Déjà Vu ~ Times: Perfect Patsies ?

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Perfect Patsies ?

(the SHARE-side of shareholding?)

pat•sy
Noun [plural pat•sies. slang.]
1. a person who is easily swindled, deceived, coerced, persuaded, etc.; sucker.
2. a person upon whom the blame for something falls; scapegoat; fall guy.
3. a person who is the object of a joke, ridicule, or the like.
(Source: Dictionary.com)

In follow up to the Déjà Vu Times post of October 5, 2015 entitled, “Capital Punishment,” I recommend a CBC News Post of October 19th:

From Bell to VW, shareholders pay for executive sins: Don Pittis
Why do innocent shareholders pay fines when company executives go scott-free?
By Don Pittis, CBC News Posted: Oct 19, 2015 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Oct 20, 2015 10:57 AM ET^[1]

Mr. Pittis’ first two paragraphs inform us thus:

Martin Winterkorn stepped down from his job as CEO following the Volkswagen emissions scandal last month and will get a golden goodbye worth as much as $90 million. The figure was calculated by the Wall Street Journal from information in the company's annual report.

While Winterkorn and other departing executives enjoy their perks, shareholders face up to $18 billion US in fines in the United States alone after VW cheated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, plus the cost of lawsuits and fixing millions of affected cars.

We are even informed that the North American Volkswagen CEO Michael Horn admits knowing of the “emissions rigging” in 2014.

So patsies of the world unite! Begin with Winterkorn and Horn. Hit this rhyming duo with the Capital Punishment² decreed by Moses; and thence onward to those “Bell Boys (& Girls),” and to the myriad other “profit-loss” schemers that hang to the [g]rafters of the corporate structure.

Why indeed do shareholders tolerate crimes against themselves by their HyPEs?³ How long before “patsy” definitions 1, 2, & 3 are added verbatim as ”shareholder” definitions 2, 3, & 4 at Dictionary.com?

How long before we admit the great con, corruption, and connivance of the shareholding system? The whole game is supposedly “gain,” but it seems that most shareholders are so far removed from influence, knowledge, oversight, or conscience they have become the perfect patsies.

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1. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/corporate-legal-responsibility-volkwagen-and-others-1.3272750?cmp=rss&cid=news-digests-canada-and-world-morning
2. http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2015/10/capital-punishment.html
“If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double. ... If a man shall deliver unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out of the man's house; if the thief be found, let him pay double. … For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour.” (Old Testament | Exodus 22:4, 7, 9; bold emphasis added.)
3. Highly-Paid Employees = HyPEs

Revolving Accounts

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us." (OT:Ecclesiastes 1:9-10)

"Dwell in the past and you'll lose an eye. Forget the past and you'll lose both eyes." (Old Russian Proverb)

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Déjà Vu ~ Times blog © 2008 - 2020 by SMSmith (unless otherwise noted). Some Rights Reserved. See Creative Commons License at the end of this column/page. NOTE: all quotes from others are subject to the terms of their copyrights and do not fall under my CC licensing.

Déjà Vu ~ Times blog was established April 24, 2008 while the author was living in southern Utah.

My World / Transworld View

(Subject to change over time: experience/learning/ evidence)

▪ Life is a three-act drama with pre-mortal, mortal, and post-mortal stages.
▪ The second act boils us down toward test one:^[1] the test of power.
▪ Abusers of power lose it in Act Three when justice and equity take the bench.
▪ Tipping points happen—over time and a fulcrum.
▪ Motes and beams are everywhere.[2]
▪ Folly is a shadow of every ism, including capitalism.
▪ Money talks louder than morals—all the way to the tipping point.
▪ The direction you are facing, matters.[3]
▪ Extremism in the defense of liberty is extremism.[4]
▪ When the blind follow the blind, it is time to blow the whistle.[5]
▪ Opposites attract the same lobbyists.
▪ Solon of Athens espoused, “Nothing in excess;” laissez-faire capitalists pursue “Everything in excess” (except the costs of gross profit).
▪ “Simplify” displayed on the counter-top of a new 21,000 sq. ft. home does not compute.
▪ High fructose corn syrup is not the staff of life. Unfortunately, sweets can twirl your teeth.
▪ Revolving doors between government and business do not admit sufficient fresh air.
▪ The common good doesn’t seem to be very common.
▪ N. American football is a testosterone pageant in tights.[6]
▪ Exploitation is a delusion of grandeur. Stewardship is a grander conclusion.
▪ The excesses of major religions occur when members fail their espoused values. The excesses of ideological tyrannies occur when tyrants act upon theirs.[7]
▪ Praise is best deflected toward God.
▪ Too many who say, “I do, I do,” don’t.
▪ Electronic media has become the Roman Coliseum of the 21st Century.
▪ The First Law of Attraction[8]: the Devil is more obsessed with persons striving to do and be good than with persons who are not.
▪ The trans-rational[9] is beyond most of us, so if it’s “turtles all the way down,”[10] maybe it is “revelation all the way up.”[11]
▪ Egoism accounts for 80% of human problems. The remaining 27% lies with rhetoric and propaganda.

In the near words of Groucho Marx, “These are my [views]; if you don’t like them, I have others.”

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[1] New Testament: Matt. 4:2-4—The first temptation presented to Jesus, to misuse His power to satisfy self-interest/-will/-gratification.
[2] Ref: Matthew 7:3-5
[3] Old Testament: Jer. 32:33
[4] A Barry Goldwater phrase “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” A phrase applauded by some of the GOP. (Suggestion: reverse liberty and justice to see if it sounds more palatable, or is the latter half merely castor-oil for the first?)
[5] Ref: Matthew 15:14
[6] Observation of a friend, MS, who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.
[7] Ref: Ravi Zacharias
[8] Ref: Adam & Eve; Biblical Job; Jesus in the Wilderness; CS Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, etc., etc., etc.
[9] Ref: Flatland by Edwin Abbott. In summary, circles, squares and other flatlanders can’t get a fix on spheres and cubes; can’t quite reason themselves into the properties of those in 3-D space. Enlightenment of things beyond (i.e., trans-) Flatland takes condescension from those above & beyond. Any parallels here in 3-D?
[10] Google this phrase if you have not heard of it. It’s just one way of saying we don’t have a rational explanation for some things.
[11] Conditional on the will of the Revelator and the willingness/ ability of the revelatee to receive.

About SMS

A few 6-to-7-Word Memoirs:
▪ Hope for the world comes and goes.
▪ Loves to read more than eat.
▪ Loves to think more than eat.
▪ Eats too much while reading and thinking.
▪ Always running out of time and daylight.
▪ Finds extremes too far from the center.
▪ Troubled by the world’s failure of memory.
▪ Has a tendency to counsel God.
▪ Learned gratitude before it was too late.
▪ Apparently hasn't learned enough gratitude yet.

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No Comments Rationale

1) Time & more needful priorities;
2) Problems observed with many open-comment blogs as so bluntly expressed at http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/comment-policy/ ;

3) People are free to post divergent or convergent views on their own blogs;
4) Learning from comments here would be preferable, but— (see 1, 2, & 3).

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