Corporation: (noun) An ingenius device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce

The BBC are trying (unsuccessfully) to engender some ill-feeling towards the quite profitable Tesco group, who announced a solid �1.1bn of profit for the last 6 months.

Personally, I don't have an issue with the fact that the group is as successful as it is. Consumers have spoken. What does irritate me, however, is where a sizeable chunk of that profit will go. That is, straight into the pockets of 'shareholders'.

Shareholders who don't know anything about providing the nation with food. Shareholders that know nothing about serving customers and driving down prices. Shareholders that did nothing more than buy a piece of paper that says they own a chunk of every penny of profit the company earns.

They can sit back, and get on with their lives, while profits they haven't worked for roll endlessly into their bank accounts.

Imagine for a moment that Tesco had no 'shareholders', but was somehow otherwise incentivised to continue their operations in the manner they have done so to date without the greedy demands placed upon it by anonymous owners driven solely by self-interest.

A dividend that will work out at some hundreds of millions of pounds now need not be paid. Hundreds of millions that can be invested back into the company; for expansion, for profit sharing, for driving down prices even further. Hell they could even just give the equivalent amount to charity.

Instead, the rich, Mercedes-Benz driving, balding, suit enfused businessmen walk away with their cut and leave it rotting in a bank account to earn yet more 'interest'. A near exponential yet ultimately pointless accumulation of wealth engineered solely for the sake of having it.

Something about that just doesn't sit right with me.

0 message(s) of denial

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