10-25-2015, 01:42 PM
"While Lampert was caught up in Randian delusions of crass materialism and cut-throat capitalism, he failed to realize that a business is an experience as much communal as it is individual. Employees are not just competitive beings — they benefit from cooperating with each other and perform better when they are respected, rather than beaten down and driven by fear.
Slowly but surely, Ayn Rand’s economic theories are being discarded because they simply don’t add up in the real world. Even Rand acolyte Paul Ryan (R-Wis) is now distancing himself, calling his well-documented enthusiasm an “urban legend.”
Lampert created a business model predicated on the notion that the invisible hand of the market would magically drive stellar results. With his belief in economic fairy tales, he managed to kill the goose that laid his own golden egg."
While this is all true I think it misses the real problem with Rand's theories. For years I kind of agreed with Alan Greenspan's theory that businesses would make decisions based on surviving instead of just making immediate profit. But the way it works now CEO's just jump from company to company making decisions that value immediate, short-term profitability over the long term survival of the company or even on the market in which it functions.
The finance industry did not care that they were creating an unrealistic real estate bubble in the mid '90's because they were all getting rich.
Even today when interest rates are near record lows corporations are not using this access to capital for research and development or expanding their businesses. Instead they are using it for massive stock buy backs that pump increase value with out really increasing production. That's why the stock market is near record highs yet there have been very few good jobs created.
I have repeated many times that we need to work in a capitalist economy. Capitalism drives innovation and efficiency. But unregulated capitalism is an ugly monster that will eat itself in the name of profit. That is why it is so important to have strong government regulation.
Slowly but surely, Ayn Rand’s economic theories are being discarded because they simply don’t add up in the real world. Even Rand acolyte Paul Ryan (R-Wis) is now distancing himself, calling his well-documented enthusiasm an “urban legend.”
Lampert created a business model predicated on the notion that the invisible hand of the market would magically drive stellar results. With his belief in economic fairy tales, he managed to kill the goose that laid his own golden egg."
While this is all true I think it misses the real problem with Rand's theories. For years I kind of agreed with Alan Greenspan's theory that businesses would make decisions based on surviving instead of just making immediate profit. But the way it works now CEO's just jump from company to company making decisions that value immediate, short-term profitability over the long term survival of the company or even on the market in which it functions.
The finance industry did not care that they were creating an unrealistic real estate bubble in the mid '90's because they were all getting rich.
Even today when interest rates are near record lows corporations are not using this access to capital for research and development or expanding their businesses. Instead they are using it for massive stock buy backs that pump increase value with out really increasing production. That's why the stock market is near record highs yet there have been very few good jobs created.
I have repeated many times that we need to work in a capitalist economy. Capitalism drives innovation and efficiency. But unregulated capitalism is an ugly monster that will eat itself in the name of profit. That is why it is so important to have strong government regulation.
