[Vision2020] I thought you might be interested in this article

[Joe Campbell]

Jeff,

Do you think you could enact the kind of change that you want by taking over, say, the Democratic Party? More likely by the time you took them over the Democratic Party would have remained more or less the same and it would have been you that had changed. I don't see how you could take over that party without compromising at least some of your most fundamental values.

But I do appreciate the point. I recently saw a documentary about Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, original owners of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. Afterwards I realized that a company could take advantage of the recent popularity of some core progressive values: buying and selling local, natural/animal-friendly products, etc. I think that the name that Ben and Jerry used for this type of business was "value centered." 

But Ben and Jerry never reached the status of the folks you mention below. They were eventually forced to sell their business, earning $65 million between the two of them, which is chump change compared to the money earned by the CEOs of Wal-Mart, etc. In order to make the big bucks you really have to push the legal/ethical envelope.

--
Joe Campbell

---- Jeff Harkins <jeffh at moscow.com> wrote: 

=============
Bill,

Here is a simple thought for you to ponder ...

The ultimate force that assures that competitive behavior and free 
choice will provide a check on greed is that there is nothing that 
can prevent you from becoming the next CEO earning $200 million - you 
simply have to be willing to commit to that agenda and be willing to 
make the sacrifices necessary to achieve your goal.

Yes indeed - you could be the CEO of WalMart and you could then 
restructure that company or any other multinational firm as you see 
fit - as long as you satisfy the return on capital demands of the 
shareholders and the expectations of the capital markets.

It really is that simple.

You might consider reading the biographies of Dupont, Firestone, 
Ford, Hughes, Vanderbilt, Osborne - even Gates (to name a few) to 
gain a sense of how this is possible.

At 11:03 AM 8/28/2006, you wrote:
>P-
>I read it and have a question or two...
>In response to his sentence ---"I wish you could see that competitive
>behavior and free choice are forces that operate in the market as a check
>against greed." ---can you explain the existence of $200 million annual
>compensation packages for major corporate CEO's?
>what are the countering forces to the power of the multinational
>corporations?
>BL
>
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Pat Kraut" <pkraut at moscow.com>
>To: "vision2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 10:14 PM
>Subject: [Vision2020] I thought you might be interested in this article
>
>
> >
> > I thought you might be interested in this article:
> >
> > Liberals Should Know Better
> > By Arnold Kling on 17 Jan 2006
> > You can view it at http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=011606A
> >
> >
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