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this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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"Public companies...legally have to put shareholders first."
I thought this too, but it is apparently a myth.
"There is a common belief that corporate directors have a legal duty to maximize corporate profits and “shareholder value” — even if this means skirting ethical rules, damaging the environment or harming employees. But this belief is utterly false.
To quote the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the recent Hobby Lobby case: “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.”
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits
Hey, I mean, like, corporations are people too, man.
So corporations too should have to go to jail if they break the law. Or in this case close down the building and not perform any commercial activity for a certain time
Funny how that worked out huh? All the benefits of personhood, but none of the downsides, like mortality, having to pay fair taxes, incarceration for crimes, possible death penalty for killing citizens ...
That is literally the whole point of corporations, they're designed to allow people to take more risk. Business law 101.
(If you grossly abuse it, they will "pierce the corporate veil" and arrest those responsible, but again, that's only if you're grossly abusing it)
Still a sticky problem from labor’s perspective, unless the corporate time-out includes salary and healthcare payments. Maybe except the C suite?
But then you might as well keep the company open (Unless it is currently doing harm), and throw the directors in jail.
I always understood stock investing as assuming the risk something like that could happen (I’d a director fucks up, you lose, or vote him out of the job). But now that all of our retirement is tied to the fucking thing it can’t work that way.