[extropy-chat] Bush wants another $75 billion for wars

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > Which regulations are those?  I thought the
> problem
> > was responsibility to shareholders are free to
> > purchase shares without believing in, or even
> > knowing, the company's plans for long term growth,
> > and thus focus only on the short term data (which
> > must also be provided, to try to prevent scams)
> and
> > demand immediate return on investment.  This would
> not
> > ultimately place responsibility on the government
> > regulations.
> 
> Government regs requiring quarterly reports create
> this situation. If,
> instead, all corporations reported only annually,
> you'd automatically
> lengthen the view of the shareholder by four times.
> If you allowed them
> to report only once every two years if they wanted
> to, you'd lengthen
> the view of the investor even more.

Okay...so how do you prevent managers from cashing
out the company between reports and leaving
shareholders with an empty bag?  Granted, that does
sometimes happen now, but it's a lot easier to do over
the course of a year than over the course of three
months...and one can report on quarterly progress
towards a long-term goal, noting milestones met (or
missed) on the long-term project plan.  (And any
project, even a long-term one, needs a plan to have a
good chance of success.  Ones that last for months are
often broken down into days, so theoretically ones
that last for years should be able to be broken into
three-month segments, no?)