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Jack Welch, the Man Who Broke Capitalism (2022)

(www.forbes.com)
122 points throw0101b | 1 comments | 02 Jul 25 10:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.216s | source
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exiguus ◴[02 Jul 25 13:05 UTC] No.44443255[source]▶
I see some parallels to Curtis Yarvin and the Boys that follow his philosophy. The funny part, with all this boys is, that they do not recognise, that there utopia e.g. new society/state, does not work without the current society that sponsors them.

Basically, the same with some global corporations, which literally suck society dry (infrastructure, resources, education, labour, health system) and give almost nothing back (except for a few workers and too few taxes). I think the American dream is over. It's an empty shell that's all about making a nice life for yourself at the expense of others.

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a4isms ◴[02 Jul 25 13:52 UTC] No.44443747[source]▶
> I think the American dream is over.

“The reason they call it The American Dream is that you have to be asleep to believe it.”

—George Carlin (1937 - 2008)

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PicassoCTs ◴[02 Jul 25 13:56 UTC] No.44443790[source]▶
It got real, only because a - at the time seemingly viable alternative reared its head. So, ironically, the system that won the system-competition we call the cold war, only works- when under stress in systemic competition.
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xphos ◴[02 Jul 25 14:50 UTC] No.44444475[source]▶
I think we are mixing up timelines here the rent seeking and financializing happens in 1981 onward not starting at 1991 when the USSR dissolves

There is just not any real accountability to the next generation of stock holders its classic optimizing toward the local minimum and is why some many private equity firms annihilate companies and sell them for parts. We use to have unions than Regan eliminate tons of union power and bars the governments union's from arguing. We have structural barriers in existing laws against sector wide unions, so the remaining unions have no incentive to build competitive sectors just competitive wages without respect to economics.

I think companies have just pushed and pushed for labor laws that favor larger companies and players. That hollowing of the rule set has dropped a bomb in companies optimization functions. You cannot choose not to do stock buy backs now because the stock holders complain and leave for a someone more willing to inflate assets. If you want the clearest picture look at Intel they spent tremendously on stock buy backs because it was good for investors and let there RnD budget cratered when compared to its competitors. They basically aren't a respectable company anymore but those stock investors aren't destroyed they moved to Nvidia and Apple.

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pseudocomposer ◴[02 Jul 25 19:05 UTC] No.44447583[source]▶
But why did the USSR dissolve? A lot of it had to do with citizens’ dissatisfaction with what was available in the Soviet economy, compared to media images of what was available in the 80s-early 90s American economy. And, well, the fact that their government was, in fact, quite democratic, reflecting the wishes of the people.

But again… a lot of these images American prosperity of the 80s were caused by marketing, and corporate structures like Jack Welch’s, which were ultimately unsustainable (per the whole conversation here).

Basically: Soviet citizens saw we could have bananas year round. But they never saw the conditions of people living in banana republics, or really even of the American poor of the time.

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1. sershe ◴[03 Jul 25 01:28 UTC] No.44450700[source]▶
As someone who grew up in 5th percentile or higher of Soviet citizens (Moscow, 2 engineer parents) I can tell you that American poor live much better. Think 700sqft flat considered good for a family with 2 kids, not really being able to afford a car, grandma constantly reminding us to not throw away any glass jars - containers to preserve vegetables for the winter were hard to come by.

And that's Moscow. Most of the country could be summarized by a riddle - long, green, smells like sausages/groceries, what is it? An intercity train departing Moscow.

The Soviet citizens wanted American lifestyle because Soviet lifestyle sucked. The only poor who might be worse off in the US are the completely dysfunctional ones like alcoholics or whatever. At least in the USSR it was hard to sell your flat and drink away the money. But, to me that's not even a tradeoff, it's an additional benefit.