Originally Posted by zuluking
Social responsibility has become a key pillar of corporate goals and objectives. Like anything, they may be achieved or not, but they certainly exist in most / all large corporations. However, the definition is subjective and the goals / objectives are widely variable depending on the industry, the locations, etc. And, in what's becoming increasingly common, a company's social responsibility goals are factored in to investor reports, investment portfolios, etc. (however, investment guys could probably speak to whether that is effective or otherwise.)
I find it strange that no one has invoked Sarbanes-Oxley into the discussion regarding the fact the significant changes / overhauls have been introduced to reduce corporate fraud, scandal and corruption. And these types of change almost always end up in the land of unintended consequences. I can't help but think that CEO / CFO compensation went up considerably due to the accountability attributed to them personally on behalf of massive organizations.
Regardless, changes happen, but due to the enormous number of ramifications to the current system (including the law of unintended consequences), they tend to be slow, methodical, and carefully thought out by large numbers of economists, think tanks, etc. SOX was likely off the scales in respect to magnitude of change at one single time. Nothing will come of this silly complaint session. Fundamental changes, if necessary, will be years in the planning and will attempt to cover every possible base and angle...and will still miss hundreds of loopholes and scenarios. The current system will never be perfect, but wealth redistribution always ends in disaster.
Sidenote: I find it strangely ironic that the Canadian mag Adbusters is attributed with starting OWS and the Canadian org Brookfield could bust it up. Dance, America, dance!
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