Street to Hell

You know what I think would be the best thing to come out of this whole financial crisis? If Wall Street got a big fat black eye. Truly. Why does a bunch of pirates like Wall Street traders get to have so much say about corporate America today?

Here’s my point – Wall Street has become the be-all-end-all for the majority of corporations. How much is our stock worth seems to be the only way they can judge whether their doing a good job. Which is basically like a chicken asking a fox how her eggs are looking. Don’t trust the answer. “Oh, terrible. I don’t know why you’d even bother with those eggs. Here. Let me take those off your wings for you.”

Ever since every company started going public, and driving all their attention to stock price, corporate America has gone to hell in a hand basket. All they worry about is impressing financial analysts, or “beating the Street” on financial predictions. And what do most financial analysts know about running a company? Dick. All they can do is add up assets and income. And the things that build a company aren’t either one of those. So all they want is for a company to make short term/quick cash decisions that won’t invest in the long term prospects of a healthy business. You don’t invest in R&D, because that’s money that won’t come back to you for years. You don’t invest in your people, in fact you fire half of your people, because you can reduce your payroll expenses that way. And older, experienced workers cost more money. You forget quality. You forget reputation. Because you can’t take them to the bank. All in an effort to boost the stock price. Well, how’s that been working for you, America?

So, frankly, I hope that people just stop listening to the foxes. Or at least stop listening exclusively to them. There have to be CEOs who stand up and say that they are building a company with a future. That they aren’t going to be pushed into making decisions that endanger that future. And they are going to build a business that will be here and still strong 20 years from now. And damn the stock price.