Thread: What is wrong with America

Nursing,a subject that I know alot about actually,Is a country (well be unamed) that American Hospitals can draw from due to Riciprocity laws.
Most cannot speak english,most are useless and know nothing about true nursing,JMO.

Originally Posted by BobH

Apparently that is what Capitalism has devolved to these days, stripped of most if not all of it's good points. So, yes you are pretty much correct in thinking that is what I meant.

Bob

Sad to realize......I have heard people complain "we need a new system". But, what folks fail to realize is scrapping and starting over does not always equate to fixed. As soon as any system becomes corrupt, it stops working properly and so it goes. It's not always the system that fails......it's us. Till we start behaving nothing will change.

Originally Posted by Nightblade

Sad to realize......I have heard people complain "we need a new system". But, what folks fail to realize is scrapping and starting over does not always equate to fixed. As soon as any system becomes corrupt, it stops working properly and so it goes. It's not always the system that fails......it's us. Till we start behaving nothing will change.

Yes, nothing wrong with Capitalism and making a profit if done well. It has the potential to do great good for most people. It has been devolved to a point where it is mostly exploitative of most people, not beneficial to them. As always, a system is changed from the top down by the few for the benefit of the few. Rarely if ever change comes from the ground up. A good example is Spenders post on how legislation regarding foreign temporary workers gets bypassed.

Bob

Case4 in point... How many of you remember the family owned chain department store campaign.." Made in America!" til they sold the business.
yup millionaires made by in minutes. And more by the new owners.

~Richard

Originally Posted by BobH

Yes, nothing wrong with Capitalism and making a profit if done well. It has the potential to do great good for most people. It has been devolved to a point where it is mostly exploitative of most people, not beneficial to them. As always, a system is changed from the top down by the few for the benefit of the few. Rarely if ever change comes from the ground up. A good example is Spenders post on how legislation regarding foreign temporary workers gets bypassed.

Bob

Maybe interesting - maybe not.

The fall back in business schools and the pursuit of capitalism for generations, has always been to earn the most for your shareholders. The thinking was, most peoples 401(k)s and the like were in equities, so what's good for the corporation, is good for everyone. This kind of thinking resinates in the general public under the auspices of supply side economics, trickle down etc and so forth.

That kind of thinking will take as many generations to overcome as it was pursued. But I will note that when I graduated with my masters in business here recently, the contract I had to sign with the college was written in a way that very much goes against that thinking and try's to overcome the greed that capitalism provokes. It stated that my fall back was to do what's right for all stakeholders.

Changing shareholder to stakeholder is HUGE! How it'll get on (if pursued) is something we'll never see - unless maybe you are under the age of ten lol!

Yeah, ethics and corporate responsibilities were in clear focus in all my management classes... but it's going to take time to filter through.

Originally Posted by MichaelP

Yeah, ethics and corporate responsibilities were in clear focus in all my management classes... but it's going to take time to filter through.

As a cynic, there appears to be no ethics involved in the sole over riding corporate responsibility to make increasing profits in the shortest amount of time possible. I don't think that is a sustainable proposition.

If ethics and corporate responsibilities ever get re established most of us won't live long enough to see it as earcutter mentions in his post. It has taken many decades to wind up where we are now and I am betting it will take many decades to change.

At least somebody is trying to connect the dots.

Bob

Originally Posted by BobH

As a cynic, there appears to be no ethics involved in the sole over riding corporate responsibility to make increasing profits in the shortest amount of time possible. I don't think that is a sustainable proposition.

If ethics and corporate responsibilities ever get re established most of us won't live long enough to see it as earcutter mentions in his post. It has taken many decades to wind up where we are now and I am betting it will take many decades to change.

At least somebody is trying to connect the dots.

Bob

I think the problem is larger than that in a Chicken-Egg manner. As corporations have moved their employees to their lowest regard, the employees no longer have any loyalty to the employer. Look at how quickly the younger folks change jobs now! Both sides of the equation will have to change. Which brings it around to stock holders and acquisitions folks who only see value in squeezing out the last cent regardless of the ultimate effects on the company as a whole.

Consumers enable the process by being satisfied with ever lower levels of customer service/employee knowledge and product quality as long as the prices stay low. The idea of paying a fair price to get a product from a reputable company is disappearing. They care little for establishing a business relationship with their vendor. There will always be someone else to come along and sell it cheaper on the internet.

I see both sides of this daily at work. The most extreme example has been phone book advertising. The reps used to come around and review your account, discuss changes, how to maximize my advertising dollar. Now it is a phone call from someone that has no time to discuss anything. You are supposed to agree to a "recorded contract" without ever seeing the terms, part of which you must agree to automatic renewal of the contract (cancellation terms are very narrow) or not be listed. As a result, our spending for this advertising has plummeted about 90%. We have dropped numerous vendors that no longer do anything but send out emails of dropped products and ship in boxes of new samples without attempting to understand our business market/needs.

In my opinion, nothing has changed at all, it's just another cycle that is repeating itself again over the thousands of years of civilizations, the only things that have changed are the people and the toys. I'm sure the Romans had this same conversation, as did countless other societies, and they will continue forever until we are just a distant, extinct memory in this tiny Solar System.

Well, that's my happy thought for the day....

Originally Posted by BobH

As a cynic, there appears to be no ethics involved in the sole over riding corporate responsibility to make increasing profits in the shortest amount of time possible. I don't think that is a sustainable proposition.

If ethics and corporate responsibilities ever get re established most of us won't live long enough to see it as earcutter mentions in his post. It has taken many decades to wind up where we are now and I am betting it will take many decades to change.

At least somebody is trying to connect the dots.

Bob

Yeah I wouldn't hold my breath either... too many companies still haven't emerged from the 50s, management-wise. And I'm being generous when I say 50s