Alec
Degnats
Profits:
Money... Money... Money....
Second
quarter over, third quarter beginning, reports are coming out and the
speculation begins. “Profits down” “growth up” - these words
dot the headlines as we discuss company earning reports and what they
mean for the country and “The Economy” as a whole.
Reading
these headlines I wonder, when did a “profit” become a bad thing?
How is it that making 1.5 billion instead of 1.7 is a negative? I
understand that missing two hundred million is a big thing, but isn’t
the 1.5 worth something?
I
feel like the path companies are on is unsustainable. Some speculate
that it is an evolutionary glitch, others think that the passion for
profits and growing them is all that is important. When I look at the
culture I see something that in its very nature is corrupt.
Working
in the retail culture you get too see corporate thinking and the
ideas behind it. Corporate America and upper management spends
millions doing studies on how to fix and how to streamline their
business and increase profits. How backwards is this when to fix most
problems they could simply go work a day on the floor to see the real
issues. Work a week and they would understand it all.
I
personnay asked one of my supervisors about this when I worked in
retail. I asked her, “Why don't our own managers work a day on the
floor to truly get an idea of what we were going through?" I
asked her, “Why they did not know anything about the products that
they themselves were supposed to be managing?”
The
answer I received was, “ It’s a good idea, but it’s not going
to happen. Remember they all started where you are now on the sales
floor.”
My
supervisor's statement may be true, but most mangers have not been
sales associates in ten or fifteen years. When they were sales men
smart-phones were not even an idea. MLB was still more popular than
the NFL.
This
is where the heart of the problem lies with corporate greed. The
people in charge are unwilling to understand where their profits come
from and at what cost. All they see are numbers, not people, not
what is going on, but the statistical data that circumstances create.
When
all you see are numbers you detach yourself from the project at hand,
the consequences and what those numbers actually mean.
We
let bankers on Wall Street do it and they crashed our financial
institutions. We let oil companies do it and the Gulf became a wreck.
We let corporations do it every day even though the quality of life
drops as a result.
The
problem with minimum wage, social disparity, and our own ecosystem
stems from this mentality. Cutting corners where ever you can trying
to turn the projected profit creates hazards that many refuse to see.
The easy way has consequences and unfortunately people seem to forget
that. In my mind this system is leading us to our doom. I just hope
we catch it and find something better before this culture consumes
everyone and destroys us all.
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