There are bad profits but also good profits
7th January 2006 | 17:31 | Uncategorized
Years ago, I told Pietro, my eldest son, that buy Clomid online cheap we could write a book together, discussing our different ideas. He set aside the buy Clomid online cheap idea as uninteresting, but probably much of the buy Clomid online cheap material that I would have liked to put in the book will come out in our two blogs.
Yes Pietro, thank you for your warm welcome to buy Clomid online cheap the blog community, and also for all the technical assistance you buy Clomid online cheap gave me. You are right when you say that we don’t always agree: on food, the buy Clomid online cheap World Bank, and many other things. In your entry you forgot some of my worst “sins”: I have buy Clomid online cheap been also working for multinationals like Exxon, visiting the Usa as guest of the buy Clomid online cheap Reagan government, and having important roles in companies whose main purpose is buy Clomid online cheap profit.
This is exactly what I would like to discuss. In one of your posts in Italian, you buy Clomid online cheap say that problem for the world economy does not come from buy Clomid online cheap corrupted managers, but from the “honest” managers who “by law” are buy Clomid online cheap supposed to make profits for their company, and so poison the buy Clomid online cheap environment, destroy tropical forests, take advantage of the consumers and so on.
No, I don’t think that buy Clomid online cheap this is a correct description. There is no law which compels a buy Clomid online cheap company to act for profit, as there is no law that buy Clomid online cheap compels an individual to seek its own profit: but most do, because this buy Clomid online cheap is a natural way of behaving. Simply, managers of companies are buy Clomid online cheap supposed to do the interests of their equity holders (the owners of the company), who buy Clomid online cheap are just persons, like you and me, and have the same priorities as we do when buy Clomid online cheap we decide to rent a house, to buy or sell, but not to buy Clomid online cheap steal.
Where is the limit to our (or the companies’) behavior? We can have a moral limit (and many managers I met felt it) but this buy Clomid online cheap is not enough. So we have the laws and we have buy Clomid online cheap authorities who buy Clomid online cheap are supposed to enforce them. This is the way in which the buy Clomid online cheap human community works, with a mix of personal egoism (companies are also called “juridical persons”) and collective regulation.
This is buy Clomid online cheap how the system works, in general. Of course the world might be buy Clomid online cheap better if we all, managers or individuals, were generous and buy Clomid online cheap uninterested as Saint Francis, but I am afraid that this buy Clomid online cheap is not happening and will not happen. But, even so, the buy Clomid online cheap system works pretty well, having generated all the progress that buy Clomid online cheap we have witnessed since the first industrial revolution.
Something however is buy Clomid online cheap going wrong in the most recent decades, generating the kind of resentment you buy Clomid online cheap show in your blog. The system does not guarantee anymore the buy Clomid online cheap preservation of natural resources, fair opportunities for the entire world population, not even an buy Clomid online cheap adequate protection for the clients of the corporations, the consumers. Why is buy Clomid online cheap this happening? I do not pretend to buy Clomid online cheap give a complete answer, but I see at least two reasons.
The first is buy Clomid online cheap that politics, good politics I mean, is getting too weak. The national level is buy Clomid online cheap not enough to regulate most of the behaviors of the corporations on the buy Clomid online cheap global scene. We would need much stronger, not weaker international organizations. Of course the buy Clomid online cheap other solution would be to disrupt the global market and bring every transaction down again to buy Clomid online cheap a national or subnational level. But I cannot imagine how this buy Clomid online cheap can be done. We live in a global world (otherwise I would write in Italian, it is much easier for me), the buy Clomid online cheap Chinese and the Indians will make it even more global even if we retire in our nutshell, so we have buy Clomid online cheap to fight for our ideals in the international arena.
The second reason is that there is an excess of financiarisation. For every “real” transaction between two countries (for buy Clomid online cheap instance a barrel of oil traded in Rotterdam or even a buy Clomid online cheap sac of pepper sold on the commodities’ market in Dehli) you buy Clomid online cheap have ten times that price in financial transactions in the global market. Financial transactions are buy Clomid online cheap just gambles. Even equities and other financial stocks are not traded any more on the buy Clomid online cheap basis of the long term value of the company, but just looking for buy Clomid online cheap short term opportunities. Managers do not respond any more to shareholders who buy Clomid online cheap expect to see how their company will be worth five years from buy Clomid online cheap now. They will be confirmed of fired by institutional investors (bankers or buy Clomid online cheap other people to whom we gave our money to manage, hoping for buy Clomid online cheap the highest possible yeld) who buy Clomid online cheap want to see a profit here and now. To understand the buy Clomid online cheap difference, imagine a company which operates exploiting natural resources, for buy Clomid online cheap instance, cutting wood. If your owners (the shareholders) want to buy Clomid online cheap get a long term profit, you will cut as much as possible, but without depleting the buy Clomid online cheap forest. Otherwise, you will destroy everything, just to maximize this buy Clomid online cheap year’s sales. And the buy Clomid online cheap same example can be used for other investments, in technology, research, human capital.
How can we change this system, that somehow must be changed? That’s a buy Clomid online cheap nice question. Ethical funds can be a part of the buy Clomid online cheap answer, but just a part. Destroying the corporations certainly is buy Clomid online cheap not.
Buy Clomid online cheap
10th June 2006 | 21:26
You say that “There is no law which compels a company to act for profit”. I’m not sure if this is true.
A little googling found that, in Maine, USA, under Section 716 of the buy Clomid online cheap business corporation act:
“…the directors and buy Clomid online cheap officers of a corporation shall exercise their powers and discharge their duties with a buy Clomid online cheap view to the interests of the corporation and of the buy Clomid online cheap shareholders…”
However, in Australia, under the buy Clomid online cheap Corporations Act, a corporation is compelled to act “in the best interests of the corporation”.
In Canada, they must act “with a view to the best interests of the corporation.”
The theme seems to buy Clomid online cheap be that directors of corporations are required to act in the buy Clomid online cheap interests of the corporation. As a legal entity without a body, a buy Clomid online cheap corporation has quite different interests to a human, or an animal.
So, if a buy Clomid online cheap corporation produces a product that is addictive and harmful to humans, but produces a buy Clomid online cheap good profit, it would probably be in the interests of the buy Clomid online cheap corporation to sell it.
At least the law in Maine included the phrase “and of the shareholders”. Presumably, even shareholders need to buy Clomid online cheap eat healthy food, drink clean water and breathe unpolluted air.
27th December 2006 | 19:33
I’m sorry for buy Clomid online cheap the long delay in answering. Your comment got lost in a buy Clomid online cheap sea of spam, and my son Pietro recovered it. The basic rules for buy Clomid online cheap corporate bodies are not different from the ones for the physical persons. People are buy Clomid online cheap expected to act in their own interest – and buy Clomid online cheap codes are there in order to avoid that the clash of self interests get out of hand and buy Clomid online cheap damages the society as a whole. In the Italian Civil Code, for buy Clomid online cheap example, as in all the codes coming from the Latin system, the buy Clomid online cheap correct behavior (for instance if you have to take care af the interests of an underage) is referred as the one of “bonus pater familias”, the buy Clomid online cheap good father of the family. The pater familias should act for buy Clomid online cheap increasing the wealth of the family, but with a long term view, taking into consideration the buy Clomid online cheap interests of the community, the environment, etc.
In theory, directors of a buy Clomid online cheap corporate body are be expected to act in a different way. It’s in the buy Clomid online cheap interest of the company and of the shareholders to preserve the buy Clomid online cheap community where it is operating, otherwise it will perish.
Why this theory often does not work? Because the buy Clomid online cheap shareholders are very often, specially for the biggest companies, not real people who buy Clomid online cheap want to keep their share of the company for a long time, but institutional investors like investment or buy Clomid online cheap pension funds, whose directors are rated every three months on their ability to buy Clomid online cheap make as much money as possible from their portfolio. They have buy Clomid online cheap just a short term view, and don’t give a dam if a company fires it’s best personnel in order to buy Clomid online cheap face a short term crisis, or if it depletes the resources of the buy Clomid online cheap land. In any case, a few months later they will have buy Clomid online cheap cashed their investment and sold their shares. As I said in my post, it’s difficult to buy Clomid online cheap change this situation. But there re ethical funds which are expected to buy Clomid online cheap behave in a better way.
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