Do you think the stock market is unethical?

[Ethical man]

Shareholders and investors can get free money, but it has a bad relationship with workers.  Employees are used as disposable commodities for companies profit, competition, and for shareholders investments.  Pressure from shareholders makes a high pressure environment for the need for profit and whatever it takes to get a return on investment. 

CEOs and managers have to constantly find ways to compete and profit more and more by pressuring for innovation, downsizing, replacing employees with robots, sending them oversees, stressing, threatening, and even firing employees and managers if they are not beating competition, meeting quotas.  Employees are slaves for companies as they are used for profit and shareholders, they have no voice.  CEOs reputations and careers are on the line so they are pressured by shareholders and their selfishness.  I dont care about money, I care about the better well being off all people.  Good decent work, not unethical work.  Shareholders need people in society to be very materialistic and ripped off-- that's how they make more and more money.  Work harder for less.  You will be trapped in an enslaved employment. I would never invest because employees will be done wrong in someway or another. People here care about money and their selfishness more than the better well being of all people. They dont care about ethics combined with hard work. They just persuade and use people for their benefit and profit. You can even invest in certain prisons -- yeah they get more on their investment the longer and more that people are locked up.

[jeff410]

I dont know where you get the idea of free money. It takes money to make that free money as you call it. And at considerable risk to the investor, who could lose their money. Furthermore its investors who provide the capital for business and to hire employees. You hypothesis is totally false.

[Paul E]

I see where your coming from because people are pressured to preform to advance and better the companys bottom line.

However the stock market is designed to allow companies to expand by making it easier to have "investors" provide them with funds, with this money they can HIRE more workers and if the company does very well the "investor" is rewarded with a share of profit.

Without money companies cant expand and HIRE more workers. So without the Stock Market, 100's of Companies wouldnt exist. and so 1000's of people wouldnt have their work.

In fact the Pressures your talking about to perform or be fired doesnt only exist in Public Companies on the Stock Market, its in any business that wishes to be profitable. so your thoughts while as wonderful as it would be if it could be different, Is the price of competing in a world of money and business.
Do you have a Superannuation OR 401k plan? do you work. then you have money in the stockmarket, if you dont work.

If you really wanna be away from money, live in a hut and hunt for your own food.

[picador]

My belated commiseration on the the implosion of the Soviet Union, Comrade.

[Shane]

No i dont .. I do believe that it is very much ethical ..

Regards,
http://www.dodjit.com

[beancounter]

While the exceptions tend to make the headlines, in my experience it's usually the ethical companies that succeed.

Successful companies don't operate on an us vs. them mentality. They try to benefit everyone - consumer, employee & shareholder. If consumers are happy & continue to buy your product a company can both increase its employment & increase shareholder profits. If employees are happy they tend to work harder.

People often think that capitalism is a game where only one party wins. But that's not at all true. When capitalism is working efficiently all parties (consumer, employees, stockholders) win.

[exactduke]

Bet it kinda makes you wish you lived in a worker's paradise, like North Korea or Cuba. Workers there have it made (grin).

[AZNYC]

Not much of a question really, more of a rant. But I think it raises a good point.

Most would agree corporations have an obligation to more than their shareholders. Not only do they have a moral obligation to treat their employees fairly, they also have a moral obligation to do right by their suppliers, their customers, the communities in which they operate, and the environment. Most large corporations would say they agree with this statement, at least on paper. Many issue a "CSR" (statement of corporate social responsibility).

But I think there is a thin line between treating employees fairly, and letting lazy unproductive employees do nothing all day. I have worked in a corporation for many years, and I can tell you that anyone who is worth their salt wants to be productive, which usually means working in a business line that is actually producing products and services that the clients value, and earning a profit. I think this is an important motivating factor for employees as well as shareholders.

I would assert that the best and most profitable businesses succeed because the employees are enthusiastic and engaged.

The real rip-offs that have come from abuses of the corporate form have resulted from managers who sacrificed long-term profitability for short-term personal gains. This has more to do with ripping off the shareholder than it does with ripping off the employees, though in the end the employees suffer too, because they have a stake in the enterprise.

I think anyone involved in the corporate world should be thinking about how to keep their employees motivated, which generally means thinking about how to keep them happy, engaged and loyal. The idea that there is a huge profit to be made in exploiting labor strikes me as somewhat 19th century.

And I also wonder, what is the alternative to the corporate form that you think will work better?

[George B]

Free market should be allowed to work it's course. Failing companies should be left to fail to wipe out the shareholders so that they will be wise about what CEO to bring on board. What is not ethical is that government bails out failed companies at tax payers expense. FED makes credit available at the expense of savers by diluting the value of the US dollars that prudent people have saved. What congress is doing is not ethical. I have saved money to buy these banks at their market prices (almost 0). But fed is bailing them out at my expense. This is not ethical. I did the right thing and did not take on debt and paid of what I owe. Others were greedy and they bankrupt their companies and families. FED and congress should be out of the picture so that free markets can weed out the suckers and let the efficient survivors proceed on the right path.