What is wrong with American companies.....let us/all count the ways...

[Ed Breen]

So, what is your point? Are you suggesting that corporations behave like people?

 

[zdreg]

Quote from MarketMasher:

Corporations seek to maximize profits in any manner possible. An individual functioning in such a manner would likely be a sociopath, and since corporations are regarded as individuals (where are the Constitutional Conservatives protesting that one?), it can be like legalizing sociopath behavior.

So corporations will do like Walmart did - seek to offload as much of the cost of doing business on the gov't (like paying so low that health-care will be forced onto the state). Likewise, multinational corporations operate with the backing of US military and (as WikiLeaks showed) even ambassadors push Boeing and GE products.

What seems most consistent is people who seek to get into political office to give away what isn't theirs while pocketing a payoff for it, either immediately in campaign money or later in a cushy, high-paying "consultant" job that is more like "deferred compensation".

"Corporations seek to maximize profits in any manner possible. An individual functioning in such a manner would likely be a sociopath"

this is a presumptuous statement. please provide evidence.

 

[Steven.Davis]

Quote from Ed Breen:

The law treats corporations as legal 'persons.' What does the Constitution have to do with it. As legal persons they can be charged with crime, they can be sued for damages. ... The human in-human discussion is ridiculous.

You are right, Ed, that the distinction is rather pointless. Sole proprietorships and partnerships before the invention of corporations were no better.

On a side note, I had read that the justice department wanted to get away from criminal prosecution of companies. A company has deep-pockets, and cannot be put in jail. A VP who knew or should have known that something was going on, has modest pockets and can go to jail. I believe that this change in direction is real based on handling of Enron and Arthur Anderson. I do not believe that this serves justice especially social justice, but it should have drastically reduced tort risk premium for US companies.

 

[ElCubano]

Quote from zdreg:

"Corporations seek to maximize profits in any manner possible. An individual functioning in such a manner would likely be a sociopath"

this is a presumptuous statement. please provide evidence.

Hydraulic "fracking" in the Marcellus Shale.

 

[Ed Breen]

Steven, the distinction was only important to make the point, now beleaguerred, that companies are made of humans and it is not legitimate to think of them as "in-human" any more than it is to think of the Government as "in-human." This does not mean that they, as creations of man comprised of men (women too), cannot perpetrate evil acts. Corporations and Governments, run by people, can act in evil ways, just like people. Your legal extension of the point of corporations legal status as 'persons' is correct and you take the issue further than I sought to, simply using it as an example in rebutal of the 'inhuman' slur. But that is an issue outside my point.