Reply #7: Henry Ford said he had to pay his workers enough... [View All]

[Speck Tater]

... so that they could afford to buy the cars they were building. The sad thing is modern companies don't seem to realize they are destroying their own customer base. The economy is imploding.

It seems as if companies used to be about making a product and providing jobs for the consumers of that product. Now the only priority is to provide as much payback as possible to the lenders (stock holders) regardless of its effect on the future of the company or the future of the economy.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that the current trend is not sustainable and the whole system will implode when the supply of consumers runs dry.

If I owned a company that had enough sales to support 10 employees I would be happy to be providing those 10 jobs and to be contributing the economy. What would I need with profit? If I collected a reasonable salary and could feed and clothe my family what use would profit be to me? I just don't get it. Maybe I'm mentally defective or something, but I don't grok the need for profit.

Some years ago I worked for a non-profit organization that provided a decent living for a couple dozen employees. Ten years later, that company is still in business, still employing the same number of people, and has never had a layoff. Its stability is due to the fact that it is a non-profit organization with no stock holders to impress, and no bottom line demands beyond breaking even with a little extra in the bank for lean times. What's wrong with that model?