The Free Market Gang

It is quite difficult for me to write about the state of our current free market without making reference to the corrupt politicians as the enablers of this greedy system. However, I will change course this time, refrain from complaining and try to offer solutions based on my juvenile understanding the economics and the politics of the United States.

The definition of what a corporation is, its activities, liabilities, and main mission needs to change. As it stands today, a corporation is a person who has no soul and no cognitive understandings of ethics. Its main mission is to increase share holder value.

The above rules of engagement are an open invitation for greed and unethical conduct. I can guarantee you that no Nike shareholder is complaining about how Nike exploits the poor people of Thailand. As long as the dividends payments keep coming in who cares how the money is made.

Liabilities should be set on those running the corporations so that their decisions are taken with a certain rational in mind. Had we learned anything from the Exxon disaster in the late eighties we wouldn’t have had BP; we set a timid limit on what oil companies are liable for when they cause accidents. What is 80 some million dollar in penalties to a company that makes tens of billions in profits a year? Of course they will happily pay the penalty.

No need to get into investment banks that engage in phantom activities that produce product and services that add no value to our society.

Perhaps, the business leaders of this country need to reflect back on history and look into the souls of the founding fathers of this land. Those people truly and ethically tried to create a system that benefits the common man and that’s what made this country great.

Perhaps, Dr Mohammed Yunus -a banker and Nobel peace recipient- is just one of those leaders who advocate the need for social-value driven businesses along with profit driven business. In a spectacular lecture before the commonwealth club he showcased in details many of his successes in offering opportunities to the poor mainly women so that they can run small businesses and thus educate their children and prepare them to become vital elements of society. I think we need more of him.

Ahmed Tantan

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man my son!

—Rudyard Kipling