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Lol i'm so done with this thread now.

I want to live on whatever planet Aestu is from.

I agree with this position, but while it is technically true, we're talking about semantics here. Most business individuals and companies have a goal of wealth. To reach this goal they must create profit. "The purpose of profit is to encourage the production of goods and services people want". The purpose of creating the profit is wealth.

Boredalt - 80 Dwarf Priest - Dissension

With profit, a business can do two things:

1. Reinvest it in the business
2. Pay it out to their employees, shareholders, investors, or executives

Businesses usually strike a balance between the two. You cannot say that profits exist just to encourage the production of goods and services. The fact that we have CEOs and shareholders getting crazy payouts proves this theory to be folly. If profit exists solely for what you say it does, then businesses would reinvest everything just for the sake of increasing production/etc and never see any extreme wealth benefits from it. Needless to say, that's just not the case.

I agree with Boredalt about us getting caught up in semantics.

Back to my original point. Businesses to NOT all exist for the greater good. Some do, yes (as in NPOs), but many many (heck i'd say most), exist to generate WEALTH for their owners/investors.

In the aforementioned business I work for, the owners have the specific goal of making a crap ton of money so they can then draw from the bank account. The purpose of this business is to make money.

Most people are in business to make money...not to help the world by providing them with...oh I dunno...video games?

Look at Blizzard...do you think they are in it for "the greater good." Hell no. They want to make money. This doesnt mean they arent passionate about games...but they want to make fuggin CASH with it.

In fact, WoW probably does more to hurt people than it does help...think if all the time we spent in game were spent reading, painting, going outside, creating music. Not to mention how unhealthy it is to be sitting at a computer, staring at a screen all day.

No no Aestu, I am sorry but you are wrong. Businesses do not exist solely for the greater good.

When you go to a store, and there is stuff for sale, that stuff is for sale because there's profit to be made selling it. That is the system working as intended; the profit motive results in a better standard of living for everyone.

Now, conversely, if what you say is true - that profit itself is the objective - then in an ideal world, profits would be high and productivity low. And that's where we enter the fabulously dysfunctional world of Bobby Kotick. Now, is that a good world - high profits and consumers not enjoying good products?

In the ideal free market, competition drives prices down, which reduces profit to the lowest level a company is willing to accept, and benefits consumers with higher wages and more selection. Isn't that the free market you want to live in, with lower profit margins and better products? So how can you say profit is the POINT of the system?

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

No, it proves the system isn't working as intended.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

You are looking at this through a vacuum. There are hundreds and hundreds of different types of businesses that make profits and do nothing for the standard of living for people. Okay, maybe your theory holds up for food items, but what about (like I mentioned before) Blizzard Entertainment and their video games? They are a business, right? How does their motive for profit help my standard of living? How does World of Warcraft help my, or anyone else's standard of living? It doesn't, Blizzard is motivated by generating cash and wealth. That's it.



World of Warcraft is a great product. It just does nothing for the greater good, which pokes a hole in your "businesses exist for the greater good" theory.



Profit isn't the point...wealth is the point. You yourself have said it. When competition drives prices down, reducing profits to the lowest levels a company is willing to accept:

1. New players will stop entering the market
2. Some players will leave the market and do something else

WHY!?

Because they can't make as much MONEY or generate as much WEALTH so it's not even worth it to be in the business....because the goal of being in any for-profit business is to MAKE MONEY.

-----------------------------------




Now I think i see your point. You believe capitalism/free markets (the system) is ideally supposed to benefit consumers and make it a better world for them.

However, this isn't the case because of money, wealth, and the wide variety of services and entertainments that actually exist today.

I think we are talking in circles. You are talking theoretical, and I'm talking about how things actually are. Yes, it would be wonderful if businesses only existed to make products that help people, and if their only motive for being in business was to make more profit that they could reinvest to then make even more goods that help people. But this is not reality, not even close.

Part of a high standard of living is having things like World of Warcarft for sale.

The profit motive is supposed to work by people seeking profit by fulfilling others' wants. It is not altruism. It is give and take. The system doesn't fail because companies are putting profit before the common good, the system fails because serving the common good isn't where the profit is.

Why do American firms make shitty products and refuse to innovate? Why do they pay CEOs way too much? Doesn't this hurt profits? Yes, and the problem is, a system that needs fixing.

It really never ceases to amaze me that people do not understand that the purpose of the profit motive is to MOTIVATE.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

What American firms and companies are shitty products and to whom are you comparing them to? Also, who are you to say if a CEO is getting paid too much? If the company is doing well enough for a CEO to collect $10,000,000/year, then I think the CEO is a valuable asset and an intelligent, driving force in the market. If you think CEOs get paid too much, then how much is enough in your eyes?

A high standard of living is directly proportional to how the middle class is doing.


.... /facepalm



Because people buy the stuff.



CEO's make what the market and the voting stockholders allow them to make.



Not at all. Unless the CEO turns out to be a dud.



What is being experienced world wide is the joy of capitalism and a global economy.

Part of the issue is someone in China gets paid nearly nothing. That nothing is enough to live on.

China also pegs its currency to the US and a way lower rate that it's actually worth so that nothing the guy gets paid is enough to live.



It's a function of culture which drives motivation.

General Motors, AIG, American Airlines, US Steel, Chrysler - their CEOs pulled down huge sums year after year while long-term problems went unresolved, or even as the firms entered bankruptcy. What did that money buy them? The proof is in the pudding.

You can't deny we've lost ground in many areas and will likely continue to.

The fact people pay money for crappy cars, internet, and manufactured goods - yet better alternatives do not appear - prove the system is not working as well as it should. Just because we don't live in the world of The Grapes of Wrath or The Jungle doesn't mean the system can't be improved.

Floating the yuan is part of the solution. I believe something that must be done is normalizing environmental and safety regulation between the US and China.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Interesting how each of these companies are in extremely, heavily regulated markets. Earlier...
How many of the companies above are the victims of our pseudo-free market...? Excessive regulation doesn't make a cheaper product/service...

You know why we have regulation?

Because we tried not having regulation, and it sucked even worse.

Go read The Jungle or The Grapes of Wrath.

AIG killed itself through high risk investment that will now be...regulated. Do you remember the SnL crisis in the 80s? AA's EU colleagues (who it doesn't compete with) are heavily government-controlled and are doing reasonably well, and offer better service. GM fought every effort made to force it to change tooth-and-nail. Go read Unsafe At Any Speed. They refused to innovate or change and are now dead. If they were not forced to, they would still be selling cars that are known to kill people with their design defects. Look at the Toyota crisis. Was that government responsible for brake defects? If the government didn't step in, what would Toyota have done?

Meanwhile the Postal Service is still strumming along, delivering a letter anywhere in the US for - how much? 45 cents? - without interruption. Comcast and Verizon get paid $40 a month and can't even nearly match that reliability. Hell, look at the Army, that's government-run and they get shit done.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

how do you know this as a fact? youve never met, me, dont know where i live (i hope not) and know nothing about other than the face that i project over the e-webs.

I am THE man.
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee15 ... 171424.jpg

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

o? ive been quoted! ohnoz!

I am THE man.
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee15 ... 171424.jpg