<<FYI, I am not a socialist, but your point has validity in the sense that I want to laws to be guided by enviromental and societal needs as opposed to earnings per share, stock options and CEO pay.>>
Respectfully, I would recommend you reread your basic economics texts. Those earnings per share, stock options and CEO pay are all contingent upon one thing: profit. A company that does not offer the goods or services that the public wants, does not succeed. Profit is the direct measure of a company's performance in offering the public what it wants. The public benefit derived by corporate profit far outweighs the relatively small outlays for CEO pay, which is the typical shallow indicator of the "gap between rich and poor." What all wealth haters universally fail to account for is the direct and indirect public good generated in terms of wealth and employment. By proceeding from a very simple starting point of individual self interest, both parties to a transaction benefit. The market works multiple times more efficiently at providing for the "public good" than any governmental agency ever could or ever has. The idea that governmental institutions can provide goods and services more efficiently than private interest is just plain wrong. Economists even have a law for governmental waste, Director's Law of Bureaucratic Displacement. I would rather have a CEO who has to worry about his wallet than have a bureacrat who has the ultimate in job security and who knows if the enterprise is failing, he can shore it up with more Congressional funding ad nauseum. Funding which, of course, comes from my pocket. Sort of like double paying, hmm? |
