[extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley

[Samantha Atkins]

The point I was attempting to make is that when the economic system itself 
becomes sufficiently sick the majority of players within it will make sick 
choices in order to remain competitive at all.   In such a situation it is 
not entirely fair to treat the individual players as being largely to blame.  
There is some level of guilt there but it isn't primary.

If I wanted to maximize profits for my stock holders in the middle of the 
bubble then I would engage in quite a few practices that made relatively 
little real business sense but that drove up the price of the stock.  If I 
did not do so I would be replaced as an executive by the board for not 
maximizing the value to the stockholder.  If the board did not take that 
position then my company with lose out to the competition that gathered a 
larger war chest of funds.   It became a vicious cycle.

-s

On Wednesday 12 November 2003 07:09, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> Samantha Atkins wrote,
>
> > With all due respect a lot of the dot-com-busts were not about greedy
> > executives, at least not in the first instance.  The market
> > itself, and those who maintained and pumped it, was at fault.  Most execs
>
> at
>
> > most attempted to cash in.  In actuality the game of the money investors
>
> had to
>
> > be played to produce at all, even if the game was insane.
>
> You are right.  There were greedy venture capitalists, accountants and
> auditing firms as well as the executives.  But my point that not all
> corporations maximize value for stockholders still stands.  Too many of
> them maximize value for somebody else besides the stockholder.