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Post by lc on Feb 23, 2006 21:25:48 GMT -6
Personally this is a no brainer.
The immortal corporation is amongst the worst Ideas i have heard.
And along that same line, owning second hand stock is an utterly useless way to occupy capital. It provides absolutely no benefit to the economy at all. But is somehow a necessary arrangement if Corporations are immortal.
Two questions:
1)How can stocks shares be arbitrated and traded if Corporations are either termed to cease, or have a standard of compliance to reach to be renewed?
2)What are all of the alternatives? Do we even like the model of stocks? Is there a better way?
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 8, 2006 17:16:58 GMT -6
LC,
I never got around to commenting on this.
I've often wondered how beneficial it is to even have a stock market. It does help large corporations obtain capital for investment. Whether they actually invest it in capital equipment is an entirely different story. Much of it is "invested" in management compensation and dividends.
I was simply amaze awhile back when a Right-Winger told me that money invested in the stock market wasn't wasted if it wasn't used for capital investment. His response was that it was used to pay dividends. Used to pay dividends? So the money that is over-invested in an IRA or 4101k goes not into capital investment, but into the pockets of CEOs and into stockholder dividends.
It's certainly reassuring that people's IRA money isn't being "wasted." They should be gratified that it's being put to such "good" use, like increasing the salary of an already overpaid CEO.
This just makes me proud to be an American, where every CEO can profiteer from government subsidization (which is what a tax deduction for an IRA really is.)
As Randi Rhodes would say, welcome to the United Corporate States of America.
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Post by lc on Apr 8, 2006 19:06:29 GMT -6
There isn't a good reason, Unlawful, to have a stock market.
Corporations used to be formed when private individuals banded together, formed their own agreements and formed for profit enterprises. States offered charters to corporations and the corp agreed to the terms of that states laws.
The stock market is an attempt to provide another level called publicly traded stocks which offer the investment opportunities to the general public. It was supposedly a regulated medium that provided safeguards and oversight with strict regulation and penalties for violations.
But it is perhaps less regulated or less meaningfully than ever and it is essentially a gambling franchise with brokers skimming profits continuously from investors. You must pay a broker for exchange privileges if you don't own a select seat on the exchange.
But aside from allowing the corporations the ability to petition the general public for investment revenue, and a mechanism that allows that corporation to never pay back the money that it "borrowed" from investors, it serves no useful purpose except to separate the naive from their money.
Which is, of course, the ultimate goal of financial institutions.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 10, 2006 15:06:22 GMT -6
LC,
Stock market investment might be more reasonable if there weren't all the government-sponsored incentives (subsidies) for putting money there. If people weren't being encouraged to put money there, by deducting it from their taxes, the amount invested might be more realistic. Unfortunately many people are being deceived into thinking that risking 5 times the amount of their tax savings in the stock market is a "wise" investment.
As far as our current economic situation, there is no macroeconomic benefit at present to increasing the quantity of investment capital for Corporate America. The markets are glutted with capital at present. As Warren Buffet has stated repeatedly, there is a lack of investment opportunities at present (not a lack of investment capital.)
Amazingly enough, Bush's first move after being fraudulently elected the 2nd time, was to try to further increase investment capital for Wall Street with his Social Security "Corporatizaton" plans. (Maybe Social Security "Bankruptization" is a better term.)
Fortunately the stock market hasn't overinflated any more than it was in 2000. Hopefully more people will see the folly of increased investment at the present time. Unless the consumption of goods produced from such investment increases, there's no logical reason to increase long-term investment. And every indicator suggests consumer spending will decline.
I also want to inform as many people as possible that one's entire IRA can be invested in gold. Unfortunately this is little more than a "guarantee" to deliver gold to the owner when requested. But I'd rather have that guarantee, than a guarantee to pay on a stock, which represents nothing more than a piece of paper, and is subject to tremendous degrees of devaluation.
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