If you believe the US government is too heavily influenced by corporations, perhaps apps like
No More SOPA are the future of "voting". Will technology enable us to directly push back on corporations influencing government policy?
posted by sarah_pdx
on Jan 12, 2012 -
28 comments
“On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world” — Jack Welch, 2009. As GE’s CEO in the 80s, however, Welch championed corporate focus on shareholder returns. “Converts to the creed”, the Economist
summarizes, “had little time for other ‘stakeholders’: customers, employees, suppliers, society at large and so forth.” What went wrong? Steve Denning
describes how such a stance is counterproductive, creates turmoil in capitalism and fosters an environment in which “CEOs and their top managers have massive incentives to focus most of their attentions on the expectations market, rather than the real job of running the company producing real products and services.”
posted by the mad poster!
on Dec 27, 2011 -
38 comments
Corporations don't dodge taxes. People do. "The report found that the CEOs of 25 major companies paid themselves more than their companies paid in Federal income taxes. Exhibit 1 on page 31 names and shames them (well, assuming they are capable of shame), and they include John J. Donahoe of eBay, Robert Coury of Mylan Labs, Jeff Immelt of GE, and Robert Kelly of Bank of New York. The New York Times article on the report elicited some not-convincing rebuttals."
NYT version
[via]
posted by marienbad
on Sep 1, 2011 -
72 comments
Edward Mike Davis was the owner or Tiger Oil, an oil company operating in Houston during the 1970's. His
irascible memos have been an
Internet sensation for the past
few years.
Good things are not meant to last forever, and in 1980, Tiger Oil filed bankruptcy. Davis' hatred of people did not confine itself to the office, as
this case shows. Tiger Oil was in litigation in relation to the bankruptcy filing as late as
1989.
posted by reenum
on Aug 3, 2010 -
45 comments
This has not been a
good year for
SCI, the worlds largest funeral services corporation. Now allegations have surfaced that groundskeepers for Eden Memorial Park were secretly instructed to desecrate graves (possibly in excess of 500 individual bodies) in order to make room.
[more inside]
posted by es_de_bah
on Nov 23, 2009 -
80 comments
From cooperation to complicity. In 1988, the German chemical giant Degussa commissioned a study (by American historian
Peter Hayes) on its collaboration with the National-Socialist regime. The corporation's involvement in the production of Zyklon B has been well publicised, due to the controversy over the
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, but it's only one chapter of a larger story that,
according to the author (PDF), "
suggests that most people, when presented with opportunities or imperatives that they have every imminent or material reason to accept or accede to and only potential or moral grounds to reject, will choose the course of least resistance, internalize the arguments that legitimate it, and balk at admitting that one could or should have done otherwise."
posted by elgilito
on Jul 11, 2006 -
18 comments
The world's
oldest family companies start with a 1,400 year old
Japanese family business that has always built Buddhist temples. On the corporation side, only one of the
great chartered companies survives, Canada's Hudson Bay Company, founded in
1670, and now a large retailer, though there may be
much older corporations. There is even a club with an interesting web site,
Les Hénokien, for companies that are over 300 years old. If companies aren't your thing, there is always the world's
oldest restaurant in Spain.
posted by blahblahblah
on Sep 28, 2005 -
24 comments
A
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing? Walgreens, a nationwide drugstore chain, has been unsuccessful in obtaining city approval for a new store in a south Austin neighborhood. Now, they're trying a new approach:
“Along with plan revisions and numerous neighborhood meetings, they made public in February their intention to build a permanent home for a nearby icon, Maria Corbalan's Taco Xpress.”
—Austin American Statesman, 6-13-04
...and they've hired a political consultant, reportedly with green leanings and a history lobbying the city of Austin, to drum up support for this cause (specifically the Maria's Tacos portion of their strategy). Insidious? Benign? Is this a new trend?
posted by Ethereal Bligh
on Jun 13, 2004 -
35 comments
Sure, we all know the story about how Detroit developed, and then kept under wraps, a 100mpg carburetor is
false. However, affordable 80mpg family sedans
are real: behold the
Supercar! They are the results of a nearly decade-long partnership between
The Big Three and the Clinton administration. However the program was quietly shelved last June, the victim of the Bush administration, and corporate backpedaling. Read the whole sordid tale
here.
[use username/password for login] In the meantime, you'll have to settle for one of
these.
posted by thewittyname
on Dec 13, 2002 -
22 comments
“There are ethical ways to cut costs, and then there is executive greed. Your comment at the recent shareholder's meeting will be your legacy, like it or not (‘I have to make that much money, I have an expensive wife.’).”
–says a disgruntled EDS employee to his CEO, Dick Brown in an internal company memo.
FuckedCompany rides the corporation bashing bandwagon and
branches out to give you further insight into some of your favorite companies. Subscribers to the mother site get complete access. Non-subscribers can view the free rotating posts.
Described in NYTimes (password).
posted by found missing
on Jul 29, 2002 -
9 comments
