“Well, corporate America is made up of hardworking Americans who do their best to reward the investors, and many times those investors are pension funds.”
Ah hahaha. The CEO who got $h!tpwn3d was investigated for insider trading. He fucked the shareholders right in the nose.
But even if he hadn’t, the investors are mostly the super rich. Giving them more money is in no way respectable or decent, knowing that the money is coming from the rest of us.
But even if shareholder supremacy were admirable, we still don’t have it. CEOs who receive company stocks routinely inflate the value so they can sell them. It’s 100% legal, and I didn’t see any of the anonymous folk speaking out against the practice.
It is paywalled.
This thread is an #ad.
On the house, internet stranger❤️
Here’s an idea, make human life more important than line go up. I’m pretty sure that would get alllllll of your asses off the firing line.
But the cult of the line goes up says the line must go up, are you even paying attention to the line and whether it’s going up?
What if the line going up wasn’t money, but the value of human life? 🤔
We measure what we treasure!
You mean, it’s all just about the lines we meet along the way?
Okay but what if we just sent everyone some stickers with our logo on it?
I mean EVERYBODY loves stickers. Then w we can keep making money, you can keep dying and you’ll have some great bling for your toddlers coffin!
Everybody wins!
Think of how few stickers are on the average toddler’s coffin?
I was thinking pizza party myself, all our employees (except the ones we fired for being negative nancies) love pizza parties.
But my capitalism!
United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot on Dec. 4, 2024. The public response was generally not sympathetic.
The public response was generally not sympathetic.
The words they use are an attempt to weaken the impact of the hit. The public response wasn’t sympathetic, it was generally celebratory.
The elite cannot fathom being anything other than better than those below them. Deserving. They “got theirs.”
Maybe it was the significant amount of lead in the atmosphere for a long time that caused widespread brain damage, but it’s so obvious how disconnected from reality they are. Thompson’s death highlighted that reality applies to them too, and they can’t handle it.
I would like to believe people are poisoned and that excuses their idiocy, but approximately 15% of humans seem to be hardcore authoritarians by genetic lottery. They will believe that wealth and power are evidence of merit, no matter what. We just have to learn to work around that.
Awww poor billionaires. So sad.
Good. Money can’t buy happiness and if they try, we need to take their happiness. Billionaires already have everything, they don’t need peace of mind.
“People are in disbelief that they would be making this kid into a hero,” he told Fortune.
Attending a conference for CEOs in New York this week, just blocks away from the site of the shooting, George found that many were shaken and deeply concerned by the reaction to Thompson’s killing. “They’re having plenty of meetings right now to discuss beefing up security,” he said of the business leaders, even as some question how much security coverage is enough. People are asking themselves, “‘What does that say about our society? Where’s our society going?’” George said.
So they’ve learned absolutely nothing.
Plenty of meetings to beef up security. How about plenty of meetings to understand how your greed has caused this? They sound one logical leap (that they are unwilling to make) away from understanding exactly what the problem is.
They managed to find one and only one CEO quote that reflected anything resembling self-awareness.
“When I was growing up, CEOs didn’t make millions more than everyone else in the company. I think we have to reflect on why there’s so much anger and do something about it.”
That’s a bridge too far for them, especially with particularly oligarch friendly policies of the incoming US administration.
That’s what makes it sooo good, they think they just got the keys to the kingdom but forgot the all the residents can bite back at any time.
They literally can’t see the light for all their wealth because they’re calvinists believing: the greater the wealth, the greater the morality.
Well they did learn one thing though
They finally learned how it is to be a high schooler, having to live under constant fear of murder. I can’t wait to watch C level execs having tondo active shooter drills where they have tonhude under bullet proof blankets.
Mind you, murder is bad, and this murder on this CEO was bad, no matter how you turn it. I don’t want to live in a world where murdering eachother is the only conversation left.
Having said that, it is very gratifying to finally see these out of touch assholes having to suffer the same fear as all little kids in America
Great points!
Mind you, murder is bad
Yes for sure.
and this murder on this CEO was bad, no matter how you turn it.
I don’t want to live in a world where murdering eachother is the only conversation left.
Me neither. Let’s see if they are ready for any other kind of conversation now. OP makes me think they aren’t. Let’s not forget this murder happened because of all the other murders.
Yeah, you missed the point
Teo wrongs do not make a right. The murder of this CEO was still murder. This CEO indirectly murdered thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands and caused untold suffering. He was also apparently already on the hook for tax fraud and insider trading IIRC hearing in a news report earlier this week. He was a horrible man who should spend the remainder of his years behind bars.
That, unfortunately, is not the world we live in and I fully understand why he was shot. That doesn’t make it right, though. I don’t want to live in a world where you can be murdered without judges and juries and due process. We live in a civil society and that means that if you want it done right, everyone deserves a fair trial, even rapists, murderers or criminal CEO’s.
Yeah, I know that the US has a big issue with the justice system being damn near bullshit at this point, still doesn’t make anarchistic vigilante murdering an “okay” thing.
Do you want to live in a move civil society where everyone is treated equal, or do you prefer to live in a post civil society where it’s each for their own and we just murder those that we have a conflict with?
This murder of the CEO, as much as I understand it, is a step in the wrong direction. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the catalyst that will push society in the right direction and the US justice system will be overhauled and made fair for everyone and maybe the government will institute laws that will restrict what companies can do to make it fair for everyone… Doubtful, but maybe. Either way, it still is a step in the wrong direction and I do worry that the US is sliding off into a hellhole it will never be able to dig it self out of. This trump shit will inevitably make it easier for a few to abuse the rest. The few will control the news and narrative, and blame the leftz the immigrants, and at some point more on the left will start fighting instead of talking. Once the scale tips, there is no tipping back. Ask Yugoslavia how well that worked out for them. Oh yeah, millions of deaths later, it no longer exists.
How is that for a kind of conversation?
“Do you want to live in a move civil society where everyone is treated equal, or do you prefer to live in a post civil society where it’s each for their own and we just murder those that we have a conflict with?”
Oh, the first one, absolutely.
But we’re already living in the second one it’s simply obfuscated by an illusion of civility. When the violence is only directed downward, it’s somehow legal and civil, but when it’s directed upwards, they convince the public that it’s wrong.
Some of us disagree with that, and think that mass murderers should be punished even if the law won’t do its job.
If you think that we’re living in an anarchy where it’s each for themselves, then you really need to get outside more
How is that for a kind of conversation?
It’s fine, if a bit preachy.
It’s not in any way moving the needle on healthcare though.
Yeah, you missed the point
No I didn’t, I’m just not sure I agree.
Maybe, just maybe, this will be the catalyst that will push society in the right direction and the US justice system will be overhauled and made fair for everyone
In which case it would be a net positive, as it would save countless lives.
Same for stealing.
A company steals millions from their employees? Silence.
A guy stealing from Walmart? Police force everywhere.
Because CEOs are a symptom.
The problem is our investment economy that focuses only on the stock prices continually going up. It’s literally an unsustainable system.
If a CEO puts their personal safety over the investors, the company gets a new CEO.
They’re not the one really making the worst decisions, they’re the ones who agreed to take a shitton of money to be the face of the company and take all the blame.
CEOs don’t get paid for the work they do, they get paid to be the fall guy.
Still absolutely shit people who deserve zero sympathy, but they’re not the real problem, just a symptom
I don’t always agree with what you post, but you’re spot on here.
If a CEO puts their personal safety over the investors, the company gets a new CEO.
How many times will they be willing to get a new CEO before they make changes? How many times will someone accept promotion into that position? I wouldn’t take Brian Thompson’s job for any amount of money right now, would you?
How many times will they be willing to get a new CEO before they make changes
They’d do it on the daily if it makes them more money…
What do you think a CEO actually does?
They listen to what high level management says is best, and then just does whatever brings the stock price up fastet disregarding everything else.
There’s a reason they all get golden parachutes. None of them care past the last board meeting
They’d do it on the daily if it makes them more money…
Sure. They’d run a hundred grandmas a day through a woodchipper, each of them clutching a puppy, if it made them money. However, I am quite sure there isn’t a way that replacing your CEO daily, or even often, makes more money. And yes, I understand hyperbole.
I also understand that the impacts on a company of having multiple CEOs shot in a short period of time, or having multiple CEOs come in, try to be decent humans, and fired for it in a short period of time, would have destabilizing impacts throughout any sizable organization. They would run into problems with manpower and staffing, investment dollars, and generally the ability to do business. It would harm morale and reduce efficiency. And probably a bunch of other things I haven’t thought of in the 3 minutes I’ve been typing this.
How many times will someone accept promotion into that position? I wouldn’t take Brian Thompson’s job for any amount of money right now, would you?
I absolutely would take the job. I’d do it for a $1 salary even. I would have the power to make sure claims were approved, lower premiums on users, and call out the inequity of private healthcare from the top of the ivory tower. I’d be fired, but not before I was able to make some good happen.
And, in the long term, that wouldn’t even be bad for line go up.
Companies used to invest in their reputation, back when there was that 90% marginal income tax rate.
That’s the thing, you wouldn’t have the power to do any of that before you were booted out. CEOs do have a lot of power over the board, and the board has power over the company. The net result is that if the CEO pushes too fast or too radically they get removed before any change occurs. As the poster above said, in situations like this the CEO is paid to be the fall guy; the people who wield the actual power are the board members and the large shareholders. The CEO deserves a chunk of the blame for being the face of the organisation and legitimizing it, but killing one, or even a few, off wont significantly change the direction these companies are headed in.
Fair, but in the context of a company being willing to just replace CEOs every time they have to fire one (or especially when someone shows up to fire the CEO for them, Luigi-style), I think there’s a small number of cycles they would go through before logic would dictate that they need to conduct business differently.
If you made too much good happen, you wouldn’t be fired, you’d be thrown off of a moving train
thrown off of a moving train
It’s called “dying of an apparent suicide” and the authorities can find no sign of foul play. It’s so sad when this sort of thing happens. The company’s thoughts and prayers are with his family.
Ah yes, apparent suicide with two random, unrelated gunshot wounds to the back of the head
Yep, we have a word for continual uninhibited growth - it’s called cancer.
The problem is our investment economy that focuses only on the stock prices continually going up. It’s literally an unsustainable system.
Yup, this is the problem right here. Investments are supposed to generate returns, that’s the whole point. But Milton Friedman and Jack Welch decided that the sole mission of any company was to increase shareholder value, and the rest of the world rolled with that. So whenever these CEOs point to their Mission and Vision statements, unless they say “Our only priority is delivering returns to our Shareholders”, they are lying.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder_value
Economist Milton Friedman introduced the Friedman doctrine in a 1970 essay for The New York Times, entitled “A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”.[5] In it, he argued that a company has no social responsibility to the public or society; its only responsibility is to its shareholders.[6]
Meanwhile, we’ve decided that these corporations are people. Psychopaths who have no moral responsibilities to anyone but their shareholders, but people nonetheless.
Thus our efforts to make social justice a core condition for profits: fuck people over and get a boycott or protests or a label in media as toxic, and lose customers.
It’s not going well, as a strategy. It requires an educated populace.
I mean, every economic model out there “assumes rational actors,” which I’ve always taken to mean informed and educated. Too many of the masses are neither.
Exactly. At some point companies need to transition from investment vehicles to institutions
The “what does this say about society” question bugs the shit out of me. It means that our society is sick and tired of being the only rich nation in the world where getting sick or injured will bankrupt you. If these people were truly concerned about the good of society, they’d quit sucking us dry for every dollar that they can and would advocate for a better system.
We live in a society!!
It also bugs the shit out of me because how long have children been being murdered in school in a mass shooting epidemic, but now that the rich are being killed that’s what makes them ask this? Our society has been in bad shape for a long time
Absolutely. The entire article makes it clear that they don’t even have an inkling of what it’s like to have to worry about your health or how much money you have.
All I can think of is a TED talk I saw where the speaker had given some presentation to a bunch of billionaires and had some q&a, and one of them who had built a bunker for themselves asked him how they could prevent their security team from turning on them in the bunker.
The TED talk guy responded “Be kind to them?”
And the Billionaire said “But where does that end?”
I’ll try to find it so I can link it.
EDIT: Found it!
I don’t think it was a ted talk, I’m pretty sure it was a seminar put on specifically by the billionaire class asking this guy how best to navigate societal collapse with their vast amount of resources.
This I believe was one of the exchanges at that event.
What’s incredible to me is that they don’t realize that societal collapse will render their resources more or less worthless. Their options are the same as everyone else’s: get a bug out plan, be ready to abandon all belongings, etc. What are you planning to do to keep your bunkers stocked past the first month? How will you pay your security if your banks are gone or your currency is worthless?
Exactly. These people don’t think rationally. They truly believe they’ll have a group of sycophants who will do anything they say because they had them all this time before.
When shit hits the fan, you need to be the only one with the keys to the shock collars. You need to basically become Batman.
And it’s funny because the answer is build an egalitarian compound where your share of the labor is the funding. That’s it. If the guards see it as how they contribute to a shared community then they’re not going to turn on their boss
You’re right, though I was first introduced to the story from the guy telling it at a TED talk. I phrased it poorly.
The guy is called Douglas Rushkoff and he wrote a book on the subject called “Survival of the Richest: Escape fantasies of the Tech Billionaires”.
That video was freakin amazing and insightful!
You should make this it’s own post so more people can spread it
I’ll try to find it so I can link it.
Oh god please do.
I managed to find what I was thinking of, but it concludes with a totally different line about them than I remembered. I think @[email protected] is right, and the “where does that end?” quote might be from a segment in a Robert Evans podcast.
Thank you!
Wait! I found it! It was the same guy from the TED talk, but on a different podcast!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nS3-dQen-YM
relevant part at 4:20
also @[email protected]
You rock!
I’m pretty sure it was the same guy who did the “it could happen here podcast.” Then they were like, can we put shock collars on the security guards. Stuff like that.
Robert Evans? The man is a national treasure.
If you haven’t heard his miniseries “Behind the Police” (ironically a four episode special in a much longer running serial podcast called “Behind the Bastards” which is not only about police) I strongly recommend it.
Elysium
Have been thinking about that movie quite a bit since all this went down, but don’t remember it in great detail. Might be worth a rewatch.
— “You’re never stopping anyone who wants to get to you.”
All my life I’ve tried to make sure people don’t want to kill me and I’m still alive, it seems like a winning strategy.
Careful, that sounds suspiciously like socialism!
It’s interesting to see that we may be flirting with a new era in which being kind has actual benefits.
My whole life I’ve watched kind and generous people be taken advantage of and punished by our societal systems. Trump is the best public example of how the antithesis gets you everywhere in this country.
“When I was growing up, CEOs didn’t make millions more than everyone else in the company. I think we have to reflect on why there’s so much anger and do something about it.”
Only one of the 11 anonymous CEO responses gets it. There’s constant brainwashing in America (fortune.com is a literally part of it), that wealthy people made good decisions and were smart so they deserve every penny they make off the backs of everyone else.
This ruse might work in an economy of the past with fairer tax rules, better social mobility (for cis white males at the time), and industries where the consumer-company relationship aren’t counter to each other. With healthcare, it is plainly obvious that the money going to the executive is from people dying and sick people being denied care, forced into debt and bankruptcy, exploited for this product with extremely inelastic demand. Every minute they waste of your time keeping you away from your treatment is more dollars to them. That’s why people are upset at United, and aren’t upset about CEOs of these types of industries being murdered.
The country’s residents’ health should not be a commodity to be sold.
I’m positively giddy
I’m glad they’re afraid.
Why don’t you love your oligarchy overlords? All our surveys say you’re happy to have no choices other than the ones our questionnaire leads you to. You didn’t cancel your subscriptions after we jacked the prices up a half dozen times in the last five years and/or shoved ads at you, so you must be happy.
The disconnect between public perception and personal humanity has been striking, with some commentary bordering on dehumanizing.
Yeah it’s a lot easier to humanize someone who makes six figures than someone who makes seven. Why don’t you start there?
Or maybe just make it so the CEO doesn’t make 700x more than the lowest paid worker. You don’t even have to reduce the CEO pay to do it! Just lift up those other people.
Also, as if many CEO’s and upper managements humanize their customers and not see them as numbers in a spreadsheet.
That’s actually been studied. Turns out that about 40 is the tipping point for most people, as in CEO earnings 40 times more than the lowest paid workers. Up to that point people think they boss earns it, above that resentment starts to grow.
They’re at 700. Yeah, that’s dangerous. People are very sensitive about relative earning for work. Fairness is just hard wired into all animals and it’s dangerous to ignore this, although humans react a bit later and that gives a false sense if security for those at the top.
But it’s inevitable as a successful business grows, and the population grows. A CEO of a company of 100 people does not have the same level of responsibility as the CEO of one employing hundreds of thousands (Google says UHC employs 440,000, for example).
Working conditions were inarguably much worse a century ago, but the gap wasn’t anywhere close to 700x back then, was it? The gap was smaller not because the CEOs were more generous, it was just because the largest businesses were much smaller.
So you’re saying large corporations need to be broken up into smaller businesses I avoid concentrating too much wealth in upper management.
No, arbitrarily punishing a business for being too successful is both nonsensical, and has a chilling effect on new entrepreneurship. Also, it makes literally zero difference to someone earning $10/hour if one CEO is earning over $4000/hour, or if ten CEOs are each earning $400/hour.
Ultimately, the ratio itself doesn’t matter at all. The actual number is what actually matters. Who do you think is more likely to be more resentful, someone making $10/hour under a CEO making 50x that, or someone making $100/hour under a CEO making 50x that? Obviously the first person…if they can’t make ends meet, it’s not going to make any difference to them if the CEO gets a pay cut, the fuck do they care?
Businesses that were too successful are also called monopolies, and have a chilling effect on entrepreneurship all in their own.
Median wage in USA is about $20/h, so the actual numbers say there are a lot of people being closer to having trouble making ends meet. Even then, the ratio matters a lot. It’s the difference between “we’re all in this together” and “some of you won’t make it but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make”. In the latter situation there is a lot more resentment and sympathy for violence.
Businesses that were too successful are also called monopolies
No. There is no inherent relationship between the two things. A business can absolutely be very successful while there is competition, simply by being the best ‘competitor’ in the eyes of the customers.
the ratio matters a lot. It’s the difference between “we’re all in this together” and “some of you won’t make it but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make”.
The vast majority of people don’t know or care how much the person at the top is making, at all. They care only about if they’re in good shape themselves. Someone who’s making $100/hour and is living comfortably is, in 99% of cases not going to really give a shit if the CEO is making 50x what they are, or 500x.
That’s the reality.
15% of people make $100k in the USA. That means 85% care and a large part of them are not in a good shape.
What infuriates me is that there are those that make 6 figures as being able to potentially make 7. And sure, some of them might.
But are they brain surgeons that have such a specialized life saving surgery that by the nature of economics pushes the value of their skill exceptionally high? Nope.
Hell, I make 6, and I’ll admit, I have a lot more than a lot of people. I’m 2-3x the median of my area. I can’t buy a house. I own a 7 year old RAV4. If I was better managing my money and not having to pay out my ass for my ex wife, sure, things would be better.
It’s not at all difficult to find how just a little less income makes life much harder. It is VERY difficult to see how someone who has so much money can be remotely ok with people having it harder than them.
Those pulling in 7 figures without highly valuable skills should be dehumanized. Because they have abandoned what has helped humans survive at all. Each other.
May they never feel safe as long as they live
If they want to actually be safe, they can give it away, now
“Journalists look for heroes and villains; life is not that simple. Why is the killer getting 10 times as much press as the person who was killed?”
I agree with the last part of this quote, but probably not in the same way they wanted.
Why aren’t we hearing more about the policies the CEO supported that caused so much pain and suffering?
Why did I have to learn about them having double the industry-standard claims denial rate through a meme and not through news articles everywhere?
Why am I not seeing more articles about how much money these people made by denying coverage? Why am I not seeing articles about their political contributions to keep healthcare privatized?
One part of the response is that since the 80s, the media were financialized. One consequence is that the media quality dropped and medias reports go in the way of the finance.
You know why, we all know why. Modern corporate journalists are more narrative drivers than journalists. They attempt to control the talking pints and conversation, and steer clear of anything that would promote asking the right questions.
Because if they show all that shit, then they’re going to be agreeing with everyone else…and won’t be able to pull a “why did this happen” routine
Gleefully looking forward to the US not learning anything from this and moving on to the next gotcha moment! Seriously, the ship’s slowly sinking and I’m buying stock in popcorn and booze.
