Jack, Jack, we've got Enron and Worldcom fallen over: Merck has been doing dodgy things with tis
books. There is one other....can't remember. 4 in total, but to be fair, lets say...50.
Now, go and have a look at how many companies are listed on the NYSE.
Then go to the FTSE in London, the Hang Seng here in HK, the Tokyo index, Frankfurt, even the little ASX in Sydney.
What you are describing is not endemic. You invest in a company, you take a commercial risk, not only on its profitability, but on the honesty of its executives, and the competence of its auditors.
In any event, the WTO doesn't spread corporatisation. It lowers barriers to entry for the sale of goods and services. Adam Smith's free trade.
Look at Bono. He thinks the WTO is the best thing since sliced bread. He isn't notable for singing the praises of corporate profits. How did he become poster boy for the WTO?
Because barriers to entry prevent poor countries for exporting their cheap products to rich countries. So, the poor countries have to pay up on tariffs. Remove the barriers. The prices lower (consumers in rich countries get happy). They buy more. The cash goes back to poor countries. Their quality of life improves, because their governments have enough tax dollars to build schools and hospitals: people start saving money and can live in decent housing.
Classic example is tulips. Tulips are pretty flowers. Holland grows lots of them. So do some African countries. Holland imposes tariffs to protect tulip farmers. Now, we're not talking some little old lady with a patch of tulips in her backyard here - we're talking agribusiness, large scale companies with vast acres of land, growing tulips. They want protection from their government, and the people pay for that protection through increased - inflated - prices.
Remove the protection. African business become competitive. Rejoice, for they are released from the poverty trap, and all because you bought some African tulips for your girlfriend at a cheaper price, and lobbied in favour of the WTO.
Now, people complain that this means job losses, for when tariffs are removed, jobs will no longer be protected. Steel workers complain they'll lose their jobs. That sucks, surely. How would tariffs help them? Impose steel tariffs on imported steel. Price goes up, so things made of steel like cars beome more expensive. Car workers complain that Japanese cars are too cheap. So, put some tariffs on Japanese cars. Price goes up again. So, you're paying a huge percentage more for your car than you would otherwise.
Welcome to corporate welfare. Its a welfare state system, like Soviet Russia. Its anti-competitive, and its designed to artificially keep people in jobs.
It can't work in the long run, because technology would make those car workers and steel workers redundant anyway. In the meantime, steel companies and car companies executives have become very rich because they've had their bonuses paid for by tariff-protected extra income from moms and dads who needed a new station wagon.
And while those big bosses are chuffing on cigars, its meant that a bunch of people in African countries, or wherever, haven't got jobs in the steel industry for that period of time, and resort to subsistance agriculture to survive. But that doesn't matter, because they're not voters, right?
