There is no answer? The question to you and Borillar was: Does it make a difference that the corporations are owned by the American people? A few possible answers mignt be:
Yes
No
Maybe
I don't know what I am talking about and why am I in this thread? (Borillar, I suggest this one for you)
posted on August 9, 2001 05:57:32 PM new
Yes, No , Maybe would all be formed from opinion, but the question requires agreement that corporations ARE owned by the American people. Without that, in full and factual knowledge, there is no answer.
posted on August 9, 2001 06:09:58 PM new
OK, I will ask it another way. If the majority of the big corporations in this country were owned by the American people, would it matter in your thinking?
Borillar, if you want to jump in here, feel free. After all, this is your thread. I'm just an interested observer, trying to ask some questions. This isn't derailing the thread, is it?
posted on August 9, 2001 08:38:39 PM new
Of course it would make an immense difference. There are examples. The South Bend Lathe Company (or whatever the name of record is) is an employee owned enterprise that has some success. It had been mismanaged, went to chapter 11, and was bought through collective effort of the people who worked there. Such examples are the only way that I can see to say that a corporation is owned by the American people since, as I've already said, mere shareholding without controlling interest doesn't qualify as people owned. To trace ownership of any corporation is a challenge usually resulting in an ambiguous finding that the corporation is not owned but only operated as a part of an even larger corporation and on up a chain to who knows where. Very often the subsidiary controlling corporation is a part of a large international conglomerate, and that characteristic extends to even those companies which appear to be local to a community in this country.
It is that sort of collectivization of control into highly financed and politically influential focused interests which is addressed by Borillar, whether he knows it or not.
The day of being able to believe with any verity that the American ownership of corporate america are over, sad to say. That which was warned of as long ago as the 1960s has come nearly completely to pass.
Oh. It's very similar to the farm collectivization which occurred in this country during the 1930s, but on a world scale. Large conglomerates took the farms using various mechanisms, and in large part the farmland is not now owned by the american people. It is owned by those large entities which no doubt are now themselves controlled from without themselves (using terms like "themselves" without meaning to anthropomorphasize the conglomerates).
posted on August 9, 2001 10:51:02 PM new"Borillar,"
"I guess you missed the question that I asked of you, so I'll ask again."
"Does it matter to you that the corporations are owned by the American people?"
Well, the obvious answer is that public corporations are owned by the stockholders and privately-help corporations are not guaranteed to be owned in part or in whole by Americans. The interests of multi-national corporations and many foreign corporations, as well as American owned corporations have been taking priority over the American people and their best interests in the halls of Congress and by the Bush adminstration.
Now, when you put it, "Does it matter to you that the corporations are owned by the American people?" it sounds to me like you are saying that you and I and the person next door and every American all have a piece of the action; as in socialism. I don't think that we have gotten to that point just yet. So, I cannot answer your question until you elaborate a bit more on just what you are driving at.
