THE THREAD!!!

[Nikademus]

iDance!

[Chickenboy]

iDropped the ball on that one. My bad. [:D]

[Mynok]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: jeffk3510

So ALL corporations are evil huh?

No. Just like all people aren't evil. But all living people harbor some aspect of their persona that is, or has the potential to do, evil. In this-and the legal sense-corporations are like people. Now, when you start talking about a corporation with tens of thousands of employees and multiple C-level heads, then you get a complex polyglot personage.

Of course, this discussion is for "large" corps, not ma and pa S-corps or LLCs, naturally. Those are always evil.

ETA: KIDDING! KIDDING, Jeff! [;)]

It isn't the size really, but public/private that determines 'evilness'. Public corporations are absolutely 100% an evil concept. You take what was originally a good idea to protect a business owner from having his life ruined by the vagaries of the business world (and lawsuits) to a massive, hugely-funded entity whose sole purpose is to squeeze maximum dollar out of everyone it can. And then to boot it gets most of the legal rights a human gets. Sorry but that is simply an evil concept.

A private corp is just a business with some personal liability protections for the owner(s). May or may not be evil....mostly depending on whether the owners are. [:D]

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

iDropped the ball on that one. My bad. [:D]

You iSuck!

[:'(]

[USSAmerica]

Wow.  [X(]

[Nikademus]

this is almost as bad as talking math with JWE.

[Mynok]

[&:]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Mynok

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: jeffk3510

So ALL corporations are evil huh?

No. Just like all people aren't evil. But all living people harbor some aspect of their persona that is, or has the potential to do, evil. In this-and the legal sense-corporations are like people. Now, when you start talking about a corporation with tens of thousands of employees and multiple C-level heads, then you get a complex polyglot personage.

Of course, this discussion is for "large" corps, not ma and pa S-corps or LLCs, naturally. Those are always evil.

ETA: KIDDING! KIDDING, Jeff! [;)]

It isn't the size really, but public/private that determines 'evilness'. Public corporations are absolutely 100% an evil concept. You take what was originally a good idea to protect a business owner from having his life ruined by the vagaries of the business world (and lawsuits) to a massive, hugely-funded entity whose sole purpose is to squeeze maximum dollar out of everyone it can. And then to boot it gets most of the legal rights a human gets. Sorry but that is simply an evil concept.

A private corp is just a business with some personal liability protections for the owner(s). May or may not be evil....mostly depending on whether the owners are. [:D]

We're going to go on disagreeing on this, I can just sense it.

Well, I don't want to break precedent:

It's a misnomer that public corporations-'owned' by shareholders (and bondholders) should only strive to maximize shareholder value. This rudimentary ethical business framework (beholden solely unto the shareholders) has been on the outs for some time. A 'softer' feel for balancing the nuances of shareholder and stakeholder value is more the norm.

Where along the continuum a corporation lies can be seen by the values of its leadership's ideals and attitudes, the corporate governance, its mission, its core business units or strategies and-yes-stakeholder input. The latter has a way of humanizing corporations somewhat and has made them better than they were many moons ago, IMO.

ETA: So, Mynok-by your standards an ADM is inherently worse than, say, Cargill in all things? Just because of the way the corporation is structured and the public v. private argument? I couldn't disagree more.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

iDropped the ball on that one. My bad. [:D]

You iSuck!

[:'(]

Thanks for the offer, Nik. I'm flattered. However, I'm spoken for. [:'(]

[jeffk3510]

I would consider it Halo Effect before I would say bad or not... one bad apple, everyone thinks they're bad.

I have very, very close personal ties to one of the largest risk mgt firms in the entire world... INTLFCStone... for those curious... as my father used to be their board president....and still sits on their board...and I don't consider them evil at all. I know the majority of the MAJOR players involved there, and I would be floored if they we're an "evil" corporation.

[USSAmerica]

Parole - Tithe. [&o]

[Redsunrizing]

Good morning Threadies, it is good to wake-up, and hear no real bad news stories this morning. [:)]

[Kwik E Mart]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

back on the west coast (the best coast, as N.W.A. might have crooned) tithe...[&o]...little bit of a shock to the system going from sandals, shorts, palm trees and beautiful south beach women to cold, fog, drizzle and goth/tree hugger women...

Were you visiting or 'straight outa' Compton, KEM? [:D]

'spect the roots, yo!!! [8D]

[Mynok]

It's a misnomer that public corporations-'owned' by shareholders (and bondholders) should only strive to maximize shareholder value. This rudimentary ethical business framework (beholden solely unto the shareholders) has been on the outs for some time. A 'softer' feel for balancing the nuances of shareholder and stakeholder value is more the norm.

That's certainly a good thing. And I have no specific corporations in mind. Strictly speaking in generalities. However, the bottom line has never changed: their primary purpose is to make money for their shareholders. If they can do that and all the other stuff, great. If they fail the first they won't be around to do the other stuff.

As a general concept, I do think publicly owned corporations are a really bad, bad idea. And I'm sure most will disagree with me.

[Alfred]

The line of corporations existing to make money for their shareholders might have been true in the past.

Today many a corporation is run by management which only cares in enriching itself. Many modern features of modern corporate life allows management to disregard the interests of their shareholders.

Alfred

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

as for my own personal experience having become a "Mac" owner and operator by a strange set of circumstances......

The product is solid overall, though some components earn my scorn (particularily airport WiFi devices) It is WAY overpriced however and i would never purchase one with my own money. (laptop speaking wise)

Apple's idea of personal experience is just click and enjoy. Thats a great philosophy...until something goes wrong, then you have jack for documentation....such as the first time i tried to install OSX and it failed. All the documentation said was....1) insert disk 2) press ok 3) ENJOY
The rest of the book only told you how great Apple was.

OS X is definately a leaner OS. It boots and shuts down very quickly. You only get that with Windows if using an SSD drive.

On the negative side, the OS had odd quirks and when something doesn't work, you get little idea of what is going wrong. Guess its that whole "user experience" thing again.

Which is more annoying? The OS X Pinwheel of death or the endless circle of WIndows?

I am wary of automated sharing features and avoid them

The first time i used Bootcamp it corrupted the entire hard drive. (LOL) had to reinstall OS X again

Windows experience:

BSOD!

Slow laborous loadups and shutdowns at times.

Biggest thing i did with Windows 3.11 was exit to DOS. (unless using MS Word! or later....using Netscape Browser)

Windows 95/98 was cool. I'm sentimentally attached to it.

XP was good. Yeah it has it's issues....but its still chuggin along for a 10 year old O/S. My workplace still uses it!!!!

Vista - Not as bad as people kept telling me it was. It WAS however a resource hog. User access control was annoying.

Win7. Overall its very good. Still suffers from bloat vs. OS-X and unfortunately shares some traits with OS-X by not telling you when something goes wrong (unless your an administrator)


As for "iGadgets" i'm biased....as i still don't own a PDA. I have no need for an iPad though i admit they are "neat" If i'm gonna compute though....i have a laptop. If i'm gonna read.....thats what i got a Kindle for.

I will probably never play Angry Birds.

[:D]

Microsoft Windows 98 SE was the fastest Windows there ever was - I loved it (but had to leave it for Windows XP due to Direct X and games - I used to play lots of flight sims)!

I still use Windows XP Pro at home - fast and reliable!

At work 95% of my users still use Windows XP (and Office XP - who needs that monstrosity of Office 2007 / 2010)!

At work I use Vista 64 bit (at the time that was the only OS that could utilize 12 GB I have and need for virtualization - I didn't want to update to Windows 7).

On my laptop there is Windows 7 but it looks and feels just like Windows XP (and my Vista on my workstation as well) - I always turn OFF all unnecessary stuff like transparency, themes and other not needed additions - the end result is that it is almost indistinguishable from Windows XP (all the color of gray)!

Mac OS X?

I have it virtualized for number of years.

If I want LINUX I prefer Ubuntu (or some other modern LINUX distribution - Mac OS-X is nothing special...


Leo "Apollo11"

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Mynok
And I'm sure most will disagree with me.

I disagree with you.

[:'(]

[jeffk3510]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I'm cool with that. No hard feelings.

[Kwik E Mart]

ORIGINAL: Mynok
It isn't the size really,

that's not what all the enlargement spam i keep getting say...[&:]

[Mynok]

Not worth any hard feelings. [:D]

I've been fortunate to only have to work for private companies. Much prefer that environment. Don't know what I would do if had to do otherwise. I'll deal with that pit if it ever shows up. [:D]

The line of corporations existing to make money for their shareholders might have been true in the past.

Today many a corporation is run by management which only cares in enriching itself. Many modern features of modern corporate life allows management to disregard the interests of their shareholders.

Which brings up another 'evil' of the whole public thing: most shareholders aren't people. They are other corporations, i.e. mutual fund and investment companies. Huge opportunity for a lot of evil and we had a recent perfect storm of it in the financial sector.

In a world run by messed up humanity, anything that reduces accountability is a bad thing and should be avoided.