1. "#OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations." It goes on: "The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future."
2. Our current capital markets are structured around a dangerous lie -- that the sole function of the corporation is to return value to shareholders. Under this construct, every action undertaken by Wall Street traders, mortgage brokers and the rest make perfect sense and are morally unambiguous. It was their job to sell as much as they could, to grab as much value as possible, in order to return that value to shareholders. So long as shareholder-value-maximization remains our governing principle, no change in regulations will change the fundamental behavior. Executives are simply acting according to their incentives.
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/09/what-occupy-wall-street-got-right/?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29
5 comments:
"So long as shareholder-value-maximization remains our governing principle, no change in regulations will change the fundamental behavior. Executives are simply acting according to their incentives."
So how would an individual behave if he uses the governing principle of shareholder-value-maximization?
In this case, the individual is now also the corporation. So the principle would be individual-value-maximization.
Old fashioned English calls this being selfish.
Singapore English calls this "you-die-your-business"
Political rhetoric calls it "The world does not owe you a living".
Psychologists call it "sociopathic" or "psychopathic" behaviour.
Noun 1. sociopathic personality - a personality disorder characterized by amorality and lack of affect;
capable of violent acts without guilt feelings (`psychopathic personality' was once widely used but was superseded by `sociopathic personality' to indicate the social aspects of the disorder, but now `antisocial personality disorder' is the preferred term)
Source:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sociopathic+personality
Compare with;
Straits Times, 10 November 2011, Page A4, "Hawker to Get her Full Jackpot Winnings after all"
The hawker, Ms Choo, wants to give half of winnings to charity straight away. And use the other half for charity work too, though she yet make firm plans.
I have a dream.
That all politicians should love the people they want to lead.
And if you don't love people.
Please, don't be a politician.
Is this asking too much?
Mr.Tan, after deregulation the banks today are not the banks yesterday in the sense that in the past, the banks do not engage in risky activities and can rely on the central bank as bank of last resort. Now each account is only guaranteed $50,000 and I am not sure how strong is the guarantee when you can get guarantor like AIG needing bail out.
So what else can one do other than open as many bank accounts as one can with different banks in the hope that they don't all failed at the same time plus getting the $50,000 guarantee per bank.
What would be your advice? Placing money in mattresses like in the good old day?
The problem that makes ordinary people angry in those countries is becoz the banks and more specifically the CEOs, CFOs, the prop traders etc were not let to fail (and are still not being let to fail). While the ordinary people are being let to fail i.e. job loss. While much of the previous excess which led to the financial crisis was perpetuated by big banks and also politicians (thru vote buying, donations to re-elections etc), and to a smaller extent the greed of ordinary people lulled into false sense of prosperity by the big banks themselves.
If the western govts had allowed the big banks to fail, let the CEOs, CFOs, prop traders etc go bankrupt, lose their jobs, prosecute some of these people, send them to jail etc. Then the anger won't be so prevalent and won't be so justified. The western govts should have used the money not to bailout the banks and the people who largely caused the problem in the first place, but instead should have used the money to nationalise the banks and backstop the peoples deposits. Allow the banking functions to carry on, but let the original people and companies go bust. Now the bailed out banks simply keep the money and use it to pay themselves bigger bonuses and to gamble in prop trading, HFT and dark pools.
Al the FIs want to maximise the shareholders' interest and the ceos. Even the insurance companies. Even ntuc ceo.
That is the problem everyone is robbing the man in the street to fill their own pockets.
If they make more profit, they have to pay more tax. The Government use the tax money for the good of general public.
The problem is the Government unable to raise the tax rate and has to dish out more goodies for these companies to stay.
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