So we are told the economy is coming back. For those that invest I suppose it is to a degree but the stockholders to a great degree contributed to the problems we have. Yes it was the banks and investment companies that created those idiotic investment vehicles that crashed and burned but that was as an answer to the investors that are never happy with the income they are getting.
Investors are putting their money at risk and are certainly entitled to expect a return on that investment but most investors today are looking for a guarantee. You can get a guarantee by going with bonds and very safe investments but not high rates of returns. If you want a high rate of return then a RISK is involved because high rates of returns are acquired by investing in things that are new and not proven for the most part.
Corporations are very much at fault too because they allow themselves to be coerced into making foolish decisions based on the investors. Everyone wants to know what kind of return they are going to get right now rather than what the outlook is long term.
We have all seen stories recently where stocks for companies tumbled because the increase in profits was not as high as expected. There was indeed an increase in profits, in some cases very nice increases but it was not enough so they sold off the stock and caused it to tank.
Investors are their own worst nightmares creating self-fulfilling prophecies. If companies had the common sense and the guts to do the right thing we would not be in nearly as bad a shape as we are.
Look at incomes for employees. In an awful lot of companies the employees are not paid enough to actually be able to afford the product being sold. Some companies do offer steep discounts to employees and in some cases free services but that is not helpful. Incomes have been actually falling in general for some time. I realize that incomes can not continuously go up dramatically although many CEOs and stock holders do feel the same way.
We need to step back a bit in time to when the middle class started to become a reality because if the middle class goes away those who are making a ton of money are going to be very, very unhappy because who will buy the products and services that are giving them their income.
Henry Ford was absolutely demonized by other manufacturing leaders when he decided to pay his workers 5 or 6 dollars a day telling him it would ruin them. He told them he was paying that much because anyone that wanted to buy one of his cars needed to make that much. His philosophy was also to make the best possible product, for the lowest possible price, while paying the best possible salary.
Now what many companies do is the exact opposite. They provide a product or service that is just barely good enough to prevent them from being lynched while paying the lowest possible wages.
I have no problem with companies making a profit, but there really should be some common sense. Any CEO that runs a company in great prosperity deserves a very nice salary but things have gotten a bit rediculous. There are CEOs of companies that make in some cases almost 1000 times as much as the rank and file within the company and then they wonder why people get upset.
Washington seems to be much the same. Our legislators in Washington make around $175,000 dollars a year with the best health care and a full pension for not doing a whole awful lot. It is also obvious to anyone with a brain that they cater to the corporations rather than their constituents for the most part because if they didn't then companies would have no incentive to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying. And who among us has the ability to set our own salaries and benefits?
I am not advocating socialism or communism or anything else in particular. I want common sense and a sense of reality to be brought to the halls of power both in government and in business.
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