highlandsflyer wrote:
Neil wrote:
highlandsflyer wrote:
I don't give a fig how 'successful' they are in monetary terms.
Their success isn't just over their balance sheet - their profit / loss, assets vs liabilities, or share price - it's about their
growth, all the while most would happily use them as a punchline for their jokes.
highlandsflyer wrote:
They are a terrible company, with a long record of misdoings.
Like most companies whose reason d'etre is purely making money.
Whether that be in oil, banking, arms dealing or anything else, when your primary objective is to satisfy shareholders corners are cut and people are exploited.
They may well be all of those things -
just like many other huge companies.
All the same, there's a whole load of ignorant bollocks spouted about them, by people who clearly have no clue whatsoever in terms of how they've actually performed over the last decade or so - and let's not forget, that's what companies are suppose to do, make profit, grow their market share.
highlandsflyer wrote:
Regardless of so called government regulation.
As usual the tax payer will wind up bearing the costs twice over.
Regardless of their promises to cover the price of their blunders over this, which they would readily fail to do were they not thinking of future contracts and the possibility they might be forced out of business in the UK as a result of this.
I seriously doubt that'll happen. They've had worse press, and prevailed in the market.
I understand some of the criticism - even nod my head - but some of that, is not purely their doing. Governments outsourcing or privatising key aspects that companies like G4S have grown into, in recent times, is just how the market reacts.
Perhaps in many of those cases, the market shouldn't have been asked - or more closely monitored / regulated / penalised.
All the same, though, their business model is the envy of many other aspiring business - that's not to say all aspects of their performance are, though.
OK
I take your point.
In the same way we could talk about UKAEA as a very successful company, while at the same time pointing to their faults. Which is more relevant to the public?
What should be truly relevant to the public is the entire picture - but that's rarely done, wanted nor sought. That, in itself, is telling.
What is made over to the public, being negative soundbites, because that's what the public is largely interested in.
Look at it this way - for all the negative things you, or the Daily Wail, can highlight, what's the likelihood that there's a huge amount of stuff they get right? Otherwise, how would they have prevailed in a global market economy?
Is the market loyal?
highlandsflyer wrote:
I reckon the fact we are dancing around radioactive particles on our beauty spots would be of more concern to the average Joe than how well the company that put them there did in the market place over time.
That is a somewhat separate matter.
All the same, though, I'm not suggesting that people put aside bad things, or poor things that companies do - merely to put them in context - which, really, the public, the press or other media doesn't really do.
highlandsflyer wrote:
My take is that it is a mistake for a liberal democracy with deeply ingrained and valued socialist structures to become a conduit for pure capitalism in allowing unfettered access to our markets by multi nationals whose operations are informed by involvement across many and diverse markets, rather than home grown companies whose culture would be one of working within this societies norms from the beginning and thus from the ground up.
Wonderful.
"Would that it were, Mr Highlandsflyer, would that it were..."
If you can get the majority of the electorate on your side, then maybe you can reverse the last few decades of people largely driven by self-interest, and respecting those that have the gold, make the rules.
highlandsflyer wrote:
Certainly more regulation would help, but it is rather like whipping a wild horse rather than taking it into your corral and breaking it gently.
I wouldn't argue that many companies - like G4S have probably been used inappropriately by governments, and in doing so, either by poor management, and / or apathy, they've had issues and failures in certain matters, that probably should have never been so easily or swiftly devolved.
All the same, it doesn't trounce their other success in the market place, that can't just be out of loyalty or ignorance.