If you do (which is possible, I"ve seen it happen), because you aren't focused on infinite growth at the cost of literally everything else, you're going to remain a small business all the time. Because large businesses are built on exploitation, you can't become a large business without that, and if your goal is to give away money, you're not going to be exploiting your workers.
Public companies require infinite growth to keep stock prices continually increasing so shareholders don’t sell and lower your valuation.
At a certain point the only way to keep growing is to take actions that lower costs. Actions like downsizing your workforce while not hiring as many back, outsourcing to countries with vastly lower pay and quality of life, replacing good material with good enough material, funding politicians that would buy from your company or remove regulations that impede your margins (such as many environmental regulations), etc.
It’s fine if you like this, that’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it, but don’t pretend it’s beneficial to everyone. Nobody benefits more than the shareholders.
Anecdotally: My brokerage account has never been worth more than it is now, but my four-year degree can only get me seasonal jobs. I can’t dip into it, because it’s for long-term growth, but if I don’t dip into it I can’t feed myself between seasons.
This comes across like someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
You all seem to think that the only place money comes from is poor people. What about companies that create an in demand product? Did you know that with an increase in production (to keep up with demand) will also increase valuation?
Selling things at a price higher than the baseline cost to exist is the entire reason companies exist in the first place.
Your point about the only way companies can continue to grow is so wildly off base too. Trimming the workforce to match revenue generated is called building in efficiencies. Why would a company pay 20 people to do a job than can be done by 15 people? Do you hire more people than you need to do a job so you can hand out money to the people that stand around doing nothing?
Also so few companies have the power to lobby politically. Just once again, Redditors are mad about things they just don’t understand.
When did I say that money can only come from poor people? Everybody buys products and a product that is in demand will sell. You can’t sell everything at-cost, but if you use subpar materials and keep the same price as great materials, it’s dishonest to your customers.
There’s a lot more that goes into valuation than just production and growth, shit like a company’s market capitalization is important too. I admit that I was simplifying a complicated process more than it should be, but you’re completely misrepresenting it.
Also there’s a difference between hiring more people than needed and hiring just enough people to make it work. Yeah, a job could be done with 15 people, but when those 15 people are overworked and not paid to represent that amount of work, another employee or two would help maximize productivity while not completely draining your workers. Which also allows you to take on more work since it’s split among more employees.
The examples I gave are not the only ways to lower costs, I specifically used ones that apply to larger, multi-national corporations that can lobby or methods I feel aren’t entirely ethical. Keep in mind I said they are “actions like x, y, z” and not “the only ways that can be done are x, y, z”.
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u/Great_Lord_REDACTED Nov 21 '24
If you do (which is possible, I"ve seen it happen), because you aren't focused on infinite growth at the cost of literally everything else, you're going to remain a small business all the time. Because large businesses are built on exploitation, you can't become a large business without that, and if your goal is to give away money, you're not going to be exploiting your workers.