Behind the Wall Street Protest

I think the first thing we can do is to codify in law that corporations are not persons. Every person has the right to support causes that are important to them; this does not mean that every person has equal resources to devote to that support. For-profit corporations in particular have no obligation to humans aside from the ones that run them (that is, sit on their boards and operate at their highest levels). Everything a for-profit corporation does is about profit, and whether they can get away with something.

Even not-for-profit corporations end up suspect in this.

One good thing we could do would be to reduce the impact the wealthy have on elections, by reforming election funding and adjusting our electoral system to a form of proportional representation (instead of first-past-the-post). This would both give us one vote per person instead of one vote per dollar, and provide us with a greater variety of views instead of two increasingly polarized factions moving in the same general direction.

Corporations are ENTITIES. That is what "incorporating" means, it means that an association of persons joined together to form an entity that exists apart from them, with unlimited life and transferability of ownership.

Corporations are derivatives of people: persons one step removed. They exist as a tool of persons.

The concept of Corporate personhood is tied up with the concept of campaign contributions, right? I mean, your issue isn't that corporations don't get jail time or get executed for murder, it's that they have rights as entities that you wouldn't give them?

If that's the case then we can leave corporate law alone and concentrate on campaign reform and the electoral system changes you propose. I think these both have a lot of merit. The corporate personhood thing just muddies the waters in my opinion.

Almost every person I know is a shareholder in a corporation. They and us are the same. Every CEO run amuck gets to do this because the corporate shareholders - their BOSSES - don't show up to bitchslap them at the annual meetings. Go look at your retirement savings: own any stock? Show up at an annual meeting lately? My point is that we as a citizenry are SO CULPABLE in the misdeeds of corporations that it's fruitless to pretend it was only evil CEOs (selling us the goods we were demanding to buy of our own free will.)

No, let's leave the corporation stuff out of it. But, yes, electoral reform. Got any more on that? Links?

Almost nobody I know is a shareholder. They don't have that kind of money. What retirement? People who aren't making enough to live on -- or who are unemployed altogether -- don't have the luxury of retirement.

This sentence has stayed with me all day.

The secret to success in a capitalist world is to save 10% of everything you make. Get a check for $1000? Put $100 in the bank.

It doesn't MATTER how much you make. Save 10% of it. I did this as a babysitter. I did this as a grocery store clerk. I saved and saved and saved and when I was 24 I had a 10% downpayment on my first house.

It hurts my brain to hear you say you don't have enough to live on and so can't save. There is not such THING as "enough to live on". NO one EVER has "enough". There is ALWAYS something more you need or want. If what you're saying is that you don't want to work 10% more so that you could save for retirement then SAY THAT. Admit it to yourself. It would be ANNOYING to scramble together 10% more hours, 10% more clients, a job paying 10% better. Admit this to yourself and be content with it.

If you are injured or unable to work and living off of savings or as a dependent on someone else then, yes, it's possible that you don't have enough to live on: that's why someone else is supporting you.

But if you are "supporting yourself" then you are BADLY mistaken to think that you have some excuse for not saving 10%. And it will bite you in the butt because you are human and frail and shit is going to happen and you'll wish you had some savings, even if you never desire to accumulate capital for anything (like putting your kids through college, or buying an income-producing property, or any of a number of things where having money means you can make money.)

We don't know each other and I'm probably stepping over a line by scolding you like this. I walked away at first. But "unable to save" is a lie you are telling yourself and I don't care if you lie to me, but please don't lie to yourself.

Actually, I do support a more severe punishment for corporations that deliberately kill people. Let's not even bother with fines; save that for the wrongful death lawsuits. Instead, halt operations at those sites where the corporation deliberately took actions that led to death, such as refusing to provide or maintain safety equipment. Confiscate and auction off the property involved if necessary.

Yes, that would punish the workers; but it also provides an incentive for the workers to push the company for better behavior alongside the shareholders.

As for links to material concerning electoral reform and proportional representation, I don't have any I can dig up offhand. I can point to Australia's electoral system and say they do it pretty close to right as far as counting the votes and determining who will serve.

This exists. Enron got it. It's called bankruptcy.