LOL. Go ahead and do your thing now where you fail at taking a pot shot and stop responding. It’ll be par for the course.
Ftr, I find the Warren story boring, because she went from a nobody to a national headline on the backs of discovering she build her career on a lie, and continues to do better than 95% of Americans (including you and me) anyways.
So cutting edge progressive! Down the rabbit hole we go. See? Warren might as well claim to be trans-racial, back the movement, hoping the sharpest of the cutting edge progressives come to her defense. “A sympathetic figure struggling with her identity.” Rofl!
I could have enthusiastically written what you wrote a few short years ago, but now an opposing set of thoughts occur to me
So, “the result” that you describe isn’t (necessarily) a problem at all but motivations tend to energize in bunches of directions. So those same motivations are also tied to other results, which you might not see the connection and some of which might not serve your fellow man, and some of which might harm your fellow man
Example of high level businessmen helping themselves and shareholders at the expense of the larger public
You are (hypothetically) pursuing your own ends in a way that helps your community THIS TIME. And whatever you did might continue to benefit the community for a long time to come, but also the selfishness lives on. Selfishness tends to hurt people badly without even noticing.
I wouldn’t be to hopeful in the long run about a society that ranks selfishness high among it’s virtues. I recommend truth and patience now. No disrespect intended
Well, the current POTUS is under investigation for a bunch of stuff and the last Dem nominee fixed her primary to secure the nomination and has lied like 5 million times in her political career all to beat a geriatric that claims to be for the people and for what’s fair while being a multi-home owning millionaire.
Most politician’s don’t even know what the word integrity means. I doubt AOC will be better than her peers, but at least some of them are intelligent. She’s not.
This isn’t an example. It’s a straw man. But I’ll bite. In what way(s) would this scenario happen “at the expense of the larger public”? What do you mean by “the larger public”? And in what way is a businessman helping himself and his shareholders at anyone’s expense? Are they somehow selling their product or service to unwilling, unwitting participants or through coercion, i.e. through threat of violence?
This is a vague assertion but I think I understand what you’re trying to say. I’d argue it’s not the selfish motivation that hurts people, it’s the result of people acting on that selfishness. Some people pursue ends that hurt themselves and others. Some people don’t. That’s human nature. I’d argue MOST people’s selfish motivations do not hurt most people. Again, I think you’re trying to build a straw man or some sort of red-herring.
Well, you’re assuming the incentives in place don’t push people towards virtuous actions. I’m not assuming that. It seems to me through mutually beneficial cooperation and free economic exchange, I can satisfy my own needs by satisfying the needs of my neighbor, no?
I don’t think anyone is advocating for dishonesty and haste nor would me acting out of my own self interest (i.e. selfishly) be incompatible with being truthful or patient. Do you see it differently? If so, how?
I did not interpret anything you said as disrespectful.
Well the boost in revenue was realized at the time of the scam, and internal rewards kicked in regardless of the impact to the future stock price.
If you’re an executive who meets his goals by cheating, and don’t hold the stock options until the govt catches it, I’m not sure why you’d think the stock price is the only thing that matters
It’s not like they were consistently breaking the law for the laughs.
Is this what happened? I know that WF got caught being scumbags. But is the above scenario what happened? Specifically? if it didn’t, or you don’t know, then you’re setting up a straw man …
I’m aware people act unscrupulously - but if we’re going to talk about this side, let’s also talk about the honest business which happens on a daily basis as well and compare…
Good. We agree that some people are dicks.
My point was, by and large, economic activity and transactions benefit all sides and in honest business, as well as dirty business, are driven by personal self interest to the benefit of the public and to consumers, who are also driven by the personal self interest.
I do agree with sitting_bear more people would benefit from an injection of strong virtues though - which I know you agree with as well.
Yup. WF is known for having great rewards for their sales goals. I’m sure it was very worth to those that did it, knowing WF would be paying the fine instead of them
Hence me saying it’s a cost of doing business
Not sure why dirty businesses are to the benefit of the public/consumers.
They’re still providing a product that someone is satisfied buying. I don’t like that they try to fleece their customers (I think it’s pretty abhorrent but yet they service my mortgage to my convenience so…), but some people who buy their products were satisfied buying them. I’d imagine these people had other options and went for WF for w/e reason. Is that not a benefit to the consumer of their product? Satisfying a want or need?
Who let this kid watch Infinity War without parental guidance?
Honestly, I’d challenge anyone to visit the slums in India, see the way children live and not feel the way he feels regarding anti natalism for a brief moment.
Actually in the case of WF a few of their settlements were around creating accounts/credit without even telling the ‘customer.’ the customer didn’t ask for anything.
I’m quite sure they were. When I worked at a mortgage company we’d sell to WF all the time.
In the case of some of the WF crimes, it was not. They were imagining the want/need on behalf of the customer
Edit: also this
Is also a major societal shift that shows a glaring weakness of the free market. Many free market supply/demand factors, while great in theory, don’t actually exist to that extent in reality