visagrunt wrote:
marshall wrote:
Progressives don't demonize professionals or ordinary investors. They demonize bankers and CEO's.
I beg to differ. There is a strong progressive argument that views institutional investors and investment professionals as the driving force behind the excesses of Wall Street. Pension and Mutual fund managers are looking for a quick turnaround, and are driving directors and CEOs to look at nothing beyond share price; and to look no further ahead than the next quarter. Rip out the profits and bugger the future--that's the institutional investment model.
Okay, that's a very specific type of "professional".
Quote:
GGPViper wrote:
So they pick on some of the people most responsible for generating economic prosperity and growth?
Bankers create no growth and no prosperity. They provide the means whereby goods and services are exchanged, but they produce nothing beyond the services that they provide.
I think he meant in an indirect way. In the end it's a semantic argument.
Quote:
And CEOs rarely produce anything either. They manage production that actually occurs in the hands of people that manufacture the good or deliver the service. There are exceptions--certainly in the IT sector, many CEOs are directly responsible for innovation.
But do not be deceived into believing that managing production is the same thing as producing.
Again it's a meaningless semantic argument. CEO's and managers are an integral part of the business model without which there wouldn't be any production.
The issue people have is when management targets cost-cutting to improve profits over expansion and hiring. That particular issue is more of a systemic problem than a legitimate reason to demonize IMO, but it's hard not to take it personally when actual lives are ruined through these changes. The real thing they are demonized for is spending money to influence politicians and push for tax breaks, de-unionization laws, free-trade agreements, deregulation, and other favors at the expense of the interests of workers and consumers. That is the crap that has to stop before someone gets their head chopped off.
01 Nov 2012, 11:57 pm
