But then again, that's the company bosses' duty - maximising long-term returns.
-johnk
Nope not necessarily. Just maximising returns.
In a meeting with several high powered executives (many of well known companies), a presenter asked the question in an icebreaker exercise, "If you had the choice of (a) a slow measured growth over 10 years, doubling stock price, but the company being strong in its industry, or (b) increasing the stock price 5x over the next year, but the company being out of business in 5 years, which would you choose?"
After tallying the results, over 80% chose (b). And that's pretty much true for corporations...
-wraith808
Well, all I can say is that the first thing you're taught at business school (yes, I did...) is that your duty is to maximize long-term returns. Any idiot can boost short-term returns, and, believe it or not, shareholders do worry about the long-term and have intelligent analysts who will see through and flag up short-term thinking by bad managers (obviously I am referring to the big shareholders, the pension funds and so on, not the hedge fund cowboys trying to make a fast buck).
It's not a fair fight. It's a slaughter. Consumers are nothing more than sheep in an abattoir.
<snip>
The big problems start when some nitwit figures out that he can also turn the abattoir into a brothel. Then every abattoir is the same within a short period. It's a downward spiral as Apple and Amazon are showing. They've turned the abattoir into a brothel. Now all the other abattoirs out there will follow suit.
Doom and gloom... :(
-Renegade
Goodness, Renegade, it's a wonder you manage to get out of bed in the morning, with such a gloomy view of the world.
"It's hopeless, we're doomed" is what you seem to be saying. I can't accept that. But neither can we change everything overnight. One thing at a time. Get angry about one thing, and help to change it.
On your example of light bulbs: after years of campaigning by various lobby groups, governments in Europe have finally taken action to stop the waste. In the UK, energy companies are compelled to supply heavily-subsidized, low-energy light bulbs to consumers - you can pick them up in supermarkets for about 10p (15c) each, with no limit on the quantity people can buy. They should last six to eight years. If energy companies are being forced to give them away, built-in obsolescence becomes unattractive, so bulb life should increase in the future.
Change, one step at a time.