What, Exactly Do They Produce?

One of the things that really make me laugh hysterically, to the point of slapping my knee, then leaning back and falling out of my chair, is the relentless whining that corporate America does when they hear that the public criticizing their extreme sense of entitlement to wealth. So, we're stuck with this sentiment that it's so unfair to criticize those that have supposedly worked so very hard to attain their entitled positions, and have earned their wealth because they are the only ones in society that effectively "produce" (1). The comedy stems from the mere absurdity of how people who confess to huge success, remain victims of the criticisms of society, as if society looks at corporate America and literally says that being successful is bad, but corporate America is avoiding the point being made. Being successful is not bad at all, but the method by which that success was attained, if corrupt or damaging to the public good and even the markets, does in fact make it bad, especially when success is directly linked to the ability to persuasively furnish things for the market, and literally be a "very productive" member of society.

So, what I have to ask you, corporate America, is, in a time of crumbling economies, markets that tread barely above deep recession levels, a large number of unemployed, the lack of new and innovative industry, discontent mobs in the streets chanting down Wall Street, large financial institutions receiving taxpayer funded bail outs, the government rescue of the American auto industry, and more, what have you actually produced? In what matter is corporate America actually being "very productive"? It's a very mocking behavior, to claim that public criticism of corporate America is destructive, when there is greater income inequality in America, than in China or India before the recession hit (1). Corporate America, you subsist off the lowest taxed nation in the world, so you cannot possibly use the age-old conservative excuse that high taxes prevent you from producing jobs (5). Even though it claims to have its hands tied by too much regulation and high taxes when it wants to create jobs, it still doesn't produce a significant amount of jobs to make up for those lost. What is it? What is the missing ingredient? What else can the American people provide for you in order to avoid any criticism? The American public is still waiting for an answer, and a payback on their bail out investments. If corporate wealth keeps increasing, while the rest of working America sees no exceptional result, how can they effectively label themselves as "very productive"?

Financial institutions around the world, especially now in Europe, while creating an environment for austerity in nearly every nation, in order to buffer the collapse of market stability, have shocked investors with the "sheer amount of money" that banks have demanded, while those investors notice their shares deplete in value, with minimal gains, and a complete lack of growth instilled. So even after a Euro-zone near collapse, a U.S. collapse that's been patched up, and still flounders, and the looming threat of another recession, I reiterate to also the global corporate producers, where is the product (2)?

When it comes to corporate production, the only thing worth noting that gets "produced" are bets against the growth of the economy. Basically, unregulated financial capital companies work hand-in-hand with Senators in Washington D.C. They produce profits for themselves, by getting non-public information from our publicly elected representatives, in order to place bets on elements of the market that are detrimental to creating growing markets, like health care, and banking regulation. These are called hedge funds, and more often than none, these days, hedge fund brokers are looking for bets against growth. If they know that a particular market will fail, or go negative, they will heavily bet on that failure, instead of placing financial resources in growth markets. It apparently doesn't matter to financial corporate America whether or not a business or policy will "produce" for the gain of the markets. It doesn't really factor into that fact that these monied interests that are well connected in American politics will go to no-end, in order to gain profit, yes producing money for themselves, but failing to fill the void created by betting on failure. What is getting produced here, if a particular market no longer exists to produce anything (3)?

This mechanism of investing is bad, and very non-productive, except for those who exploit it. And, that is just what these so called "producers" are doing is manufacturing exploitation. As an author, Henry Mintzberg, puts it, there are two sides to every economy: exploration; and exploitation. Our current economy and political sphere, for whatever reason favors exploitation. It is the bets and the bailouts that are true to the form of exploitation, because it sure isn't those powerless and stigmatized Occupiers who have the leverage to attain fortunes through non-productive means. It is Wall Street, and the political power brokers who do, and they are simply exploiting our markets, leaving the rest of the economy to wonder why everything is out of control and there is nothing they can do about it. In contrast to exploitative enterprise, there is the exploration version, and this is what is disabled in the current economy. It is a feasible way of having monied private interests invest in risky ventures, because they are not bad ideas, but just new, and have an undetermined course, but they can easily succeed as much as they can easily fail (4).

When Mintzberg mentions economists, and how they boast about America's "great productivity", he emphasizes that it is great, because it is the enterprise of exploration, not of exploitation. Exploitative enterprise is what we have now, and that has been and continues to be very destructive to our economy, because unlike exploration, it does not aim to "do things better". It only preserves the current market we have now, that doesn't produce, but instead sells supply, which is only manufactured outside of our markets, and why, because production comes in the form of near slavery -- cheap foreign labor.

Corporate America is not producing anything. In fact all they do is sell. Home Depot doesn't produce hand drills, and hammers, it sells them. Staples doesn't produce staplers, and reams of paper, they only sell them. Best Buy doesn't produce electronics, they are manufactured overseas, and shipped here, and simply sit on a shelf. But even that's not even the worst case, because this holiday season, even after successful sales, Best Buy didn't even have any product on the shelf to sell (6). Hedge fund brokers don't even produce money, they just sell faulty market mechanisms that tempt desperate investors away from exploratory investments, and place value on non-productive facets of our economy. The scenario we have now in America, is just a bunch of overpaid, over-valued, salesmen, and even though they stake claim to production, they have nothing really in production, just a lot of leftovers to sell. Mintzberg puts it like this, if "a company that fires all of its workers and then ships its orders from stock", and economically that may seem like production, but what happens when the supply runs out? Mintzberg, simply, states, "America is running out of stock" (4).

The only other thing left to do is produce, and that can only be effectively done by the explorers of enterprise, who will invest in new industries, or those that create new, efficient, and progressive forms of production.When all corporate America is doing is enabling the the mechanisms, like "disruptive day trading and other exploitative speculation that crowds out sustainable investment and disrupts regular business activities", then productivity by definition and practicality are non-existent. So, how can they possibly claim that they are productive?

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4. Who Will Fix the US Economy?
5. GRAPH: Contrary To GOP Claims, U.S. Has Second Lowest Corporate Taxes In The Developed World
6. Whoops! That Stuff You Ordered Weeks Ago from Best Buy? It’s Not Coming