Democracy is an illusion, a fact which many people are now realising. Politicians of both parties are controlled by the corporations.
Corporations have one motivation, to make as much money for themselves as they possibly can.
Does that sound like good governance to you?
MSNBC and msnbc.com were founded in 1996 as partnerships of Microsoft and General Electric's NBC unit
Corporations have one motivation, to make as much money for themselves as they possibly can.
Just for themselves, or for their shareholders too?
For them and the shareholders although most big corporations are buying back their own shares now, (with Fed money), thereby limiting as much as possible the shareholders.
It is a question of 'privatised profits' and 'socialised losses', i.e. when they are making profits from huge risks, it is for them; but when those huge risks don't pan out it is '"bail us out with public money or the world economy will collapse", and don't forget we still want our billions in bonus' or we won't fix the problems we created.
Obviously this still impacts on the economy and the 99% are held to blame for their own predicament; i.e. starving and out on the streets.
Don't disagree with your summation here. Can't watch the vid right now, but the reason I asked the question is because the Co-Operative here in the UK is the first thing that sprang to mind when I read your OP -
http://www.co-operative.coop/corporate/aboutus/The-Co-operative-Group-Values-and-Principles/
I seem to recall you're in the UK too? If so, you'll know what I'm referring to.
Point is, there is a successful corporation which is the sum of it's workers wishes to a greater extent, though you may not define it as such. It's not a megacorp after all.
It's easy to oversimplify, which I think...
"Corporations have one motivation, to make as much money for themselves as they possibly can,"
...from your OP does.
Just for themselves, or for their shareholders too?
Generally this amounts to the same thing. However the reasons executives try to make more money for the shareholder is ultimately so they make more money themselves. Most executives get the majority of their income in stock, and so it is in their interest to drive up the value of that stock.
This leads to a certain short-sightedness on the part of some executives, as they focus on events that will maximize their own short term profits, and which is setting the company up to fail in the long run.
Of course, ideally the market forces and various forms of oversight would prevent this. But obviously it has not happened.
To the topic of money in politics, we quite often talk about a company as an individual with an agenda (BP wants to ...), but you have to think about how, as Romney said, "corporations are people too" - meaning they are comprised of people. The boards and the executives are the people making the decisions, and they are not making them for the good of the company (although they have to frame it as if that is what they are doing), they are generally making decisions (or pushing decision) that benefit them as individuals.
I feel like the human race in general is very short sighted. I feel that most people in the corporate world would gladly steer in the direction of an iceberg for the sake of short term gains so long as someone else is at the helm when the ship sinks.
Society often sows the seeds of it's own destruction.
People are only concerned with the present, they don't think about tomorrow, and they barely remember yesterday.
I feel the opposite. I think corporate types are in it for the long term. Once you earn a certain amount money is irrelevant and the goal is power or legacy.