Corporate Innovation

One of the Facebook characters stated that Corporations are the source of all innovation and job creation.

After I finished choking I tried to explain succinctly and politely that corporations are responsible for stifling innovation and shipping jobs over seas where they don't have to pay workers a living wage.

The sad part was the joker attacked the president and then declined further discussion under the label of inappropriate venue.

Well this is an appropriate venue and I offer up my thoughts with the understanding anyone may respond as long as they are polite. Facts will be checked and bullshit called.

My particular point is that corporations were created to hide owners and concentrate wealth. They were not created, nor do they, innovate or create jobs. Most corporations consolidate actual production jobs (production as opposed to overhead or non-production labor) to minimize their direct costs. Overhead can be amortized over quantity but direct costs accrue proportionately with production, because they add value (ie create wealth).

Here are real facts on innovation.

Nikola Tesla, an immigrant from Serbia, invented the modern electrical distribution system, fluorescent lights and radio. These are true facts. Look up the patents. He was paid 25,000 by Westinghouse for the patents on the generators, transformers, switches, and distribution system he designed and then he built the first generation plant at Niagara Falls.

George Westinghouse provided cash. And made BILLIONS. Without Nikola Tesla's genius we'd have no power grid, no aluminum manufacturing operations, no airlines, spaceflight, and pretty much anything that requires large quantities of electrical energy. (Semi conductors....) And we might have more air pollution because of inefficient coal usage.

One example.

PCs are another. IBM had no interest in small computers until Apple founders Jobs and Wozniak started selling computers to persons. Then they decided to peddle to their corporate market. IBM and Microsoft, as corporate partners, stifled the growth of the personal computer for years. Windows was/is a poor copy of Apple's OS. Innovation stifled. Oh and Apple as a corporation doesn't want anyone to play with their toys... another stifler.

So where are the examples of corporate innovation? Well when I worked for Scott Fetzer in the early 80's we manufactured electric motors in Watertown NY. The workers in the factory were mostly women (because they worked for less) and the management wanted to cut direct costs so they opened a plant in Mexico where instead of $8 an hour they paid the workers $8 a day. Instead of using high end manufacturing techniques and training the workforce to operate robotic equipment they just found people they could hire for less money to do things the old way.

Innovation.

Those are the facts. Corporations don't want to create wealth for individuals. They want to create wealth for themselves, with no moral compunctions otherwise. Corporations need to be regulated and tightly controlled because they have no human values. They only consider profit and that doesn't support human society. We saw how they manipulated the economy when no one was watching them. They bled the economy until it nearly collapsed.

I could go on but I really am tired. It would be nice if we the people, conservative and otherwise, could have a civilized and intelligent discussion. We might find that the real villains are the ones trying to tell us what a good job they're doing fixing the mess they made.

An Anonymous Response

I'm always over joyed when someone reads and comments on my thoughts. But being the madman that I am I have to respond, especially when I don't think my point came across the first time (based on the comment under greedism which I'll the reader peruse at their pleasure).

Here is my response to my reader:

Dear Anonymous...

The point behind the title of the post (Greedism) is that buzzwords don't describe what's going on.

Capitalism is a useful technique, if used morally, to nurture and develop a technically advanced economy.

Capitolism (ed. note spelling from comment), which could be defined as a mindless allegiance to dogma spouted by neo_fascists has used to justify laws violating the constitution, and the very nature of our freedoms. Need to be careful there.

What we need isn't more laws, but more morality. BP acted immorally endangering their employees as well as the ecosystem of the Gulf despite direct and correct advisement by technical experts. Their management should be put on a Texas chain gang and left to clean up the coast by hand, the assets of the company sold off to offset the costs of closing the well and the whole business of risky oil wells considered too dangerous to pursue.

We'd get as far with Wave generators and hydrogen manufacturing plants. But that's the subject of another rant.

The purpose of this rebuttal is to question the gut reaction (make laws) and suggest alternative actions (dismantle the company and punish the guilty).

Just some thoughts.

Greedism

Mankind creates society to support greed.

There I said it. We want to believe in human kindness and the basic Godness in all of us but that's crap. Society is/was and apparently always will be a support structure for greedy self serving bastards.

Capitalism is an economic philosophy that says it takes money to make money. Concentrated wealth or capital, when used to fund means of production or distribution, not only gathers wealth to itself but shares it with all participants.

Sounds altruistic huh?

After all it's MY money, why give it to anyone else? Isn't that what the bankers on Wall street say? They keep their money, grab ours from the government and from our wallets, and then insist we give them MORE money in interest to return OUR money. Got it. Greed works.

Is there a magic word to end this? Is there a man (read politician) strong enough to end this unfair siege? Nope. We are in a spider's web. Thrash all you want and all you get is further entangled.

The only way out of the spider's web is to step carefully where the spider steps.

That's what I love about the recent spate of 'walk aways' : people who can afford to pay their mortgages but don't see the economic sense in paying for a property that no longer has recoverable value.

The banks hate this. They claim the people are dishonoring their financial obligations.

The people say, 'It's just business.'

Yeah.

The New World

I love facebook. It has allowed me to reconnect with people I haven't seen in forty years. Absolutely wonderful.

Except when they start posting hate propaganda like we're not real Americans if we don't sign up to keep the foreigners out of our country.

Wait a minute. Five hundred years ago some freeloaders showed up on the beach, pitched tents and started looking for gold. When they got hungry and couldn't support themselves they turned to the local government and its citizens to feed them and help them survive the winters.

Who were these bums? We call them the pilgrims and the founding fathers of our nation. We celebrate their welfare dinner every year at thanksgiving.

So yeah, the uncontrolled migration of people is hard on our society. The working poor are always a better target for the anger of the disenfranchised than the greedy bankers who are manipulating us, but shouldn't we act like Real Americans and share our bounty with the less fortunate, using the Wampanoag's generosity as our guide?

Economic History

What is historically good for us is not historically good for all.

Consider the Native Americans for example. The Europeans came to their country (I'm thinking this the day after our traditional feast celebrating the saviour of the early immigrants by the native population) and proceeded to teach a wealthy and successful people that they were worthless and impoverished. A lesson that the descendants of these peoples, those allowed to live, are still struggling against.

The native Americans had a successful economy based on husbandry, craft, trade, communal living and political strength derived from their ability to make war as they needed to. The Europeans brought fruits of technology that the AmerIndians had lived without and took what they couldn't trade for.

This decade's debacle in trying to Americanize Iraq is another example of why we shouldnot interfere with the economic and political lives of others.

Economics is based on the confluence of a society's morality and its material needs. History shows us that economic policy will naturally tend to support those who are best able to influence the laws governing economic activity. In general this is done to the advantage of the few over the good of the many.

The Constitution appears to be written with the fundamental idea that American economic policy should support the welfare of the people of the United States. In fact the only people well supported by the economics of the last fifty years are the amoral corporations. With no obligation other than to show growing profitability (which is ludicrous in itself) these companies have moved a majority of our production to other countries. How does this benefit the US?

The reality is that since we no longer produce, we no longer increase our personal wealth through our own labor. Wealth instead is produced by others, like the chinese workers in their sweatshops. If we own the means to import and distribute we can transfer their wealth to our own accounts, otherwise we rely on the redistribution of wealth from those who have it to ourselves.

That doesn't imply socialism but is the nature of a service based economy. Without a means of production we are servants of the ones who do have such a means.