Examinator

" It seems of the Capitalist dominated political "right" that the questionable dogma of <<"what is good for corporations is good for the people(at large)". That is not necessarily true but again the absence of one extreme doesn't emphatically mandate the other.
i.e. Greater legislative control doesn't necessarily mean the end of competitiveness ad nauseum ".>>

I absolutely agree Examinator with your points, in fact there is no evidence whatsoever
to support the benevolence or benefit of Corporations to mankind,
but there is mountains of evidence proving the contrary.

If you looked at Nigeria for example, a country or business opportunity free of regulatory constraints (sic),
the Corporate behaviour there could be considered downright sociopathic and of no benefit to the Nigerian people whatsoever.

Your original and main point is a given, and those who think that large collective democratic representation
(like a Govt) should not regulate Corporate behaviour, is off their dial and living in a fairy land of
Right Wing Mantra and berserk philosophy.

They're the same people who also believe that an individual can negotiate
an employment contract, when the fact is that most employee's are not qualified to represent themselves.

In the world of Stern and others, 7 yr olds would still be down the coal mines!,
or in the workhouses of the rich being fed a bowl of gruel a day.

Let's not beat around the bush Examinator, it is a proven historical fact that
Corporations can not and do not act in the best interest of anyone but themselves.

fait accompli ..finit.

Dear Yabby,

Thanks for your real-estate analogy.
However, as far as I know Real estate
is still based on the competitive
efforts of private capitalists whose
owners are not capable of exerting
enormous political and economic power,
such as those of large corporations.
The size and economic power of the
major corporations are immense.

The largest corporations are linked together
through interlocking directorates,
social networks consisting of individuals who
are members of several different corporate boards.
As I've stated previously, these coporations are
able to apply political leverage on national
policy, winning favours for themselves,
influencing the country's tax structure, and so on.

They have in the past also had an impressive record
of illicit corporate activity. For example, in the
US, Exxon was discoverd had paid nearly $60 million to
government officials in fifteen nations, including
$27 million to several Italian political parties.
Lockheed had distributed nearly $200 million in bribes
and payoffs in several countries, and the resulting
scandals implicated the prince of the Netherlands,
the prime minister of Japan, military leaders in
Columbia, and cabinet members in Italy.

Overwhelmed by the size of their task, American federal
investigators offered corporations immunity in return
for full confessions. In all, more than 500 major
American corporations, most of them multi-national,
admitted giving bribes or other questionable payments
to government officials in order to obtain benefits
for themselves.

I wonder how much is given to the Liberal Party in the
form of "donations," by the Mining Companies, here in
Australia?

*The size and economic power of the
major corporations are immense*

Absolutaly. They create the wealth, they
create the jobs. BHP alone pays 6.3 billion$
in tax. Without them we would frankly be stuffed.

Yet clearly they don't have much power, as we
see by the present attempt of Govt fiscal
thuggery, where they want to claim up to 77%
tax from these corporations, for a bit of
good old pre election pork barrelling, to
to try to impress the punters who actually
vote. There are clearly no limits to the greedy
lust for political power!

So what it comes down to is that politicians need
corporations to have a healthy economy, which the
punters insist on, but the moment they think that
they can afford to, they have no qualms about
sticking the proverbial knife in, in their
own self interest.

I should hope that corporations try to protect themselves,
in the interests of their shareholders. If the Govt
wanted 77% tax from your hubby, you would be protesting
too.

*They have in the past also had an impressive record
of illicit corporate activity.*

Hang on, thats guilt by association. You are a woman,
I don't blame you for those women committing murder,
robbery, drug dealing etc.

Corporations, just like people vary.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-kevs-77-effective-tax-rate-20100617-yhw2.html

Foxy, that story contains all the figures by the way, you are
free to check them out.

Examinator .... strange, me and all those “others so mind”.....

So before I go any further,

Hello all you other “so minded” folk out there, maybe we could get together and form the “so minded party for the insistence of lucid posting”.

Now to examinator, your assertion that corporation are amoral instead of immoral fails, they cannot be amoral, any more than they can be immoral.

However is we apply the more realistic assumption that corporations are merely the product of the will of their shareholders and the board of directors, we would see them as sharing the morality or immorality of said shareholders and board of directors.

As to likening them to a gun, yes and they are probably better likened to a large crowbar, simply because they are a method by which people achieve greater productivity through combined activity.

As for aligning ourselves with job titles.. you might but you do not speak for me,

I much prefer to just take the money, rather than the title on the door or the company car.

As for running small companies out of business.. .well maybe that happens but that is the will of the owners and would have happened regardless they were an incorporated entity or an unincorporated partnership.

As to the rest of your post, the BOLLITICS bit:

I fear your sense of the hysteric has overcome you, I suggest a quiet nap this afternoon and leave your set of junior building blocks in the cupboard.

Dear Yabby,

Sorry we're not going to see eye to eye on
this one.

The facts remain that multinational
corporations dominate the economies
of many less developed countries,
influencing the level of wages, the kind
of crops that are grown, or how national
resources are allocated.

Even developed nations
are subject to this influence: more than half
of Canada's industry is owned by American
and British multinationals, making it
difficult for the Canadians to control their
own economy. In fact, American corporate
industry abroad is now on the the largest
econmies in the world. Such a situation
raises the prospect of neocolonialism,
the informal political and economic domination
of one society over another, such that the
former is able to exploit the labour and
resources of the latter for its own purposes.

The multinationals are joining nation-states
as the major actors on the
international stage, for they inevitably develop
worldwide interests and the "foreign policies"
that go with them.

As I've stated previously,
these huge organisations have developed much
more quickly than have the means of applying
social control over them.

Dedicated to the pursuit
of profit and subject to the authority of no one
nation, run by a tiny elite of managers and directors
who have a largely fictional responsibility to their
far-flung shareholders they represent a very disturbing
and growing concentration of global power and
influence.