Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Corporate Greed and the Need for Regulation

Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves.”
Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) Last Republican president to lead the country into depression

Why do we need government regulation? Because we cannot count on companies to have the best interest of the consumers in mind, ever! It’s all about CEOs and management bonuses, stock options and enriching the executive branch or to use corporate jargon, enriching the C-suite.

The latest news is that shipping companies (FedEx, UPS, etc.) and wireless (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) providers all round up charges to their customers. As the article in the Sunday LATimes points out your butcher does not round up and the technology is there to install the precise measurements to determine cell phone usage to one-millionth of a second or weigh your package to the microgram or even on-millionth of a gram.

Unfortunately if all the companies are doing the same thing there is no incentive for the marketplace to change the practice, which is why government regulation is needed.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Good post..great picture.

I filched the graphic for future use btw ;p

The Misanthrope said...

Help yourself, I picked it up from Google.