Comment by qsera
3 days ago
It is beyond me how anyone can expect any business (especially public traded) to have any ethics whatsoever.
3 days ago
It is beyond me how anyone can expect any business (especially public traded) to have any ethics whatsoever.
In strong democracies, regulations provide the incentive.
..and you think those work?
Of course they do, if enforced. The number of eight year-olds working in factories is substantially lower than it used to be due to regulations. *in modern democracies
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If you do regulate. We currently have full regulatory capture in most industries and regulators that are doing their jobs are either hamstrung or the laws are so far behind the industries that they can’t or won’t work.
The key to proper regulation is to keep money and influence from pooling at the top, making it difficult for any single person to buy enough influence.
As it is, we have a dozen monopolies that should be broken up that are making a small section of the population so rich they are essentially above laws.
But, proper regulation can exist if people want it, and more specifically in the case of the USA, legislators want it. Unfortunately, Dems actively prevent it, and republicans are ripping it down, so the rest of us are kinda fucked.
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We literally had a circular slave trade of slaves->sugar cane->rum->slaves
They’re out there. I find it more productive to search for and financially support such businesses, rather than adopt the doomer pessimistic anticapitalism take.
For example I just bought a Concept2 RowErg rowing machine. They sell literally every piece and part on their website so it’s end user repairable. The metrics integrate with a ton of apps, so you’re not locked into their app/ecosystem and there’s no subscription. It’s the polar opposite of Peloton and Hydrox.
Unfortunately a lot of these honest businesses are one generation away from potentially selling out everything the founders built, but I’ll continue doing my best to keep them around while they exist.
>I find it more productive to search for and financially support such businesses, rather than adopt the doomer pessimistic anticapitalism take...
But sadly, many order of magnitude more people would like to just make more money when invest. Which is why..
>Unfortunately a lot of these honest businesses are one generation away from potentially selling out everything the founders built,
> rather than adopt the doomer pessimistic anticapitalism take...
Capitalism does not imply public trading. Capitalism can work even when companies re-invest parts of their profits.
Oh no, that would be too slow. We want Speeeed...even if that means a quick descent into certain doom.
>many order of magnitude more people would like to just make more money when invest
Blame them (the consumers) then. This is like that silly Reddit/Twitter stat about 10% of companies creating 90% of global emissions… which the companies are doing in the process of making the shiny cell phones and laptops all the consumerists lambasting them are posting from, plus all the plastic crap they buy every day from Amazon.
The consumers are the ones demanding unchecked expansion of their consumption. As long as that demand exists, companies will find a way to fill it, whether they’re doing so in America or other countries. Privately held entities can’t allocate capital fast enough to keep up with the consumerists.
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