by the buyers not the sellers. You are the person who sets the price, not the person who drills it. They must accept, or shut down, whatever price you will pay. Some goods, like high end physician services or Microsoft Windows are monopoly like goods and the price is set by the seller. The party you should be angry at is Bill Gates for charging you more than he would in a competitive situation, not the oil companies. If you go after them, you will only raise the price of oil.
I’m actually convincd it’s greedy gasoline station people who are responsible for these f—-ng high prices!
Big business rules government and neither of them want anything to do with decency or morality.
All they care about is themselves and controlling and manipulating people.
The people’s revolution is well overdue.