“None other than Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, has called shareholder-value ideology ” the dumbest idea in the world.” Yet business executives still pretend that maximizing shareholder value is their primary fiduciary obligation, which is nonsense except in few restricted cases, such as when a company is going to be sold.“
Value… What is that?!? Does it exist on its own?
Something must exist if anybody is to extract it, right? If that something may be created, then it would be a no brainer to make some before attempting to extract it… if you want to be involved in a sustainable process, right?
How do you make value? How does anybody establish that something is valuable in the first place?
– I declare this to be valuable. – Who owns it? – I do. – How much do you want for it? – xxx – OK
That ‘this’ had became ‘valuable’ only when ‘OK’. Before its value had been agreed upon, it being valuable was on the declarative level only. ‘Virtual’ versus ‘real’.
Only after two interested parties had negotiated about and agreed upon the value of something the value of that something has become established.
As an engineer, as down to Earth as it gets, I tend to agree with Jack Welch. A company should be managed as a long term project. It needs to satisfy the natural interests of the investors – profit – in a sustainable manner. Providing something useful to both parties involved. A useful ‘thing’ to the buyers and a satisfying profit to the investors. While creating little to no damage to the ‘environment’ in order to remain acceptable to those living on the same planet…
But who am I to judge… even if I have the blessing of Jack Welch… Who am I to tell anybody – any investor and/or any manager – how to run their business?!?
– Are they blind? Don’t they see this economic model doesn’t work?
Hm… “Share holder value is a result, not a strategy”, remember? Same with ‘inequality’. Let’s focus on sustainability. On the process. And notice that the process sputters! As a consequence of our own decisions!
We have told/allowed the investors and the managers to run the business – not their businesses, the entire business environment – in the current manner. And we are the ones bearing the brunt. Having to deal with, among other things, the current level of inequality. We, our decisions, have produced the current situation. Inequality is but one of the consequences. One, among many, of the consequences engendered by our own weltanschauung.
“And what’s in it for us, ordinary people?” My 90 years old father, commenting the news just running on TV
Nothing but what we can make of it.
The Earth was circling the Sun since the very beginning. Way before Bruno ‘discovered’ the phenomenon. Again… The egg was sending ‘chemical signals’ since … who knows when. We, all of us, have been born without any knowledge on this matter.
Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake. He wasn’t the only one to face the consequences of his discovery. The lives of everybody else have been changed by his discovery. And the way we understand the world! Sooner or later, somebody will find a way to use the information about ‘how the egg works’. To make some money out of it, to help people… or even to make an ‘ideological point’. “Yet another male dominated fantasy about the creation of life…”
So, Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake as a consequence of his discovery?!?
Nope! Bruno was burnt at the stake as a consequence of what we, the people, have made of his work. Well, not exactly us but our ancestors. And not exactly we, the ordinary people, as the ‘bright minds of the day’. They had to be bright since ‘they’ were the ones running the show, right?!?
OK, so ‘those who know how to weave a story are those who order around those who know the facts’. According to Yuval Noah Harari. And, again, what’s in it for us?
Nothing but what we can make of it.
For as long as we’ll continue to chase power, ‘political power’, things will continue as they were. As we’ve conditioned ourselves to expect them to be.
But, hopefully, when the next Giordano Bruno will tell us things can be spun the other way around, we’ll know better than to burn him at the stake. Alive. Again!
Power can be exercised in many ways! The more sustainable of which being in favor of the general public. ‘For the long term benefit of the self aware social organism’ instead of ‘for how the public has been led to believe by the spin doctors’.
When will we be able to figure this out? When those who know how things work will spill the beans out-front instead of choosing whose arse to lick. After all, the egg encourages the most suitable sperm, not the most enchanting one…
The way I see it, capitalism is an environment. A ‘place’. A ‘way’ for people to do ‘economy’. What people do in that place depends on the place itself but also on how they choose to do things. This being the reason for which the American capitalism is different from the European one. And both completely different from the Chinese version. In this sense, capitalism doesn’t actually work. Not by itself! If those dwelling in this ‘place’ act freely – as in ‘free market’ – then the whole ‘thing’ remains ‘sustainable’. Not ‘good for everybody’, not always ‘nice’ but nevertheless ‘fair’. As in ‘you have a fair chance of reaching the other end’. Not to get necessarily rich but to make the ends meet!
The alternative to capitalism… if you take your ideological blinders off, you notice that there’s none! Socialist/communist countries are/were also capitalist. The difference being that their economies are/were centrally planned. Their markets are/were anything but free! This being the reason for which communism had crumbled under its own weight. And for which in all places where the market is not free enough the ‘thing’ is not sustainable!
Good Old Politics used to be about identifying the common ground. And making it wide enough to harbor the foundation for a stable – as in ‘sustainable’, future. A future where ‘everybody’ could claim a place. As in ‘fulfilling the American Dream’.
Nowadays, politics is about identifying the most effective way to pull the rug from your opponents’ feet.
How wise is this?
How sustainable is it?
We learn from Michelle Obama’s book – Becoming, 2018, that her father, a blue collar worker, was the only breadwinner who provided for the family. A family of four, leading a decent life in a decent home. Who was earning enough to send both kids to school. Is this still possible today? In America? The Land of Opportunity?
Trump got elected after a huge number of well paying blue collar jobs had been exported. After wealth disparity had become ridiculous.
What convinced so many people into believing that Trump, the billionaire, was the answer to their plight?
Historian Nancy MacClean has just published “Democracy in Chains”, a book in which she looks at a group of ultra free-market thinkers who have been working to change the government systems of the United States since the 1950s. While Donald Trump was not part of their plan, MacLean says “there is no way Donald Trump would be in the White House were it not for their strategy”, which includes gerrymandering and taking control of the judiciary. She joined us for Perspective to tell us more.
No, this is not yet another post about Trump. This is about Political Science.
You see, physics and chemistry are hugely important sciences. Physics has taught us how to build planes. And atomic bombs. Chemistry how to make life saving drugs. And deadly explosives.
And so on. Science is nothing but a formalized method of gathering consistent information. What we subsequently do with the technology built around the above mentioned ‘consistent information’ is something else. It no longer depends on ‘science’.
It solely depends on us. On what plans we have for the future. On how we – the ‘meaningful’ amongst us, to be more precise – chose to use the above mentioned stash of ‘consistent information’.
Nowadays we’re toying with even more powerful tools. Tools which are able to turn back the flow of history. To make a joke out of the fabled ‘checks and balances’.
The H bomb is such a blunt tool that nobody in their right mind would ever consider using.
Tools made possible by political science are way more insidious. So insidious that most of those who wield them ignore the true amount of fallout their actions will unleash.
Compromise – give some to get some, is debatable to start with. But, ultimately, workable. History is full of successful examples. Kompromat is nothing but mutually assured destruction. MAD. Made worse by its trivial appearance.
By engaging in compromise, you give hope a chance. The other has a scope. For as long as negotiation is going on earnestly, both sides have a fair chance of getting out alive. By engaging in Kompromat, the aggressor actually sends the message: ‘I’ll stop only over your dead body’.
Sustainable?!? Are you kidding me?
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As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
As much as I love writing, I do have to eat. And to provide for my family. Earning money takes time. If you’d like me to write more, and on a more regular basis, hit the button. Your contribution will be appreciated!
So.
A bunch of ‘well intended people’ had somehow laid their hands on a ‘trove of personal data’ and used it, commercially, to influence electoral processes.
The data was gathered by ‘creatively’ exploiting the ‘opportunities’ put in place by the very existence of Facebook and by the manner in which so many people chose to use the said ‘social network’.
And most of us blame it on ‘Zuckerberg’.
OK, I can understand the psychology of all this.
I can also understand those who put the entire blame on anybody but ‘Zuckerberg’…
Or those who, through their daily decisions, had created the premises for so many people to convince themselves that Trump was good enough for President and that it would better for Britain to ‘leave’?
Yeah, it’s only normal to blame others for our own mistakes.
But how sustainable is it?
I was speaking recently about the ‘disposable income’ generating economic growth.
Now you tell me how sustainable is this situation.
No, I’m not concerned about the morality of it or other highfalutin ideals.
What I’m concerned with is what is going to happen with the properties that won’t be able to find a tenant.
nicichiarasa 