Comments on: Kohler: The broker who knew too much

By: Jeremiah

Jeremiah — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

You don’t mention it here but there is a huge anomaly in the law now as I understand it because there may be a right to claim damages from the company by those who paid $29 plus for the shares without knowing the info that ought to have already been made public under the continuous disclosure rules. Why should most shareholders suffer an attenuation of their equity for the benefit of a few who were effectively let down by directors and executives of CBA and Merrill Lynch? Perhaps the rule ought to be that the aggrieved can recover from those who actually breached their duties as long as they are not indemnified by the company itself.

By: D.B. Valentine

D.B. Valentine — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Has anybody else noticed how these overpaid executives of large corporations r not very competent ? Not only r they totally unaware of the realities in the real world but they appear to be also unaware of eachothers scheming to achieve unsustainable profits at any cost. This situation only highlights once again the problems with this sorry market fundamentalist model to business that soon should be history. Corporate execs have a rightly deserved disgusting image & they only way to change that is to stop screwing the community over directly and indirectly. I love seeing this sort of cat fight. Heres hoping for more major collapses on 2009 - the year of the Depression? We need to start again

By: Steven

Steven — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 10:00:00 +0000

Geez D.B, excuse me for being an economist, but what exactly do you propose as an alternative to the free market - communism? That’s work *really* well. The problems you’re referring too have nothing to do with the model, they’re fundamental to humanity. People are pretty nasty, we compete with each other and we don’t feel bad when we win. It doesn’t matter what system you have, this will always be true- whether winning means making secret deals in government departments or secret deals in coffee houses, it doesn’t really matter. People are driven by the same concern for their own welfare as any other animal. There are no rights for Gazelles who are eaten by Lions, why would humans be above this? Any system we do have is going to suffer from the same degree of corruptibility just from the fact that it’s populated by people. Surely the best system, therefore, is one that attempts to maximise welfare given the contraints of self-interest.