Quote (AspenSniper @ Jun 12 2017 07:55am)
Blame the government, not the corporations. A business's #1 goal is to create growth and profit for their shareholders. It is the government who is supposed to look after its people and ensure businesses don't do anything to harm their people, which includes allowing businesses to function and make money to generate tax revenue, etc.
Corporations will drink the alcohol that the government pours. No alcohol to drink, no alcohol to spill, so to speak. I could give hundreds of examples, but here are a few:
1. The US permits Enron to use Mark to Market accounting, which allows them to book future revenue today and report it to their shareholders before it's in the bank. You'll see similar types used today such as VSOE among others, but Mark to Market is essentially what allowed the Enron scheme to ramble on for 2-3 years longer than it should have.
2. The US permits banks to put relatively unsafe low credit score mortgage loans into double and triple A rated bonds, far different than the ones in the 1980s and 1990s. Then, they allow these banks to overleverage to the point that if loans default, they'll never be able to pay them back. THEN they allow AIG to insure these for far beyond what AIG would be willing to pay back in the event of a crisis. Thus, 2008 happened.
3. The Icelandic government permits Glitnir Bank (now Íslandsbanki I think) and Kaupthing Bank and others to overextend themselves far beyond the cash cow they were already, similar to what happened in the US in some ways, resulting in the 2008 crisis.
Again, you can blame the corporations/banks if you really want to I guess, but it isn't fair in my opinion. Banks and businesses will find loopholes if they exist, and go as far to the edge of laws as they can. The government has to create these "cliffs" that businesses cannot go beyond.
tl;dr - don't blame the corporation, blame the government who allowed them to operate that way, knowingly.
Defrauding investors and continuing a zero sum game to line up your pockets , you can't just stay there's no blame for them.
The sheer fact nobody was prosecuted for the fraud committed that lead to the 2008 crash is just so depressing.
Also when these corporations have former CEO's become Secretary of the Treasury , how can you expect the government to protect its citizens.
It's just so depressing that a very small amount of people are responsible for billions of dollars and by extension untold damage that causes to the population resulting in higher suicide rates and lives being torn apart just from the risk taking of a small group and crippling the entire world economy.
But our government not only bailed out the banks while the common citizen gets fucked and instead of the people who caused the crisis being prosecuted for fraud , they get bonuses and cash out when they basically were responsible for economic ruin and even death.