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Post by millring on Feb 14, 2016 19:25:10 GMT -5
...and they don't have to operate in that way in order to be determining what is in the corporation's best interest. They don't have to poll their employees OR their stock holders to determine whether a political issue is going to affect their business interests. Unions don't either. Of course they don't have to operate that way in order to determine the corporation's best interest. They already know, because they're smarter and work harder than the rest of us. If they weren't smarter or worked harder, they wouldn't be the elite in charge of the corporation, now would they? QED. Duh. That isn't even remotely what I meant. Not even close. No, they don't necessarily work harder. For one thing, the point I was making re: corporate knowing better was that corporate knows it's business better than the government that has the power to regulate it. I wasn't trying to make some point that the white collar workers knew better than the blue collar workers. That wasn't even part of the discussion. They may not be smarter -- that's not even the point. They do know their business, though. Presumably that's how they came to be in a position to run the business they are in charge of. Therefore, they are acutely aware of how a new government regulation, tax, or restriction will affect that business. As such, they feel it is in the corporation's best interest to try to influence the government that has so much power over their financial destiny. It's not the blue collar workers they know better than. It's not even the stock holders they know better than -- though dollars to donuts says they do know their own businesses better than a stockholder who may only be vaguely aware of his ownership of stock as part of a mutual fund or package directed by his retirement planner. Your snark is in the wrong discussion.
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Post by dradtke on Feb 14, 2016 19:27:05 GMT -5
They do know their business, though. Presumably that's how they came to be in a position to run the business they are in charge of. Anybody who believes that has never worked in a large corporation.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Feb 15, 2016 13:17:07 GMT -5
You guys may have already seen this. It’s Saint Ronald on bipartisan constitutional obligations. Kennedy was, of course, nominated and approved during Reagan’s last year.
It’s a shame that our constitution has changed since then.
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Post by Doug on Feb 15, 2016 13:33:45 GMT -5
I agree that Obama should nominate someone, that's his job. It's the Senate's job to approve the nominee and many nominees don't get the job or spend a long time in the approval process. Both Obama and the Senate should do their jobs.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Feb 15, 2016 13:39:23 GMT -5
Some nominees are rejected for good reason, others for less than noble reasons. I think the longest approval ever was 140 or 170 days, about half the time Obama still has left in office.
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Post by Doug on Feb 15, 2016 13:52:02 GMT -5
Some nominees are rejected for good reason, others for less than noble reasons. I think the longest approval ever was 140 or 170 days, about half the time Obama still has left in office. What ever reasons it's the Senate's call. And some nominees are nominated for good reason and some for less noble reasons. Presidents have litmus test for nominees and the Senate has litmus test for approval. Education wise Cruz would make a good nominee but you wouldn't expect Obama to nominate him.
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Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 20,023
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Post by Dub on Feb 15, 2016 14:05:14 GMT -5
In a company like Jeff's, management absoutely knows the product, how best to make it and market it, and how to be profitable. In large corporations that kind of intimate product and industry knowledge is becoming harder to find. Gone are the executives who spent their lives at the company, started as stock boys, went to college and added management knowhow to their knowledge of the industry, the company, and the product. At some point we deluded ourselves into thinking that “management” was a scientific field so special that it's practioners could manage anything without having to know what was inside the target of their management. So “personnel” became “human resources” and now has devolved into “FTEs.”
I remember working at Rauland Corp. In 1963-’64 as a night shift supervisor in the mask and frame area. They made all the TV picture tubes for Zenith at the time. They had built a brand new plant for color TV tubes, the huge round ones that were all there were back then. The whole plant had been designed to run at 120 units per hour. But right in the middle of my department was a steam oxidizing oven that was a batch process rather than a conveyor process. The company that built it, together with the local metallurgical engineers, had been unable to get more than 40 units an hour through that oven and often had the whole plant waiting for mask-frame assemblies. My assistant and I theorized a way to solve the problem and got permission to try it out one night. In the morning my boss asked the engineers to check out some parts for us. They were very excited because it was the best oxide coating they'd seen. They wondered if we'd done anything different with them. When they discovered that we'd processed 120 sets of parts in a single hour and could keep that rate going 24/7 they were embarrassed, and pissed, and I was soon transferred to a menial line job in the black & white plant with a big pay cut. But they kept using my new process. That was my first encounter with corporate management and politics.
The larger the corporation, the smaller chance there is of executive management having any clue about the product or what is needed to mak it. But they have great hair.
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 15, 2016 14:08:00 GMT -5
They do know their business, though. Presumably that's how they came to be in a position to run the business they are in charge of. Anybody who believes that has never worked in a large corporation. That's just bullshit (having worked for some of the largest corporations in the world).
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Post by fauxmaha on Feb 15, 2016 15:52:02 GMT -5
I'm not even sure what's being discussed anymore.
Are some managers idiots? Yes.
Am I an idiot? Frequently.
Beyond those basic truths, what is under contention here?
I'm particularly interested in the inference that seems to be present that if "we" decide that "they" are managing their business "incorrectly", that opens the door for us to step in and do it for them.
Boil this all down to the bottom of the pot, and you either believe in private property or you don't. We've spent the better part of 100 years as a nation trying to finesse socialism into Enlightenment concepts of liberty, and it can never work. We have created cathedrals of twisted logic trying to convince ourselves that black is white, but all that has gotten us is legal dissonance.
You either declare that the State, with force, can, will and should co-opt all property, or you accept liberty. It really is a bright line.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Feb 15, 2016 16:32:12 GMT -5
I’m not so sure you’re not imagining the implications of other posts just so you can argue against them, but I’d agree with your conclusion. Of course business leaders are the best qualified to understand their own best interests.
My point, and I know you weren’t addressing my point, is who cares? Advocating for your business should not be a fundamental part of the democratic process. You can do it. I would expect no less. And I would hope that you would cast your vote in the best interest of your business, your family, your religion, and all your other personal interests. That’s what we all ought to do. And then it should stop right there. You get your vote and I get mine.
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 15, 2016 16:36:18 GMT -5
Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, you're preaching to a deaf choir.
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Post by fauxmaha on Feb 15, 2016 16:49:19 GMT -5
If a business decides that it is in their best interest to run $100 million worth of ads saying "Bernie Sanders Eats Worms", what moral authority could stand in their way?
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Post by Doug on Feb 15, 2016 16:49:54 GMT -5
I’m not so sure you’re not imagining the implications of other posts just so you can argue against them, but I’d agree with your conclusion. Of course business leaders are the best qualified to understand their own best interests. My point, and I know you weren’t addressing my point, is who cares? Advocating for your business should not be a fundamental part of the democratic process. You can do it. I would expect no less. And I would hope that you would cast your vote in the best interest of your business, your family, your religion, and all your other personal interests. That’s what we all ought to do. And then it should stop right there. You get your vote and I get mine. Back to the speech thing you were talking about somewhere earlier. It's fine for Jeff (example) to communicate with you (example) here to try to get you to vote for those things that are the best interest of ..........
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 15, 2016 16:51:55 GMT -5
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Post by Fingerplucked on Feb 15, 2016 16:53:37 GMT -5
If a business decides that it is in their best interest to run $100 million worth of ads saying "Bernie Sanders Eats Worms", what moral authority could stand in their way? Vegans.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Feb 15, 2016 16:58:46 GMT -5
I’m not so sure you’re not imagining the implications of other posts just so you can argue against them, but I’d agree with your conclusion. Of course business leaders are the best qualified to understand their own best interests. My point, and I know you weren’t addressing my point, is who cares? Advocating for your business should not be a fundamental part of the democratic process. You can do it. I would expect no less. And I would hope that you would cast your vote in the best interest of your business, your family, your religion, and all your other personal interests. That’s what we all ought to do. And then it should stop right there. You get your vote and I get mine. Back to the speech thing you were talking about somewhere earlier. It's fine for Jeff (example) to communicate with you (example) here to try to get you to vote for those things that are the best interest of .......... I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make. That it’s okay for Jeff to try to persuade me on the Soundhole to vote for the guy who will make us all buy more binders? I’m okay with that. That it’s okay for Jeff to use every legal method at his disposal to advocate for his business, including running political ads? From a constitutional/ free speech standpoint, I’m okay with that too. That Jeff’s extreme wealth (generated not by his binder business, but by his huge dick), should be used to corrupt the democratic process? That I object to. Note that the last two are the same thing, but looked at from a different perspective.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 15, 2016 17:07:07 GMT -5
Bright-line thinking gets you Scalia. Bright lines are useful for outlining structures where either-or logic is reinforced by reality: door and window frames, ditched roads, curbs. It's not quite as useful for situations where multiple structures intersect or overlap, where there are more than two possible solutions to an equation, where there are multiple parties with justifiable but conflicting interests. We construct models wherein some bright lines are asserted despite the possibility of ambiguity--most often the ones we label "life or death." And even then, there are hard cases, which, as the saying points out, can make bad law. Citizens United, for example, which applied some principles that work pretty well with organic human beings to social-legal constructs that were originally designed on an as-if basis in order to address specific problems in an economic-legal system. To put it another way, corporate personhood is metaphorical, with some aspects of the metaphor treated by the legal system as if they were literally true. But literalizing the entire metaphor leads to all kinds of mischief.
As far as that either-or assertion about the state and property goes--nice try, but saying it loud don't make it true.
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Post by fauxmaha on Feb 15, 2016 17:11:34 GMT -5
I’m not so sure you’re not imagining the implications of other posts just so you can argue against them, but I’d agree with your conclusion. Of course business leaders are the best qualified to understand their own best interests. My point, and I know you weren’t addressing my point, is who cares? Advocating for your business should not be a fundamental part of the democratic process. You can do it. I would expect no less. And I would hope that you would cast your vote in the best interest of your business, your family, your religion, and all your other personal interests. That’s what we all ought to do. And then it should stop right there. You get your vote and I get mine. Back to the speech thing you were talking about somewhere earlier. It's fine for Jeff (example) to communicate with you (example) here to try to get you to vote for those things that are the best interest of .......... And it's also fine for Jeff to get together with ten (or 6 million) other people, pool their money, and promulgate whatever communication we want. There is no place to draw the line. Phrases like "corrupt the democratic process" have no meaning. It is literally without content. All it is is an expression of naked force: "We" declare that "you" are "corrupting the democratic process", therefore "we" will censor you.
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Post by fauxmaha on Feb 15, 2016 17:14:17 GMT -5
Here's a useful way to visualize it.
Ask yourself which corporations, specifically (I mean go ahead and name names) you would censor.
Now ask yourself how you differentiate that corporation from the New York Times...which is itself a corporation.
"Freedom of the press" means nothing if the government gets to decide who is "the press".
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 15, 2016 17:18:11 GMT -5
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