"This Selfish Ayn Rand Business Philosophy Is Ruining The US Economy"

[applegrove]

This Selfish Ayn Rand Business Philosophy Is Ruining The US Economy

by Henry Blodget at Business Insider

http://www.businessinsider.com/ayn-rand-is-ruining-the-american-economy-2013-9

"SNIP......................................


This argument is the logical extension of an argument that many American entrepreneurs and investors make, which is that they are the country's "job creators" and therefore deserve almost all of the country's income and wealth. These "job creators," this argument goes, should pay their employees as little as possible and keep every penny of profit for themselves. After all, they deserve it: They're the ones who "create" the jobs that sustain the country.

It's no surprise why this argument is popular among entrepreneurs and investors: Instead of making them feel selfish about taking such a big share of the country's wealth for themselves, it actually makes them feel magnanimous. If they weren't "creating all those jobs," then most Americans would have nothing to do!

Unfortunately, this argument is both startlingly selfish and economically wrong.

......

What actually "creates jobs" in an economy is a healthy economic ecosystem, one comprised of entrepreneurs, investors, employees, and, critically, customers.



.....................................SNIP"

[ZRT2209]

1. they should use the Bible to run their corporations, if it's good enough for women's bodies

it's good enough for the board room as well.

sauce for the goose...

[avaistheone1]

6. Ayn Rand was an atheist.

[Mojorabbit]

2. K and R nt

[gopiscrap]

3. I totally agree with and you can thank fucking Ronald Reagan for it

[RainDog]

20. ayn rand fucked ronald reagan?

so.. Ted Cruz is their hate child?

[BuelahWitch]

4. K&R

[laundry_queen]

5. Abso-fucking-lutely

This is spot on and it's what a WHOLE bunch of REAL business people with actual educations are saying (and have been saying since '08).

I'm currently taking a business degree (majoring in accounting, in my last year) and we talk about this kind of stuff a lot. Not one prof, not one textbook, not one presentation or video or online exercise has espoused the crap being spewed by that Binswanger idiot. Long term successful businesses (and accounting principles for that matter) inherently knows that doing nothing but bean counting and disregarding the 'big picture' and externalities is a sure fire way to tank a business. Because this idiotic business philosophy has spread like wildfire amongst the most greedy of morons, and has made its way into the government, the entire country's economy is tanking.

I said this in another thread, but I'll say it here too: paying your employees crap means they are going to try to make up for it some other way - usually in a way that costs the company. Short term you won't notice it, but a business that uses this strategy long term is going to have hidden and not-so-hidden costs from theft, shirking, fraud, laziness, high turnover (leads to high training and recruiting costs, high HR costs) and even minor things like extra bathroom breaks, smoke breaks, "oh I have to go pick up my kid early today", doctor appointments and so on. With employees who don't care about your company (because you clearly don't care about them) you have subpar performance and it always, in the end, affects the bottom line. Only short sighted idiot management looking for this quarter's profit sharing do this kind of crap, but a good company with proper organizational structure will be set up in such a way that those idiots can't profit themselves while hurting the company. Not very many companies, unfortunately, are set up like that because, let's face it, all management wants to profit as much as possible short term and a lot of the costs of operating in that manner are hidden, while the profits are immediate and visible.

Sorry, babbling now. I'll just reiterate - Binswanger is a TFM and his way of doing business will be the ruin of capitalism.

[AdHocSolver]

7. Business executives continue operating under this philosophy because it is profitable.

All economies are driven by demand.

Economic demand means that people have money to spend and they are willing to spend it.

Those members of the middle class who still have money to spend are paying huge amounts of money for imported products that cost trivial amounts of money to produce in sweatshops in low wage countries.

Trade agreements like NAFTA and the WTO guarantee huge profit margins and no competition to the largest multinational corporations.

Moreover, politicians push snake oil economic solutions like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would produce a tsunami of jobs leaving the U.S. for Asia. (Why would corporations produce goods in America to sell in Asia when the same goods can be made more cheaply over there without incurring shipping costs?) And it is a big lie that America has more high technology workers than Asia? Where are most of our high-tech products manufactured?

There is no incentive to change a successful business model.

Forget about Ayn Rand. She is just a bogeyman to blame for not understanding what is really going on in the U.S.

Wall Street and the bankers were pulling the same scams in the 1920's before anyone heard of Ayn Rand.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

8. Yeah, but now they have AynRandism making them feel virtuous about being such

selfish bastards.

[Hydra]

10. They always crave the strokes for being "better" than everyone else

They've created whole cultures and caste systems for it. Ayn Rand's religion is particularly sweet to them- they don't have to dress it all up. They're the smart assholes, and they deserve everything they steal and they should be worshipped for it.

That kind of feel good laziness has to be seductive.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

12. Yeah, it's not enough to control the world due to your selfish exploitation of others, they need to

be worshiped for it. And FoxNoise spreads their gospel for free.

[Hydra]

16. Faux Noise is straight and paid for propaganda

Just like Limbaugh- if they happen to make a profit, bonus for them, but I bet you they lose millions and they'd still be on the air.

The 1% are buying up everything. I do still find it amusing that they need to adoration though- maybe they're still human(if bad ones)?

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

18. No. How they are viewed only matters to them in that the more positively they are thought of

and portrayed in the media (which yes, they own one way or another) the more leeway they will be given to fuck us over.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

14. Get rid of Ayn Rand and replace her with Karl Marx and you will find

corporate executives have suddenly morphed into party apparatchiks. Instead of "greed is productive" they'll tell you "I'm doing it for the people." There will always be selfish bastards and they will always gravitate to whatever source of power allows them to indulge their vices regardless of the political and economic model in which they find themselves.

[jeff47]

11. No, it isn't profitable. It makes them money personally.

Slashing payroll will make next quarter's numbers look better, resulting in a larger bonus for the executives.

It will also destroy the profitability of the company. You go from good, dedicated employees to employees who don't care and massive employee turnover. That destroys your profitability in the medium and long run.

But the executives get large piles of cash in the short run, and then they "spend more time with their family" when the shit hits the fan.

[pampango]

9. Reich: "When business people take credit for creating jobs, it’s a little like squirrels taking

credit for evolution. It’s actually the other way around.”

"It is astounding how significantly one idea can shape a society and its policies,” he said of the notion that taxing the rich hurts the economy. “This idea is an article of faith for Republicans and is seldom challenged by Democrats.”

“Since 1980, the share of income of the top one per cent has more than tripled while our effective tax rate has gone down by more than 50 per cent. If it was true that lower taxes on the rich and more wealth for the wealthy led to job creation, today we would be drowning in jobs.”

...most Americans — Democrats and Republicans alike — are utterly ignorant of the extent of wealth disparity, and that a surprising 92 per cent of them actually want to see wealth spread more equitably.

Reich and Kornbluth say better understanding the disparity, and the threat it poses to the future wealth of both the rich and the poor, is the reason they made the film. ... Adds Reich, noting that people bridle at being told what to do, “If you describe the problem, the solutions follow from that. The problem is not the lack of policy. The problem is the lack of political will.”

http://www.alternet.org/economy/robert-reich-we-can-save-economy-if-we-get-serious-about-taxing-rich

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. People need to remember the second half of this

Milton Friedman. Either on their own are bad, together they are ghastly.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

15. Great point.

[Hydra]

17. Those who tried to legitimize bad behavior

The Patron saints of the Golden Bull.

[Scurrilous]

19. K & R