Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Corralling Corporations

Corporations are destroying the fabric of the American way of life, almost as fast as the American Civil Liberties Union (but the ACLU is another kettle of fish altogether), and, until recently, this was done with the support and blessing of the American government.

What makes corporations so bad, other than they're nothing more than legal pyramid schemes?

A friend of mine recently sent me a survey of what corporations wanted.

First on the list was employees should be "team players." Being a "team player" was described in the article as supporting decisions originally opposed.

To translate this into plain English, corporations want their employees to be good Nazis turn their heads and keep their collective mouths shut no matter what the CEOs decide.

Next on the list was "having a sense of job ownership." This isn't a bad idea, until corporations get hold of it. When a person feels ownership in any endeavor, they tend to do a better job. However, in the corporate world, how good a job a wage slave does is irrelevant, as they can be "downsized", a particularly unsavory term for being laid off or fired, and find themselves on the street. And, typically, when this happens, the CEO gets a big bonus or raise.

In the year 2000, Disney laid off 4,000 workers and CEO Michael Eisner pocketed a salary of $72.8 million. The Cisco corporation laid off, 8500 employees in 2000, with CEO John Chamber getting a raise to $28.7 million.

For CEOs working for companies laying off 1,000 or more employees, their total compensation was $23.7 million, according to a recent business survey.

Folks, nobody needs to be making this kind of money, regardless of what their job is. The President of the United States of America only brings in $400,000 a year.

For corporate America having a good education and specific skills to do the job aren't as important as being a good Nazi.

Down on the list were "big picture thinking" (good Nazis do what they're told and don't think), assertiveness and the ability to work long hours.

Now, by this time no one should be surprised to hear what was ranked last on the list  speaking up and telling the truth. Or, honest people need not apply, we prefer liars, cowards and thieves, oh, my.

Corporate thinking, which relies heavily on the Peter Principle (the more unqualified a person is the higher they go up the company ladder), is ruining this country  the world, actually.

Japan nearly went bankrupt when it got away from the Demming method and turned to American corporate greed-head rob and plunder thinking. For awhile, it must be said, such thinking works  just like any other pyramid scheme. In the end, however, an upside down pyramid will fall, as will corporate America and the rest of the corporate world.

Corporations exist for the sole purpose of making shareholders money, apparently either legally or illegally  the law doesn't seem to matter, which is why we have insider trading (right George W.?) and problems such as Enron, Worldcom, etc.

The so-called "bottom line" is to make money, the ultimate evil.