One thing about the News stations are that they only tell you the bad news that they know you’ll watch, and this makes sense, the new station is a business trying to make money and not giving the public what they want is a sure way to go out of business. But to me it seems that fear and guilt are the main news items. This is sad.
If you think about it, it’s kind of a paradox, when a news station complains about large businesses when they themselves are a large business too! The problem with news stations is that they need to stay in business, and hating companies and point out the few bad ones keeps viewership high.
So, it’s up to business and financial bloggers to explain why we should NOT hate businesses!
Global Perspective: Why We Should Not Hate Businesses:
Historically, businesses are what have made USA a superpower in the world. It’s the USA capitalism model and the products that enabled America to be the envy of practically all of the other countries. The lightbulbs, cars, mass production, medical and technological advances were all be created by the capitalism! This is why both Russia and China have scrapped their old socialism models and have introduced capitalism or a derivation of it in their societies. After years of problems, both of these powerhouse nations realize they were wrong and adjusted their ideology to reward those that put forth great efforts. Both countries have learned that personal risk taking and working long hard hours should be rewarded, or else nobody tries and the entire country stagnates and starts to decay.
National Perspective: Why We Should Not Hate Businesses:
As I watch the 99% protesters complaining about the top 1%, I notice that they all have bottled water, large coffee house lattes, and other things made by the businesses that they are indirectly protesting about. It’s very ironic and makes them look a bit naïve in my opinion. Perhaps I’m past the age where I let others influence my thinking (like liberal professors), and instead use my own personal experiences and common sense to influence my opinion on matters. I guess that old saying “with age comes wisdom”, has some element of true after all.
Local Perspective: Why We Should Not Hate Businesses:
From a local perspective, large businesses are the ones that pay people money so they can provide for their families and actually have a very decent lifestyle. The middle class in most other countries aren’t like the middle classes in the USA. In most other countries, the middle class have just a little money left over to buy luxuries like make up for women, and perhaps something like a cheap radio. In the United States, the middle class has all of that and goes on trips that would make the middle classes in other countries think that our middle class is rich.
So if businesses builds our houses, makes medicines for us to overcome illnesses that could kill us, makes our cars, creates cloths for us to wear, and provides food for us to eat cheaply, why do we hate them so?
I think we should be proud of our businesses and that fact that we have such a great lifestyle! Even when comparing the middle classes in other Developed countries, we come out ahead… In fact, our middle class (and working class) is the top of the heap… Why do we want to change from being the best out there to something that isn’t? Perhaps creating a negative spin on the country helps politician get elected (the slogan Yes We Can comes to mine)
In general, I don’t understand why Socialism and wealth redistribution seems to be the answer from the white house and extreme liberal democratsl… We know from history that such ideas are losers…
Perhaps we bloggers that exist in the business and finance niche should explain the way it really is, in a common sense style. After all, we have no hidden agenda and the majority of us want everybody to succeed. We all benefit when our country is successful with great businesses…
What do you think? If you hate businesses (in general, not the exceptions), state your reasons below.
Cheers,
MR
It seems to me that all big businesses started out as small businesses at some point. It was their success that propelled them to be big. That’s a good thing.
The objective therefore is not about the size but rather when they use their size to become the bully on the playground. Maybe some of them were always bullies but it was not recognized until they gained in size. The banking industry is a prime example of this. The bigger they grew the less they cared about the needs of their customers.
And and even bigger and more important question than this is why would we continue to give our money to businesses who do not have the best interests of their customers in mind? This also includes bail out money.
But the banks like Well Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase wasn’t bad at all. In fact, I love Well Fargo, it’s a great bank.
As for the bailout, the big banks that were given those loans repaid them with interest. The government made out in the deal. It’s the smaller banks and the auto industry that didn’t pay back the loans yet…
As for the banks, the government require those banks to make some of those subprime loans, had they not, the government would have sue them like the government seems to like to do lately.
Just a historical note here, J.P. Morgan actually help the US from folding way back when during the Great Depression. Had he not existed or had the level of wealth he had, we would be in sad shape today still…
This article wasn’t totally about banking, but business in a more general sense. That said, think about it. If we cap the size of our banks, they are not going to be able to make big loans. And unless our government want to give billions of dollars occasionally to big companies like the automakers, those big businesses will suffer, or go to the Bank of China for a loan and then China would make all of that interest off of them. I think the government needs to look and think about the entire picture instead of doing and saying rash damaging things.
Thanks for the comment
I don’t hate business one bit. It isn’t communism or socialism that gave us the automobile, air travel, the internet, or an iPhone.
I don’t hate businesses. I don’t think that people truly appreciate the role businesses have in their lives. This is quite unfortunate because we need to work together to help improve the economy long-term.
I find that to be true too. People act like businesses are alive and separate from the people that run them.
It always kills me when I read about a great company getting sue because of one employee doing something stupid. It’s not the company/business, it’s that one employee… But nobody goes after the 1 employee because that employee doesn’t have any money, so they go after the company… Like the company made the employee do whatever stupid thing he/she did…
And the national media, how hypocritical…
I have no problem at all with big businesses. My only issue with them starts when they become powerful enough to impact government policy and regulations. If we could somehow eliminate lobbying our capitalist society becomes so much healthier.