Corporate Responsibility or Lack Thereof

September 26, 2008 by Curt Siters

When I get the chance I listen to Tom Hartman on Air America Radio. Granted he is liberal, however, he knows the history of America and its politics. One thing I have never heard happen on his radio show is him losing his temper (he gets frustrated occasionally), he is always polite with his guests and doesn’t slight them - even after they are off the air. I can’t tell you how many times he has taken a caller after the guest is gone and refused to talk about the persons personality and such.

One of the things he talks about oftentimes is corporate responsibility. A corporations' only job is to make money for the shareholders. However, they are allowed to exist, legally, because they are to act for the common and contribute to the common good. Listen.

It is the governments job to oversee this and, if necessary in extreme cases, revoke the status of the corporation.

I don’t feel that our government has been doing a good job in this respect - whether it is a republican or democrat controlled government. They just both fail.

Currently the U.S. is in the throes of a financial meltdown with the potential to make the Great Depression look like a walk in the park.

I am no guru when it comes to the financial markets or on the federal government having only seriously started following in the last few years. My interest started when President Bush was making his case for going to war with Iraq. I didn’t think it was a good idea. When the war started dragging on and the costs started rising I immediately became extremely concerned.

How was this war going to be paid for - I doubted that we would see anything out of Iraq for a long time - if forever.

I started studying a little known technique for analyzing the markets and listening/reading the experts in this technique and almost immediately saw that there was a crisis looming.

One of the things I’ve noticed (at least since the 1970’s) was the increasing number of corporate bailouts. Not being privy to all the details, it seems to me to be only the largest corporations that get bailed out because of the larger number of people they employ and deal with.

In todays’ economy (meaning the last six months or so) an entire industry is beginning to crumble and the federal government is crumbling with it. Why is the government crumbling? Because as a nation we have overextended our financial resources - in both the public and private sectors. If the U.S. falls financially the rest of the world will soon follow because the world depends heavily upon the U.S. as the [bold] major economic engine of the planet.

Just as a side note: economics wasn’t a discipline until around 1900 when economics started being taught as a degree major in the universities of America.

I don’t have a problem with helping an industry - one that I think really needs help is the green energy industry and one I don’t think needs help is the fossil fuel industry.

I do have a problem with rewarding an industry for shady practices. I think that the people who are customers of the financial industry need the help. They use the industry based upon what businesses tell them. After all those businesses are the experts. Most citizens cannot understand what goes on when everything is done legally and safely let alone when these companies start doing shady things.

I would propose a better solution.

I would suggest that each industry sets up a fund - overseen by the one member from each nationally recognized political party - into which they put a portion of their revenues. For example: if they have more than 10% market share they give 1% of ther revenues to this fund. If they have more than 1% but less than 10% they give 0.1%. If they have less than 1% they give 0.01%. This would provide a fund to help stabilize an industry when things get rocky like they are now. This would also take the burden off the taxpayers and the government.

A second pert of this would be something similar for the consumer but would be used to help protect the consumer should an industry become unhealthy due to mal-practice of one or more businesses in that industry. Again it would take the burden off of the taxpayers and the government.

This would provide an incentive for industries to police themselves and make sure everything is as it should be.

However, as it stands, companies and the people who run them seem to feel (and sometimes it feels like it) they are above the law.

If you find yourself in a situation where you feel you have been mal treated by a company there are things you can do. There are laws in place. Sometimes you just need an attorney on your side.