What entities really own the biggest corporations in the world? Do I really make any difference or is it just a theatre?
Where are the boundaries of my commitment and trust? Do whatever you want to me, because I am deeply in debt, I will comply and disclose everything as they ask.
Is relying on the 401K system the only way to succeed? Stock market is the real economy because because I don' know any better.
The real problem is in slaves called employees who will bend as much as needed to keep the show going.
2 replies (most recent on top)
America started down this road to financial anxiety in the late 1980s. Ironically, when many of us started putting money into our 401k AND still had pensions (and some form of company funded retiree medical), that was the beginning of the end for the middle class. Wall Street, starting in the late 80s, started pushing corporations to cut costs and use the money "saved" to give a few pennies more in dividends.
This led to the massive downsizings of the early 1990s. For the most part, 3M mostly bucked the trend (save all of those people jettisoned to imation, another WS idea). Finally, jimbo mcnerney brought in the plague of GE management techniques, which inflicted a fatal blow on this once proud corporation.
Mack took out people in waves of layoffs. Then, other than the Great Recession, Buckley mostly avoided peeing on the masses. Inge may have pretended he was old-style 3M in valuing people, but resumed layoffs with a vengeance. Mikey has been a failure in every metric unless more layoffs equals success.
Those who hired in the 1980s may have gotten the best of both worlds when we joined (pensions, 401k, 3M Club and Tartan) but this same hiring group has been unceremoniously dumped over the past 5 to 10 years, along with hapless experienced hires who were fed the BS that 3M was best in class employer.
Yes, the stock market and WS are theasters, and we the peons.
It is all just a game and we are the pawns.