Quote:
Originally Posted by
osan 
Very poor reasoning here. That someone would kill me for $1000 demonstrates not the power of money per sé, but only of the nature of the choices of the person warring against me.
You are free to think of it as you will, but it does demonstrate the power of money,
No, it does not. It
clearly demonstrates the human proclivity for behavior in a given context and nothing more. It speaks not to the power if inanimate objects, but to that of human belief and desire.
:
Originally Posted by
osan
I see you're not in the business world. First, yes, corporations can and indeed do exist and thrive without profit. These are called <drum roll>.... NON-PROFIT corporations! But even where profit is a goal, it is not necessarily the primary one. There are many corporations that have very explicitly articulated that return on investment is NOT the primary goal of the corporation's existence. Moreover, some have gone even further in stating that a "reasonable" return will be a goal, but that it takes a secondary position to other goals. This is a commonly occurring truth.
Please, stop stating obvious things...
You asked the question. I answered. That the answer embodied the obvious has no bearing on its legitimacy as a right and proper response to the query.
What I did not state and perhaps should have is that the stated charter of many corporations hold profit as a secondary purpose behind the entity's establishment and continuing operations. This is demonstrable fact. Do some research into some of the most successful corporations in the world and you will find this to be the case in a statistically non-trivial proportion of them.
everyone knows about non-profit organisations/corporations, but clearly that was not related to the topic.
Please elaborate on how it was not related to the topic. YOU asked the question, after all.
About your second statement, you should ask yourself, "if two companies are competing, and one is making a profit while the other isn't, which one is most likely to succeed in the long term?"
Your question presupposes that profit is necessary to success. Once again a small dilignece in research on your part will reveal that this is not the necessary case. I recommended a volume that would provide you with an excellent nutshell demonstration of visionary corporations that have endured for 100 years or more where profit was not the foremost consideration. I believe Proctor & Gamble is one of them. Hit the library, read, then get back to us.
the answer to this question makes it very clear that the business that makes a profit will always be more attractive to investors (unless if we are talking strictly about non-profit).
Again, demonstrable incorrect on a purely empirical basis. There is a significant investor population whose criteria place other factors well above that of profit in importance when considering share purchases. The "greenies" alone offer up a very large and glaring contradiction of your assertion.
As an added note, I've done a lot of work with the Red Cross here and I can tell you that even though they don't want a profit per se, they still very much welcome activities that generate a good income because that will allow them to invest the money in other projects, so even in the non-profit area, people are looking for profit generating activities.
Now who is belaboring the obvious? Any clued in business-oriented person will be aware that the most successful non-profit organizations are run as if they were for-profit because maximal efficiency is a good thing in most cases.
(now please jump off of your high horse and stop making baseless assumptions about me)
The "assumptions" I have made were inferred from that which you wrote. You painted your own portrait based on the nature of your statements. There is not much else one can do but to see what has been placed before him.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
osan
Reality will provide the motivation. You don't ever force them. You let them make ignorant choices until the cost outweighs the benefit. Then you will see change. If some people continue on to their own destruction, that's the way the cookie crumbles.
That is a very cynical way of looking at things
Can you explain how this is "cynical"?
and I've been known to say similar things, but we should strive to educate people rather than let them repeat past mistakes over and over again.
Agreed, but it should also be borne in mind that there are reasonable limits to such attempts and beyond that, people are on their own. If they refuse to see truth, they choose the risk of dooming themselves as there should be no guarantee anyone will be there to bail their sorry selves out. Willful stupidity should be allowed to come to its naturally proper reward without do-good interference. But even where such interference is made, all is fine so long as nobody is violated in the process. If some wish to expend their resources on stupid people, I have no problem with it. When they come with force in their hearts, seeking to make me pay for the mistakes of the dullards, there do I draw the line in the sand, bright and shining.
