I'll give a shareholder's perspective. Management, when left unchecked, frequently engages in in wasteful empire building and prestige projects. The most apparent manifestation of this is in mergers and acquisitions. Decades of evidence shows that the median merger destroys shareholder value for the acquiring company.
Imposing strong controls on corporate management is one of the most important thing that shareholders can do. This might take the form of independent boards, which aren't handpicked by the CEO. Or the removal of poison pills (which raises the threat of a hostile takeover for underperforming companies). But most important of all is the existence of transparent, consistent, regularly evaluated metrics. That means quarterly earnings targets.
Like any job, CEOs need consistent feedback to keep their incentive aligned with those who employ them (shareholders). Management has shown time and time again, that when monitoring is weakened, they go off the reservation and destroy shareholder value. The good thing about earnings is that it's they're easy-to-measure, hard-to-fake tangible proof of continuing performance. In contrast stories about "long-term value" or intangible promises of future rewards are usually BS used to justify extravagant empire building while the CEO uses the company's balance sheet as his personal piggy bank.
Lest anyone think that evil Wall Street shareholders are hobbling visionary CEOs, observe the rare cases when management does prove its credibility. Prime example is Amazon, which time and time again has scarified short-term earnings for long-term development. And nobody could possibly claim that it's punished by Wall Street for this. The difference is that unlike 99% of CEOs, Bezos has conclusively proven his ability and alignment with Amazon shareholders.
Before he had the track record of long term development (only born from long term efforts) he knew how to speak Wall Street and had a track record on Wall Street.
Most CEO’s will never be capitalized like him for long term empire building so it’s hard to say there couldn’t be more Amazon sized successes out there if Capital was more accessible for longer term visions.
This seems sensible. If you want the goodwill from your investors to make a long term bet like Amazon did, you need to explain it to them in terms they can understand. It's a language anyone can learn with sufficient training and experience.
Management left unchecked just does what they're incentivized to do. You can't pass on the blame as shareholders when shareholders create incentive packages that reward getting a bonus today for an acquisition instead of not really getting paid for sustainably growing the business over the next decade.
People say that shareholders "own" a public company, but that ownership is much more limited than ownership in the normal sense. In reality shareholders have very little direct input on how the CEO gets paid. The best chance for shareholders to influence CEO incentives would be if an activist investor got involved and made it an issue, but that's fairly rare, and usually only happens in the most egregious cases.
Share loans are a really simple way to align incentives. Execs get shares loaned with interest at market value, and can’t sell faster than the loan repayment schedule of 20% per year after the end of tenure. Some other rules apply like dividends can’t be paid from a negative value loan. Sure, option incentive packages try to approximate this, but they can’t legally capture the downside like a loan can.
Management in many companies are just puppets installed for the purpose of keeping a person or group of persons in control. You'd be surprised at how many companies have management that has the decision making capabilities of a toddlers. And when I say toddler, I mean that in a literal sense. You can take an intelligent toddler and have them make day-to-day decisions that would be BETTER than middle-management.
> Decades of evidence shows that the median merger destroys shareholder value for the acquiring company.
As an investor, I care more about the total (sum of average) returns of mergers, not the median. Just like in venture capital (where the median investment is clearly negative), the total return matters and is driven by the large returns on success.
I'd still be happy to invest in Berkshire Hathaway in 1955 even if you told me that their median merger over the next 60 years would be value destroying (so long as the average would turn out the way it has).
The evidence is that the merged firm is worth more than the two component firms, but it's the target that reaps the gains. This suggests that acquirers tend to overpay.
"go off the reservation" .. I suspect that my father many decades ago engaged in casual references like this, but I recall as a child that it was frowned upon by people who sought to reset and build positive relations between races in North America
It seems like a fact-based analogy. 'A group have been restrained to "territory", but a member has broken that restraint'. There doesn't seem inherently to be a judgement as to the restraint or the rogue being right/wrong.
I'd be interested in why you felt the usage was beyond the pale sufficiently that it needed to be reined in? The concept of territorial reservations doesn't appear to me to denigrate any group particularly; maybe I'm wrong in that?
Not the parent, but it's obvious what the origin of the phrase is, and while it may not be as icky as something like "open the kimono", it's definitely one that is trivially replaced with no loss in meaning, and therefore almost certainly should be:
"The issue with 'off the reservation' and similar phrases is that these things are said without any thought. They become a part of the common vernacular. Freely they move from mind to mind, mouth to mouth. Maybe the meaning of these sorts of phrases never should have been the issue. Maybe living lives without thinking about what we say and do is of greater concern."
Sure. No one is saying that the person is bad for saying it. Indeed, they're probably a good person, and for that reason may be interested in hearing why the phrase is better avoided. Particularly if their regular travels (friends, work colleagues, etc) may not put them in contact with indigenous people.
Would you use the phrase if there was a woman, especially an Asian woman present? If not, then that's your answer:
> “Opening the kimono” implies a coyness and sensuality that conjures up images of submissive Asian women reluctantly willing to show you their most vulnerable side. I understand why someone would use it just from the shock value alone. It took the wind out of me when I read it.
I wouldn't have thought much about when to use it, which is why I ask. Kimonos are worn by men and women. Its also Japanese in origin so it wouldn't consider it any sort of broadly Asian reference. Of course if people are taking it as such, I wouldn't use it.
>"The issue with 'off the reservation' and similar phrases is that these things are said without any thought
If they are said without any thought or connotation then is there really any slight against whatever group is the origin of the phrase?
He could have just has easily said "off in left field" which is arguably a slight against leftists and commies but has so long been a colloquialism that it has lost that connotation.
The name of the Washington football team was also used "without any thought", and that there was no need to change it as it wasn't meant as a slight against the group for whom the name is a slur. But it turns out that these things can be hurtful even if you don't mean them in a nasty way.
But yeah, "off in left field" is a baseball thing; no one is harmed or offended by that— even if you do apply it to politics or use it in a political context, as the WP article briefly mentions, politics are something you choose, not your cultural identity, so it really isn't the same thing at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_left_field
Another interesting case is the phrase "balls to the wall" which has a harmless origin with aeronautics, but is spicy enough on account of an obvious alternative interpretation that it isn't used in polite company.
It is quite explicitly related to the reservations that colonists have pushed indigenous people to. In America this situation was particularly bad for many tribes, and in general connotes a significant loss of freedoms and impact to culture even when there wasn't specifically physically violence involved. The actual phrased specifically originated as a derogatory term for any indigenous person who was not staying on the reservation. Frequently in telegrams requesting the army arrive to and eliminate the band of native peoples who were not living on the reservation.
The phrase has the trappings of genocide baked in, and people who have learned of the history of their ancestors are going to be reminded of that whenever they hear it. Even if you are not thinking of any of that, the term is primarily used to indicate someone doing something odd/crazy/wrong, which is fundamentally implying that any indigenous person who has done so is odd/crazy/wrong.
I think most people understand that its use in everyday vernacular is not usually intended to be racially charged, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't be educated on the phrase and try to avoid using it. There are lots of ways to express ideas, and it's probably fine if we don't use the ones that are fundamentally tied to racist connotations, especially when indigenous people in many countries (US, Canada, Australia, among others) still suffer from systemic policies and actions that leave them disadvantaged to this day. (Casinos on reservations are a band-aid and do not solve the fundamental problems, for example. In America only 200ish of nearly 600 tribes run casinos on their land, and of those 200ish, less than half pay out per capita, and only a handful make significant money from their casinos - the payout is less than 10k/yr per person for the vast majority - less than the federal minimum wage assuming a 40 hour workweek)
Cliff notes: Just because you don't see one doesn't mean it isn't there and that the people that have lived their lives impacted by it will not see one and be reminded of the genocide their ancestors faced and the results of ongoing systemic racism today. It's a bad phrase. We should try not to use it.
Yes, it is (probably) related to Indian/Native American reservations, but that does not mean every utterance of an allusion to history is perpetuating racial injustice.
Frankly having people like yourself chime in at every juncture to tell other people they are perpetuating racism is cheapening the actual historical impact of these events. If you care about the people you claim to defend then do something to help them.
Please keep in mind the GP/GGP comment to this was folded for being offtopic.
>Frankly having people like yourself chime in at every juncture to tell other people they are perpetuating racism is cheapening the actual historical impact of these events.
That's an interesting take, and not one that I think you will find in common with experts on the subject.
>If you care about the people you claim to defend then do something to help them.
I donate my time, money, and other resources to a variety of causes related to helping disadvantaged groups. I might largely be wasting my time in attempting to educate people on the internet, but it doesn't mean that I do not do anything else.
Why do you believe that uttering phrases that are fundamentally rooted and reinforce prejudice is not harmful? It's a phrase that is quite strictly Othering in nature. Not only can it be hurtful to those that have lived with the repercussions, but it also helps reinforce the Othering mindset in those who did not.
>That's an interesting take, and not one that I think you will find in common with experts on the subject.
Many of these "experts" typically use outrage to justify their continued employment. Most of them come off as genuinely deranged to most of the people I know, so this isn't just a me thing.
>I might largely be wasting my time in attempting to educate people on the internet
You're not educating people so much as finding chances to belittle them.
>Why do you believe that uttering phrases that are fundamentally rooted and reinforce prejudice is not harmful?
You're trying to tell someone they are racist while not holding any racist opinion but for saying magic words. This is nonsensical. If black people call each other "the n word" then a word and its historical meaning and modern meanings are not necessarily linked to each other.
More empowering is, likely, accepting that a word or phrase may have had some racist element to it but removing the power of that racism (such as with black people calling each other the n word) as opposed to making it forbidden.
>You're not educating people so much as finding chances to belittle them.
>You're trying to tell someone they are racist while not holding any racist opinion but for saying magic words
I have explicitly stated in multiple places that I do not believe people are racist or have any sort of malicious intent, and are likely unaware of the connotations. You can see multiple posts in this thread where I have stated this. I would, however, say that in an ideal world we all strive to be anti-racist, rather than just not racist.
>More empowering is, likely, accepting that a word or phrase may have had some racist element to it but removing the power of that racism (such as with black people calling each other the n word) as opposed to making it forbidden.
For the disenfranchised groups, sure. For everyone else? Not so much.
I am trying to assume the most charitable possible interpretation from this post, but I'm struggling to do so and respond to it. Most of what it says is arguing against positions that I have not held at any point, and is putting words in my mouth. I apologize, but I do not believe I can engage further in a productive manner here.
>I have explicitly stated in multiple places that I do not believe people are racist or have any sort of malicious intent
You're mincing words. If the people are above reproach then what they are doing is probably also above reproach. What you are saying is effectively "I'm not saying they or their actions are racist, but they actually are."
>For the disenfranchised groups, sure. For everyone else? Not so much.
This doesn't make any sense. The disenfranchised groups need to be empowered; everyone else doesn't need to be, they are already empowered (by your own logic). So if this works for the disenfranchised groups that should be enough.
>I am trying to assume the most charitable possible interpretation from this post, but I'm struggling to do so and respond to it.
I'm trying to point out your position isn't really consistent. If you want to help people then you shouldn't be trying to drag other people down. The points I am making are meant to show that, regardless of what you say, what you are doing "works" by trying to ascribe racism to people that are not exhibiting racism.
In some specific cases language use guides thought, but more commonly language is dictated by people's goals and the existing nature of reality. Language did not cause the world to exist.
Imposing strong controls on corporate management is one of the most important thing that shareholders can do. This might take the form of independent boards, which aren't handpicked by the CEO. Or the removal of poison pills (which raises the threat of a hostile takeover for underperforming companies). But most important of all is the existence of transparent, consistent, regularly evaluated metrics. That means quarterly earnings targets.
Like any job, CEOs need consistent feedback to keep their incentive aligned with those who employ them (shareholders). Management has shown time and time again, that when monitoring is weakened, they go off the reservation and destroy shareholder value. The good thing about earnings is that it's they're easy-to-measure, hard-to-fake tangible proof of continuing performance. In contrast stories about "long-term value" or intangible promises of future rewards are usually BS used to justify extravagant empire building while the CEO uses the company's balance sheet as his personal piggy bank.
Lest anyone think that evil Wall Street shareholders are hobbling visionary CEOs, observe the rare cases when management does prove its credibility. Prime example is Amazon, which time and time again has scarified short-term earnings for long-term development. And nobody could possibly claim that it's punished by Wall Street for this. The difference is that unlike 99% of CEOs, Bezos has conclusively proven his ability and alignment with Amazon shareholders.