Neubyfly who posted below you knows what I was fishing for with my (maybe) poorly stated point.... SURE all business has finance as a component (not centered), but TODAY's airlines are made of bean counters who run an airline from a spread sheet... YESTERDAY, the airlines were run by founders, visionaries and empire builders... Men like Bob Six, Juan Tripe, or Howard Hughes... yes, they understood the value of the dollar, and how to make a profit, but they more importantly wanted to build an airline first and foremost, not a stock option price.
I have read Adam Smith, as part of my major in Finance and Economics... if you would read Adam Smith deeper, as in past "The Wealth of Nations" you'd see that a lot of what those occupy protesters are complaining about is addressed in his lesser known, but equally important book "The Theory of Moral Sentiments".
Try that and get back to me.
I think I agree with you more than I disagree. While I do long for a visionary in the industry, I think because the airline industry is now a mature industry, I think the potential for profits is deeper and deeper into the minutia...so out go the visionaries and in come the accountants.
That being said, I read an article about the effect that the transition this country has taken from Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution has had the effect of shrinking the time horizion for corporate profits. When "investors" in companies were a relatively small group of pension managers who were more concerned with long term income, it made companies focus on increasing dividends and concentrating on long term viability of their businesses. Today, individual investors have short attention spans, individual investors demand quarter after quarter of growing proftis, whether they invest in individual stocks or mutual funds. This causes companies to be more concerned with the short run then the long run...look at AMR.
The big probem I have with the occupiers and like-minded people is this notion that somehow corporations owe something to there workers or to society as a whole for that matter. When Sam Walton hired his first stock boy they had a voluntary agreement for the stock boy to keep the shelves stocked for a certain wage. SOMEHOW, in some peoples mind, Sam Walton, by providing this job, has now commited himself to providing food and shelter to this worker (living wage), providing medical treatment for this worker and his family (mandatory medical benefits), and a descent retirement. Heaven forbid Sam Walton should save money earned in his store and buy himself a nicer car instead of hiring a 2nd stock boy. It's amazing anyone hires anyone at all.
As far as Adam Smith goes...
Adam Smith believed in freedom, he believed that the most moral society (theory of moral sentiments) and best economy (Wealth of Nations) emerged from individuals acting in their own self interest. Literally, their own self-interest in Wealth of Nations for economic questions, and more figuretively in the desire to please an "impartial spectator" for more moral questions in the Theory of Moral Sentiments.
The whole POINT of The Theory of Moral Sentiments was that a just society could only emerge from a society of individuals allowed to act with their own free will and NOT from the government or other philosophers DEFINING what those Moral Actions must be, which in my mind is exactly 180 degrees from what the occupiers are trying to accomplish.
