Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!panix!.POSTED.panix2.panix.com!panix2.panix.com!not-for-mail
From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: [OT] Murder in New York
Date: 12 Dec 2024 02:33:17 -0000
Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000)
Lines: 38
Message-ID: <vjdi1d$7km$1@panix2.panix.com>
References: <ef0975d032abe1b350eed7329d66d0ba@www.novabbs.com> <skijlj9n8q8gbutr454sbf13lflj614plp@4ax.com> <vjdacp$1pmbc$2@dont-email.me>
Injection-Info: reader2.panix.com; posting-host="panix2.panix.com:166.84.1.2";
	logging-data="10424"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@panix.com"
Bytes: 2562

Cryptoengineer  <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>No matter what their PR may tell you, the fiduciary duty of
>the officers in every public corporations is the same: "Maximize
>shareholder return on investment". NOT "Serve our customers". If
>they fail to do so at every opportunity, they can be sued.
>
>Particularly when their customers are individuals, there is an
>enormous disparity in agency and power, and corporations will
>use their power to ride roughshod over people, and every year
>it looks like they have fewer ethics and less of a conscience.
>
>I'd love to find a solution which rebalanced this.

The conservative answer is that competition in the marketplace
prevents this from happening, because in a competitive environment
customers who are poorly served go to a competing company and 
this is bad for shareholder return.

This is mostly true, but because it's mostly true, large corporations
will do anything possible to stifle competition.  The problem is
that the government in the post-Reagan era tends to let them, and
we have had a number of margers of huge corporations to the point
where many industries are dominated by one large company and 
competition has disappeared.

I would say, and more conservative people might disagree, that another
part of the problem is that directors of corporations are very 
interested in the immediate and short-term shareholder value with 
no interest in the long-term effects of their actions.  This is
because their income is often directly tied to short-term shareholder
value and what happens to the stock in ten years means nothing to them
because they won't be around then.  This seems to me to be almost
entirely the fault of the corporations themselves which set 
remuneration standards that way.
--scott
-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."