#corporations

At times there's something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism. Build a dam to take away water AWAY from 40 million people. Build a dam to pretend to BRING water to 40 million people. Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers? ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#capitalism #corporations #dam #economics #environmental-degradation

Like casinos, large corporate entities have studied the numbers and the ways in which people respond to them. These are not con tricks - they're not even necessarily against our direct interests, although sometimes they can be - but they are hacks for the human mind, ways of manipulating us into particular decisions we otherwise might not make. They are also, in a way, deliberate underminings of the core principle of the free market, which derives its legitimacy from the idea that informed self-interest on aggregate sets appropriate prices for items. The key word is 'informed'; the point of behavioural economics - or rather, of its somewhat buccaneering corporate applications - is to skew our perception of the purchase to the advantage of the company. The overall consequence of that is to tilt the construction of our society away from what it should be if we were making the rational decisions classical economics imagines we would, and towards something else. ↗

— Nick Harkaway

#choice #corporations #economics #information #power

The corporations that profit from permanent war need us to be afraid. Fear stops us from objecting to government spending on a bloated military. Fear means we will not ask unpleasant questions of those in power. Fear permits the government to operate in secret. Fear means we are willing to give up our rights and liberties for promises of security. The imposition of fear ensures that the corporations that wrecked the country cannot be challenged. Fear keeps us penned in like livestock. ↗

— Chris Hedges

#fear #secrecy #death

We will have bigger bureaucracies, bigger labor unions, and bigger state-run corporations. It will be harder to be an entrepreneur because of punitive taxes and regulations. The rewards of success will be expropriated for the sake of attaining greater income equality. ↗

— Arthur C. Brooks

#because #bigger #bureaucracies #corporations #entrepreneur

And we've become very doubtful of our information sources, because they're all controlled by these huge multilateral corporations. ↗

— Brian De Palma

#become #controlled #corporations #doubtful #huge

To survive, men and business and corporations must serve. ↗

— John Henry Patterson

#corporations #men #must #serve #survive

The American people are screaming out saying it's unfair that the wealthiest, the largest corporations who can afford the best attorneys, the best accountants, take advantage of these special tax treatments that the lobbyists have, along with lawmakers, have cooked in the books here. ↗

— David Plouffe

#advantage #afford #along #american #american people

My finances have been decimated by a group of people, such as my ex-attorney, my ex-business manager, and an estate planner, specifically. And they have conspired together to - to co-op my corporations, put in trustees without my knowledge. ↗

— Randy Quaid

#corporations #estate #finances #group #knowledge

It's an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don't try to make it posthumous. ↗

— Gloria Steinem

#after #believe #con #corporations #death

Even President Bush has cited the need to outlaw the practice of corporations making loans to their officers. Strangely enough, when the President was a corporate officer, he took out several loans from the company. ↗

— Bennie Thompson

#cited #company #corporate #corporations #enough