Netflix Latest Company to Laugh at Your Legal Rights

Agreed. It is unfortunate that corporations and governments were created BY people for the betterment of society but now are both trying to take over society for their own benefit.

The people that advocate stronger business (through less regulation) amaze me. They are either A) in a position to make more money through less regulation and have no concerns about the consequences to others or B) too stupid to understand what they are asking for.

permalink · 2012-03-20 19:54:01 ·

skeechan Ai Otsukaholic Premium join:2012-01-26 AA169\|170 kudos:2	Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens Corporations were created by people for profit, not the betterment of society. When people realize this origin and sole function, they will see corporations for what they are, always have been and will be.
	permalink · 2012-03-21 11:25:40 · ·

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

said by skeechan:

Corporations were created by people for profit, not the betterment of society.

This may be true for any individual instance of a corporation but not for the concept of corporations as a whole. They are more than groups of people with a common financial goal... they are legal entities that exist only because there are laws that give them existence. These laws were based on the earliest 'corporations' which were government sanctioned charters to obtain revenue for the government. These charters had many of the common traits we still associate with corporations, limited liability, stock ownership, etc.

Trying to say that corporations exist for individual profit rather than for the good of society is like saying that 'stores' exist to hold inventory and put price-tags on things and employ people... not to meet the demands of the consumers. It is a dichotomy, you can't realistically separate the two. Corporations are trying to do exactly that... they wish to be entities unto themselves without concern for the society they serve. This is why corporate person-hood is a load of BS that should be revoked. People exist by their own right... corporations do not.

permalink · 2012-03-21 13:47:43 · Print ·

skeechan
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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

You act as if corporations are mindless monsters. They are not "people" and aren't seen as "people". They are simple legal entities OWNED by people, wholly controlled by people just like other business types. Corporations are simply property that can own property. Without the person-hood as you call it, a corporation couldn't own the building or equipment it uses. It couldn't enter into contracts. What you would ultimately have is a sole-proprietorship and who has the $600B to buy all of Apple's shares and turn the company into a sole-proprietorship or hell who are the 10 people with $60B each to make it a partnership. No one is that rich. And even then it would change nothing. The same legal department would put the same language in the same terms of service.

And you're wrong, stores don't exist to meet the demands of the customers. They exist for profit. To obtain that profit it is usually better not to treat your customers like crap but it is not required. There are plenty of profitable companies that treat their customers like crap, just look at telecom and you'll see dozens of examples of companies that are hugely profitable while treating their customers like crap and not meeting their demands (e.g. for higher or no caps on phone data).

The consumer has 1 choice, buy or not buy. Every other choice belongs to the business as it should.

Don't like it, cancel. If everyone would cancel, the owners of the corporation would have to adapt to maintain PROFIT.

permalink · 2012-03-27 09:15:13 · Print ·

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

said by skeechan:

You act as if corporations are mindless monsters.

I fail to see where in this thread I am saying any such thing... this is about corporate rights and the need to remove some of them through regulation.

If you want my opinion on them being 'monsters' then I will say that many of them are exactly that. They are the manifestation of the executives' & shareholders' greed without any semblance of morales. Any moral 'problem' is quickly eliminated through an extension of the 'limited liability' mentality. Yes, they are wholly owned by people but those people often forget how to act like people in their quest for higher and higher profits.

said by skeechan:

And you're wrong, stores don't exist to meet the demands of the customers. They exist for profit.

A store that doesn't meet the demands of its customers will not exist... period. The customer is primary, any individual business is secondary. There are also many ways around having companies being structured the way they are and still be large enough to produce an iPhone, a skyscraper, or a fleet of airplanes. Corporate person-hood with no liability is not necessary.

said by skeechan:

The consumer has 1 choice, buy or not buy. Every other choice belongs to the business as it should.

Don't like it, cancel. If everyone would cancel, the owners of the corporation would have to adapt to maintain PROFIT.

Yes, the 'We have all the power and if you don't like it go somewhere else' mentality is very popular in the business world! Of course, consumers also have the choice to protest.

There are many of us that advocate a much more democratic landscape to the business world. It is becoming painfully clear that business (especially large business) is incapable of considering all their stakeholders when making decisions. There are simply too many lives being affected to allow a few people to make decisions based only on profit.

permalink · 2012-03-27 22:18:55 · Print ·

skeechan
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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

Looking at satisfaction ratings for telecom, they are not meeting the demands on their customers yet are hugely profitable.

The only stakeholders a business is responsible to are the owners of the business as it should be. It is their property. It is not you or anyone else who should be deciding what other people do with their property.

Your choice should simply be to not buy the product if you don't like the terms under which it is sold. Feel mistreated as an employee, quit. Feel mistreated as a customer, cancel. Corporations and other businesses don't owe you or society anything and you don't owe them anything.

permalink · 2012-03-28 07:14:04 · Print ·

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

You, like umm, seem to think we live in an academic construct rather than the real world. The 'free market' is an idea that is pushed by people under the illusion that the world operates that way.

Yes, the telecom companies are raking in the bucks despite their poor customer satisfaction ratings... why do you think that is? It is because the telecom companies realize that as long as they ALL treat customers like shit, the customers have no alternative. They have effectively eliminated aspects of competition.

Your "It is not you or anyone else who should be deciding what other people do with their property" argument also fails to acknowledge the real world. Lets take Con Edison as an example (the electric company here in NY)... Under your model of the business world, ConEd could decide that they don't want to generate electricity anymore and throw the switch. Wall St. down, Subways/traffic lights out of service, no lights at night. After all, who are you to tell them they can't? It's their company. Under the free market, since there is a marketable demand, another company will spring forth to install generators, run new cables, install meters, etc and pick up where ConEd left off... right?

Or lets take your example of Telecom... Verizon has made it clear that they do not want to deal with copper anymore. Since it is their plant, they should be allowed to turn off the dial tone to all those annoying subscribers. In this situation (unlike the last one) there is already competition in place: Cable companies, Wireless companies, RCN, etc. So why not just let them turn it off?

Transportation, food production, mail delivery, there are many businesses that can have a HUGE impact on society if they are allowed to ignore their stakeholders and make irrational decisions. Once companies reach a threshold importance, they should be forced to move away from the shareholder primacy model and instead use stakeholder primacy that makes decisions based on the best interests of the employees, costumers and community. Certainly any company deemed 'too big to fail' should be working under stakeholder primacy, I would argue well before that.

permalink · 2012-03-28 17:31:15 · Print ·

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

That doesn't change the simple fact that corporations are under no obligation to keep you happy. Their only obligation is to generate profit for the owners. That's it. USUALLY it is best done by keeping customers happy but obviously this isn't the only model.

Corporations owe you and society nothing. They owe you no happiness or loyalty nor do you owe anything to them.

Your choice is singular; to buy their product or not. Don't like the Netflix terms of service, cancel. That is your choice.

Meanwhile let's look at your Con-Ed argument. Netflix isn't a utility by any stretch of the imagination but you would strip the "corporate individuality" from Con-Ed? Okay, now Con-Ed is no longer an "entity" in its own right.

The owner who now owns Con-Ed dies, and worse does so like Steve Jobs did, rather quickly. There is now a 35% estate tax liability on the entire assets of Con-Ed...$10 billion dollars. And that's under current law. The administration wants to hike that liability to 55% so now we're closer to $20B. The owner's next of kin are now forced to liquidate the entire company to pay the tax bill and no single person or even small group of people have $20B to buy it (and that is if the next of kin want ZERO for the actual assets, the stuff). There are no corporations for banks to loan money to based on future revenue and no bank is going to loan $20B to someone based on their personal guaranty. In fact, there aren't any banks any more since corporations don't exist. You have to go to Louie the Loan Shark for the $20B in tax money needed to pay off the government plus $30B+ more for the assets to keep the utility in one piece.

But no one has $50B so Con-Ed is now put out of business. The next of kin auctions off equipment to pay the $20B tax bill leaving not enough equipment behind to actually keep the utility functional.

The only hope to stop this problem is to have Apple like cash hoards. And where does that come from. Oh yeah, consumers, consumers with as you point out virtually no choice for electricity delivery and generation. And in order to generate that much revenue for the owner in each "generation" of ownership would have to raise electricity rates dramatically. Yay, consumers lose again. They were unhappy before, wait until they're paying $.50/kwH for juice.

Even if it is a partnership, you can have enough partners to dilute the value of billion dollar companies. It takes millions of shares and hundreds of thousands of partners. And under your scheme any single partner could force the liquidation of Con-Ed unless those other partners come up with money to buy them out. Con-Ed would have to run massive profit margins to accumulate enough money to cover these types of tax liabilities. Awesome, so now electricity rates jump sky high and for what? For nothing. Destroying millions of jobs, disrupting services, introducing uncertainty, all for nothing. And take these hikes and apply them to EVERY product you buy, that is unless it comes from outside the US. What then? Tariffs to raise the prices of those goods to offset ours? Consumers lose again. Goodie.

Look at how hard it was to find a group of people to spend $2B buying the Los Angeles Dodgers. Where are you going to get $36B for the property plus $20B for the tax bill for Con-Ed? Who has that kind of money? And Con-Ed is small potatoes compared to other companies.

Really, this is the system you advocate. The continuing entity status of corporations are absolutely essential to their survival and in turn the millions of people they employ and millions of customers they serve. Their entity status is essential for them to be able to own assets and enter into contracts like borrowing money for expansion.

permalink · 2012-03-28 18:06:08 · Print ·

CXM_Splicer Looking at the bigger picture Premium join:2011-08-11 NYC kudos:1 Reviews: ·Verizon FiOS	Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens You missed (or completely avoided) the point... so glaringly, I would venture to say you didn't even read my post. You are misdirecting your argument to something I already answered 3 posts ago; There are other ways to structure corporations that do not bestow rights to them. Giving rights to a piece of property is ridiculous.
	permalink · 2012-03-28 18:30:22 · ·

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

Ah I see, this isn't about corporate rights, it's complaining about CU v FEC. Get over it. TV ads aren't the problem, lobbying is. If you want to fix that you don't need to change anything about corporations. Fix the whore politicians. Politicians taking a single dime from anyone should be a felony. Accept a free drink? Go to prison for 5 years. Free plane trip? 10 years. Have the text of a law written for ya? Life without parole. Kidding aside you simply make taking campaign contributions from anyone who isn't a registered voter in the district a felony. IOW you make the (currently legal) bribery that goes on every day in Washington criminal and it would end. Suddenly you will have politicians answering to the people for the first time in forever. There is no Constitutional right guaranteeing a politician accepts your money nor for a politician to accept money from someone (since we see that is already regulated).

Want to deal with PACs, get rid of the tax exempt status of the 527 "political organization"...there is no right not to pay taxes. Make the PAC pay taxes and make those contributing to it pay taxes on the contribution (no deducting it). Congress certainly has the power to tax they could tax the snot out of incoming contributions to unions PACs, American Crossroads, NEA, CU and the Governors' Associations. In addition deny tax deductibility for political "speech". You don't need Congress to regulate their speech, let the IRS regulate their money.

permalink · 2012-03-28 19:48:41 · Print ·

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

While you do address some important & necessary changes, you are still missing the point. It has nothing to do with Citizens United, it has noting to do with sole proprietorships, it has nothing to do with corporations being 'property' (although I find the idea that my car should have a right to free speech very interesting!)

It has to do with limiting corporate power and importance through regulations. While you refuse to believe it, corporations are a subset of society (notice the sub implying 'less than'), not something independent of it. Too many corporations today (or more properly, those in control of them) behave as if society is nothing but a subset of consumers to the business world. They have lost their way as servants of the consumers. In furtherance of increasing profits they are destroying the very society from which they were born and which they depend on. Increasing (severely) regulations on big business is the only way the 'economy' is going to recover. Economy is in quotes because it is actually a bigger problem than just the economy. You may believe that there IS no problem with the economy or that this is just a minor bump that Wall St. and the corporations and Bernanke will have ironed out in no time but I can assure you that is not the case. The problems that have caused our situation have not been corrected... they are, in fact, getting worse.

permalink · 2012-03-28 21:51:28 · Print ·

skeechan
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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

While you refuse to believe it, Corporations aren't mindless machines. They are controlled by people. They are owned by people, people who collectively have the right to speak with their money.

Getting worse? Hardly. Negative campaigns waged by the faceless are as old as the Republic, nye, older, far older. The attacks on Adams and Jefferson were vicious and make Swift Boaters look like pikers.

Corporate power isn't what needs limiting. Governmental power is in desperate need of curbing. The size of government has doubled in just 10 years and by 2050 stands to consume 80% of GDP. You want to end of days, that is it.

Bank of America doesn't scare me. The government does.

permalink · 2012-03-28 22:39:05 · Print ·

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

You are arguing against things already discussed. Repeating it over and over again isnt going to make it true. Like Merry-go-rounds much?

As I said to umm, if you are going to ignore reality then you are delusional, there is nothing I can do to help you. The truth about what is happening with the economy is all around you. The victims may remain faceless to you because you choose to keep it that way... how else to live with your delusion?

In what sense does curtailing corporate power require increasing governmental power? The power to limit corporations is already there, you are going off on a tangent. Corporate power has been strengthening for the past several decades, again, if you can't see this then you are delusional. It is THAT strengthening that has people protesting in the streets. Oh, I forgot... you don't see them. Or maybe you listen to the corporate spokespeople who claim 'no one knows WHY these people are protesting... not even the protesters!!'

Since we are on a merry-go-round: Increasing corporate power is the cause of our current economic situation and it is getting (much) worse.

Since you are avoiding reality in your arguments, there is no reason for me to stay in it: These corporations have to be stopped! They are deliberately increasing unemployment and are stealing money from people. They use children as slaves and have terrorists kill people and hurt little fuzzy animals! Oh, wait a minute...

You keep playing that fiddle Nero!!

permalink · 2012-03-29 06:34:54 · Print ·

umm

@associationsplus.ca

"The people that advocate stronger business (through less regulation) amaze me."

The people who equate less regulation with somehow being necessarily always at the expense of the consumer amaze me. Regulations are things above and beyond common law and government law which put restrictions on exactly how a company or industry can operate. Most regulations are completely unnecessary because they do not actually solve the problem they were intended to solve, and in many cases make the problem worse. Removing broken regulations that do not work benefits the companies and the consumers both.

The goal of less regulation is more competition through simplifying the barriers to entry into a given market, so that if one company behaves in an evil manner, everyone can much more easily go over to a competitor, thus proving that less regulation does not necessarily mean power taken away from the consumer.

Who do you think the government consults when making these regulations? Not the consumers, that's for sure!

permalink · 2012-03-21 14:42:57 · Print ·

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

Quite simply, corporations desire less regulations in the quest for higher profits (everything they do is for higher profits). These profits have to come from somewhere; it could be the consumers, the workers, the people (from less taxation). Is it your contention that corporations sometimes seek less regulation in order to make LESS money?

As an example, lets take the pharmaceutical industry. The drug approval process was criticized in the early 80's due to the approx. 12 year time frame needed to approve a new medication. AIDS groups pressured that people were dying now and there was no time to wait for clinical trials. In response, the FDA developed the Fast Track process for certain drugs. One of the drugs that went through the fast track approval process was Vioxx, perhaps you have heard of it? There are many that say the FDA should be eliminated completely, that the pharmaceutical companies are capable of policing themselves and judging the safety of a particular drug. The argument is that if a drug company sells a drug which is found to be harmful (and we all know they would admit it right away) people will not buy drugs manufactured by that company anymore so it is in their best financial interests to make sure their products are as safe as possible. Is this the logic you agree with?

Your view of less regulation having a goal of more competition is theoretical and rather scholastic... it is not how the world really operates. First, as I stated above, corporations never do anything to lower their profits. Competition is good for consumers, bad for corporations. In fact, corporations HATE competition and will try to destroy it whenever they can. Need an example? Look no further than the ubiquitous Walmart. They are well known for anti-competitive pricing tactics to force smaller stores out of business. Please explain why they would do this if Walmart wanted more competition! They desire less competition because it allows them to behave in an evil manner without the consumer being able to go to a competitor. You think that if there is an unmet demand that some other company will spring forth to meet consumer demand? The little guy has a chance to make it big? Wrong. Unless they are already financially well off, they will instantly be sued out of competition by the 'big boys'.

The 'free market' you think we operate under is an illusion. Companies have learned that if they cooperate with each other, they will all make more profits. This is how they operate today and they need to be MUCH more heavily regulated.

permalink · 2012-03-21 19:59:10 · Print ·

umm

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

Quite simply, corporations strive to make a profit. These profits do come from somewhere, they come from providing something that people prefer over the amount of cash that the selling price of the product is. This is not true in all cases, but this is how 99% of transactions in the market are.

Whether a given regulation is good or bad is not based on how much it hurts corporate profits, it is based on its direct and indirect effects. Let's take the banking industry for example. Banking is one of the few areas where Canada has less regulation than the US. Despite this, the Canadian banking industry came through the recession just fine, because there were not shoddy regulations encouraging malinvestment in the Canadian banking industry.

When you make a bunch of banking regulations that force banks to lend money to people they would not normally lend to, in the short term it crease a lot more wealth because the current fiat currency systems are based on debt, but in the long run, when it becomes apparent that these people can not afford to pay their loans, the debt starts to default, and everyone who had capital and wanted to turn it into more capital by lending it to people who needed it and promised to pay it back with interest loses money. Then people start to panic and the entire credit market tightens up. If however you allow the banks to lend their money and that of their clients how they feel best ensures them profits in the first place, none of this happens, and rather than destroying wealth, more wealth is created. Each time these rich assholes spend the wealth they create on frivolous things, people like you and me get a piece of it. Call it "trickle down economics" and engage in ad hominem attacks against it if you will, but those in the know just call it "economics".

permalink · 2012-03-24 01:25:10 · Print ·

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

You are again returning to your overly simplistic academic explanation of things. We were not talking about supply and demand... we were talking about where the increase in profit (from deregulation) is going to come from. You claim that it will miraculously NOT come from consumers, I disagree. To refresh your memory:

quote:
The people who equate less regulation with somehow being necessarily always at the expense of the consumer amaze me.

You really want to compare the banking industries in Canada vs. the US based on the number of regulations? They are structured very differently, any comparison of number of regulations is meaningless. If you like, you can explain how the US banking system got 'better' through deregulation. I am always in the mood for some good fiction!

Then, you seem to imply that the housing bubble (and its collapse) was caused by the Community Reinvestment Act and similar legislation. How many times I have heard from the simple minded claim 'The whole thing would have been fine if it weren't for the damn you-know-whos defaulting on their damn mortgages!!' To maintain this view in light of all the evidence of what actually happened can only be explained as willful ignorance. Have you ever heard of Moody's or Standard & Poor's? Are you deliberately ignoring the fact that the banks anxiously made bad loans not because they were forced to but because they were now allowed (through deregulation) to package and sell those loans as if there was no risk at all? Why do you think the mortgage industry was engaging in predatory lending?? Because they were regulated to do it?!? Fiat currency based on debt... wow, you are all over the place!

Then you end with trickle-down economics of the wealth created by the rich assholes (like you and Warren Buffet?). First and foremost... WEALTH is created by LABOR. Labor is the only thing that actually generates capital; everything else simply moves it around. Second, trickle-down economics is only an academic theory, it doesn't happen that way in real life. And while I appreciate that you are attemting to head off my criticisms as an ad hominem attack (which can only be performed against a person, not an idea BTW!) one only needs to examine our current economic situation to SEE it doesn't work that way. What actually happens is that the wealth gets put into offshore tax havens, Wall street investments which generate nothing for the economy, they SAVE it not spend it. The top .1% simply don't spend enough on 'frivolous things' to make an impact on the economy of the other 99.9%.

It seems like you are a first-year economics student trying to test the waters with the crap they are teaching you. My advice: study what really happens, not just what they teach you. Wait another year or two and garner some understanding of the system before trying to engage in arguments like this.

permalink · 2012-03-24 08:33:47 · Print ·

umm

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

quote:
"You are again returning to your overly simplistic academic explanation of things."

And you again are returning to your overly arbitrary simplistic non-fact-based explanation of things (corporations are evil, no other problems exist in the world).

quote:
"where the increase in profit (from deregulation) is going to come from"

Where does any money come from, other people's bank accounts? Printed paper? No, it is a measured unit of value that comes entirely from supply and demand. Holding back or forcing forward a society at a rate that is not optimal for its advance is essentially holding it back in the long run, so it is better to regulate very little, or not at all if possible. If I sell you a thing for $20 that will yield you a total lifetime savings of $50 by having bought that thing, I didn't rob you of $20, and you didn't rob anyone else of $50, every exchange was voluntary unless otherwise specified. If the $20 thing was made in a third world country, they benefitted by having that job rather than some other job, perhaps prostitution or slavery, or no job. Most things in economics and society in general are not a zero-sum game.

quote:
"If you like, you can explain how the US banking system got 'better' through deregulation."

It was never deregulated. One or two regulations being overturned or replaced happens over time, what matters is how free they are to do things their own way without their market being influenced such that things that would normally be bad investments start to appear as good ones. The Community Reinvestment Act and others like it skewed the markets in a way that the regulators thought would be beneficial and in the short term they were probably right, but in the long term, they were wrong.

quote:
"The whole thing would have been fine if it weren't for the damn you-know-whos defaulting on their damn mortgages!!"

So what are you saying then, is it a good thing for people default on their debts ? No. If I make a series of optimistic investments assuming that since times are good, people are more or less going to repay their debts, am I somehow to blame for making a bad investment that caused me to not spend as much at your business so that you could have a better standard of living? No. I have only myself to blame, and you have only yourself to blame if you depended on my purchases to make your living. Should I be bailed out? No. Should people make a reasonable effort to help others out? Yes. Should they be obligated to sacrifice themselves for others? No.

quote:
"Why do you think the mortgage industry was engaging in predatory lending?"

I don't think they did. On the one hand, there was a real estate bubble encouraging them to willingly set aside their better judgment and to make a quick buck off it, and on the other, they had government legislation that encouraged them to make cheap credit available to people who they normally wouldn't want to lend to. There were a few people who did dishonest things, as is true of any point in time, but you can only make decisions based on the best available information, so those who did not realize all those bonds were crap did just that, and so most of them paid the price. Investment always necessitates risk, what do you expect?

quote:
"Fiat currency based on debt... wow, you are all over the place!"

It IS based on debt. This is a widely known fact. It appears here you are attacking the argumenter because you cannot anything wrong with the argument.

quote:
"Then you end with trickle-down economics of the wealth created by the rich assholes..."

Whether they are assholes or not is beside the point, so long as you see economics as a zero sum game, nothing in economics will make sense to you. Banks were created initially by government because they were seen as something which helps to create wealth and accelerate growth, if they're inherently evil, then the government is inherently evil too.

quote:
"WEALTH is created by LABOR"

Except for the majority of professional services, which is something like 80% of first world nations' economy now. If you spend $500 of labor making a $200 valued item, you didn't just create $500 of wealth, you created $200, and wasted $300 worth of your own effort. This is the area of the otherwise pretty good book referred to as the "Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith, where he got it wrong.

quote:
"trickle-down economics is only an academic theory"

Nope, it's fact. If the opposite of what I said were true, the USSR would have thrived, and Hong Kong would have collapsed in ruin. The reason India and China are emerging is because people with capital and a need of cheap labor showed up and got the ball rolling, after their governments started loosening their draconian protectionist policies. The Chinese didn't just one day discover some secret money tree in their back yard and start harvesting it, they had a resource (labor) and needed another (capital) with which to produce more capital by mutually beneficial exchange (for the most part).

quote:
"What actually happens is that the wealth gets put into offshore tax havens, Wall street investments which generate nothing for the economy, they SAVE it not spend it."

Nobody in their right mind with over a few tens of thousands of dollars stores it in bank accounts, they diversify it into mostly investments in profitable companies. Currency is constantly depreciating in value as it is in the interest of governments to print more of it all the time (to lower the value of their debts and spend it before the market adapts to its newly depreciated value), gold and silver are more or flat stores of value, but profitable companies are growing.

quote:
"It seems like you are a first-year economics student trying to test the waters with the crap they are teaching you. My advice: study what really happens, not just what they teach you."

Actually, they teach you bullshit Keynesianism, despite it being thoroughly debunked in the 70s, because they get their funding from the government, and it is in their interest to encourage Keynesian economics. It is exactly because I study what really happens that I do not buy that Keynesian crap.

permalink · 2012-03-24 19:46:29 · Print ·

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Re: Corporate Rights trump Citizens

Perhaps you are reading someone else's post because no where did I say (or even imply) that corporations were evil (although you said some could behave in an evil manner) or that there are no other problems in the world. Nor did I suggest anything was a zero-sum game. You are also still avoiding an explanation of your earlier comment regarding additional profits corporations realized from deregulation are not at the cost to the consumer. Obviously they are but you are ignoring this truth as you do so many others.

The banking industry has undergone deregulation (obviously I did not mean complete deregulation) and it is not 'one or two regulations'. You are not being honest. The loosening of regulations has been a MAJOR factor in the economic collapse. And yes, I would say it is fine for a person to walk away from a mortgage when it makes financial sense for them to do so. That is exactly what a corporation would do (and they have been doing it). You would somehow find it acceptable for corporations yet reprehensible for people. That is exactly the point of KrK's thread.

No predatory lending was happening? The people buying the bonds should have known the risks? You are again not being honest. The facts of what went on are well documented. If you choose to ignore them, you are only deluding yourself.

The fact that our fiat currency is based in debt has absolutely NO RELEVANCE to this discussion whatsoever; hence my comment. There was no 'argument' to find anything wrong with. Your tangent about the housing bubble also has no relevance to the discussion. You attempted to use it as an example of bad regulation (which it is not) and are now using it to lead away from your original comments which you cannot back up.

It was you who first called them assholes. How soon you forget your own posts; here is what you said:

quote:
Each time these rich assholes spend the wealth they create on frivolous things, people like you and me get a piece of it.

If this is besides the point, then please don't introduce it into the thread.

Trickle down economics is not happening. The current economic trend is the exact opposite, trickle-up economics; just as it was immediately preceding the great depression. Wealth is being concentrated in greater and greater amounts at the top. It is not entering back into the economy, this is obvious to anyone who looks. You are being so dishonest in your assertions that I am having a hard time believing you really hold these views. Only idiots ignore obvious facts and draw their own whimsical conclusions. Only trolls post incorrect information then go off on tangents with more incorrect information. I haven't yet decided which one you are but since you are continuously calling me on things which you are actually saying, I am leaning towards troll.

Regulation of industry is the only way to get the economy moving again. HEAVY regulation... stuff that makes the New Deal look like a government subsidy. Wall St. should be paying trading taxes, the SEC should have its investigation force increased 10 fold, the too-big-to-fail industries should be forcibly split up, heavy taxation of companies that use offshore labor... and that is only the tip o the iceberg. If we continue to let corporations lobby away the regulations that keep the free market system alive, we will only sink deeper into this depression.

permalink · 2012-03-24 23:31:58 · Print ·

ke4pym Premium join:2004-07-24 Charlotte, NC	What if? I pay for the arbitration?
	permalink · 2012-03-20 18:45:51 · ·

nutcr0cker join:2003-04-02 Chandler, AZ kudos:2	The CONservative supreme court strikes again From the creators of 'corporations are people comes another fiasco "you have no rights" these buggers needs to hanged from treason
	permalink · 2012-03-20 18:50:01 · ·

milnoc

join:2001-03-05
H3B
kudos:1

Found the Quebec side of the issue

»www.mccarthy.ca/article_detail.aspx?id=3521

quote:
Soon after the 2002 Ontario case of Kanitz v. Rogers Cable Inc. upheld an arbitration clause in a manner which blocked a class action, the Ontario legislature amended that province’s Consumer Protection Act to invalidate pre-dispute clauses that preclude court hearings. Now Bill 48 enacts a similar rule in Québec under similar circumstances. In Dell Computer Corporation v. Union des consommateurs, the Québec Court of Appeal decided in 2005 that, although the Civil Code of Québec ensures consumers can try their case under Québec law, that does not mean that contractually imposed consumer arbitration clauses are prohibited since, in certain circumstances, an arbitration panel may be free to apply Québec law. Bill 48, enacted prior to the Supreme Court of Canada’s judgement in an appeal of the Dell Computer case, reverses this finding. No pre-dispute arbitration clause agreed to after December 14, 2006 will be upheld if it prohibits a class action or otherwise waives or restricts the consumer’s right to go to court.

Emphasis is mine.
--
Watch my future television channel's public test broadcast!
»thecanadianpublic.com/live

permalink · 2012-03-20 18:50:19 · Print ·

BF69 Premium join:2004-07-28 Camden, TN	Big deal The guy who took at&t to small claims court got 100X more than what he would have gotten in some class action lawsuit. If at&t had a do over I think they rather pay 50 million people $10 than 50 million people $900.
	permalink · 2012-03-20 19:16:33 · ·

Linklist Premium join:2002-03-03 Longport, NJ kudos:5	Re: Big deal said by BF69: The guy who took at&t to small claims court got 100X more than what he would have gotten in some class action lawsuit. If at&t had a do over I think they rather pay 50 million people $10 than 50 million people $900. Except 50 million people won't go to small claims court. 50 will.
	permalink · 2012-03-20 19:35:23 · ·

skuv @rr.com	If enough people are taking AT&T to court for the same thing, AT&T can petition the court to make it a class action.
	permalink · 2012-03-20 20:48:08 · ·

Ebolla join:2005-09-28 Dracut, MA	Re: Big deal except they have in there own TOS that we can't have a class action against them which means they have to change TOS to allow a class action or just break the TOS which means people can get out of contracts and they just lose customers.
	permalink · 2012-03-20 22:11:39 · ·

WernerSchutz

join:2009-08-04
Sugar Land, TX

1 edit

Corporatism at its finest

For all these crooks writing "giving up the rights", read about what happened in 1917 in Russia. It will come to you one day.

What rights should we give up next, corporations ? I see you are busy eroding the rights to bear arms and invading our privacy big time. Slavery is a pretty good investment, what will it be called "voluntary permanent guaranteed employment" ?

FSCK YOU.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_revolution

Nationwide crisis had developed in Russia affecting social, economic, and political relations. Disorder in industry and transport had intensified, and difficulties in obtaining provisions had increased. Gross industrial production in 1917 had decreased by over 36 percent from what it had been in 1916. In the autumn, as much as 50 percent of all enterprises were closed down in the Urals, the Donbas, and other industrial centers, leading to mass unemployment. At the same time, the cost of living increased sharply. The real wages of the workers fell about 50 percent from what they had been in 1913. Russia's national debt in October 1917 had risen to 50 billion rubles. Of this, debts to foreign governments constituted more than 11 billion rubles. The country faced the threat of financial bankruptcy.

In September and October 1917, there were strikes by the Moscow and Petrograd workers, the miners of the Donbas, the metalworkers of the Urals, the oil workers of Baku, the textile workers of the Central Industrial Region, and the railroad workers on 44 different railway lines. In these months alone more than a million workers took part in mass strike action. Workers established control over production and distribution in many factories and plants in a social revolution.[1]

By October 1917 there had been over four thousand peasant uprisings against landowners. When the Provisional Government sent out punitive detachments it only enraged the peasants. The garrisons in Petrograd, Moscow, and other cities, the Northern and Western fronts, and the sailors of the Baltic Fleet in September openly declared through their elected representative body Tsentrobalt that they did not recognize the authority of the Provisional Government and would not carry out any of its commands.[2]

All Russian banks were nationalized.
Private bank accounts were confiscated.
The Church's properties (including bank accounts) were seized.
All foreign debts were repudiated.
Control of the factories was given to the soviets.
Wages were fixed at higher rates than during the war, and a shorter, eight-hour working day was introduced.

permalink · 2012-03-20 19:24:14 · Print ·

See 8 replies to this post

MyDogHsFleas
Premium
join:2007-08-15
Austin, TX
kudos:5

Reviews:

·Mediacom

·RoadRunner Cable

Get real

Class action lawsuits are nothing more than a full employment act for lawyers paid for by what us essentially a tax on corporations. It is actually worse than a tax, it's an unoredictable huge expense. At least a business can more or less predict their taxes.

Follow the money. See who gets paid by the class action lawsuit industry. (Hint: it's not the consumer.) See who's pushing so very hard to make class action lawsuits easier to file and win (hint: plaintiffs lawyers). See who is giving wheelbarrows full of money to the Democrats.

You want to complain about corporate money? Take a look at their money sometime.

permalink · 2012-03-20 19:42:33 · Print ·

chgo_man99 join:2010-01-01 Schaumburg, IL	Re: Get real Agreed. Lawyers make a killing on those class action lawsuits. And then those huge expenses get passed on to consumers.
	permalink · 2012-03-20 19:50:40 · ·

KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK

Agreed that most class actions are a joke, but we shouldn't be forced to give up our rights to participate in one.

Also, people always focus on large class actions. A class could be just a few people. There's a legitimate reason for a Class action lawsuit and that's why they exist.

... well... still exist... for now... anyway.

I don't think you guys are going to be so gung ho about the removal of the rights of court action when companies like Insurance companies add these to their policies... and what's to stop it from all manner of organizations doing this. Hell even the Police Department could do it.
--
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

permalink · 2012-03-20 20:05:37 · Print ·

Skippy25

join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO

They can 100% control their class action expense by making sure they are not cutting corners and neglecting their consumers in the first place.

Class actions happen because the company releases a product that is sub par and typically they know it is sub par before releasing it. They even do a cost analysis on how much a potential lawsuit will cost over actually proactively fixing it to begin with.

permalink · 2012-03-21 11:38:49 ·

MyDogHsFleas
Premium
join:2007-08-15
Austin, TX
kudos:5

Reviews:

·Mediacom

·RoadRunner Cable

Re: Get real

said by Skippy25:

You've been watching too many Hollywood movies where the noble lawyer is always the good guy and the evil corporation is always the bad guy, conspiring to put profit over people.

Back here in the real world, two points:

(a) Bullshit that they can "100% control" whether class action lawsuits occur. Here's an exercise. Think of every idiotic thing you could do with a toaster and get hurt or cause a fire or something. Write down the list. Now go read the toaster's user manual, whose first 3-4 pages are sure to be "safety guidelines". I would bet you 100 to 1 that at least 4 idiotic things you did not think of are warned about on that list.

Guess what? Everything on that list is there because some lawyer made money off that company by suing them because some halfwit did something stupid. And if the lawyer can jack it up into a class action... PAYDAY!!!!

(b) What about the effect on innovation? We live in an age where if one person out of a million is hurt by a product, even though the other 99.9999% are helped, that company is to blame for hurting that one person. And if they know those odds are there, guess what? They won't bring that product to market. Exactly because the lawyers are there ready to bring that class action lawsuit, because we live in that age where SOMEONE has to pay for EVERYONE's problems.

permalink · 2012-03-21 14:57:23 · Print ·

ctceo Premium join:2001-04-26 South Bend, IN	Turn About Is sometimes fair play. You know what I say to their legal rights? YARRRRRRR!
	permalink · 2012-03-20 19:53:53 · ·

KrK Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy Premium join:2000-01-17 Tulsa, OK	Re: Turn About The time is fast approaching when the only recourse available to a citizen will be an illegal recourse. Which of course means it's legally a crime, (even if justly deserved) and defying them will get you imprisoned. -- "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
	permalink · 2012-03-20 20:07:39 · ·

ctceo Premium join:2001-04-26 South Bend, IN	Re: Turn About I await that day. Grab a sabre and a flintlock you scurvy shiphand! "CANNONS AT THE READY FULL SAIL AHEAD"... "Soon the poor will have nothing left to eat but the rich". -Random OWS poster
	permalink · 2012-03-20 20:08:40 · ·

mr sean Professional Infidel Premium,ExMod 2001-07 join:2001-04-03 N. Absentia kudos:1	Re: Turn About said by H.L. Mencken : Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -- How you can make the world a Better Place
	permalink · 2012-03-21 00:42:13 · ·

jjoshua Premium join:2001-06-01 Scotch Plains, NJ kudos:3	DGAF It's not like you have a contract with netflix. If they do something wrong, you quit and don't pay them ever again.
	permalink · 2012-03-20 20:15:29 · ·

dvd536 as Mr. Pink as they come Premium join:2001-04-27 Phoenix, AZ kudos:4	They know they suck Else they wouldn't be trying this. no need to do this if your subs are happy.
	permalink · 2012-03-20 21:15:25 · ·

keason Premium join:2002-05-02 Ann Arbor, MI Reviews: ·Comcast Business.. ·QuantumVoice ·Sprint Mobile Br.. ·AT&T Midwest ·AT&T DSL Service	Netflix tries to avoid class action blackmail Nothing more than that. Netflix has no contracts to violate like the cell and ISPs. They are just trying to avoid being hassled unnecessarily when they are sued for poor quality, device crashes, unavailability, lost DVDs, which have no impact on subscribers but enrich class action attorneys. The other companies are trying to diminish contract rights
	permalink · 2012-03-20 23:03:26 · ·

equivocal join:2008-01-23 USA	Re: Netflix tries to avoid class action blackmail Prior to the 2006 class action suit Netflix throttled customers using various techniques from blatant not shipping to shipping from across the country. Compelling a change in behavior like that is now completely impossible. Thank you, SCOTUS.
	permalink · 2012-03-21 01:52:24 · ·

old_wiz_60

join:2005-06-03
Bedford, MA

Reviews:

SCOTUS ruled..

in favor of AT&T because AT&T's attorneys managed to find ways to influence the judges via the simple expedient of slipping $$$$ into the right pockets without anyone finding out. This is the way SCOTUS verdicts will be decided in the future - whichever party can slip the most money into the right place, without being caught, will win the ruling.

Kind of sad that SCOTUS verdicts can be bought now, just like seats in Congress and most other jurisdictions that allow corporations and the 1% to buy candidates.

permalink · 2012-03-20 23:22:00 · Print ·

KrK Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy Premium join:2000-01-17 Tulsa, OK	Re: SCOTUS ruled.. I think it was an ideology win. You know, the old "If people don't like the clause, don't sign the contract, go somewhere else." Except every Corporation in America is rushing to add this "clause" to all agreements. /Fail Supreme Court. -- "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
	permalink · 2012-03-21 00:11:02 · ·

Jack_in_VA Premium join:2007-11-26 Mathews, VA kudos:1	Legal rights are there You have all the legal rights in the world. YOU DON"T HAVE TO PATRONIZE NETFLIX. I've never seen or heard any evidence that anyone is forced to use Netflix. To do so you are agreeing to their TOS.
	permalink · 2012-03-21 08:10:38 · ·

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
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AA169|170
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