aka Rant against the Machine.

So, profits. Not the kind that try to make people follow an ideology, but the kind that make suited individuals mega rich. But then again, the former is hardly any different to the latter these days. Anyway, on with the show.

The Profits of Companies vs. What they do for us...
Company --- Profit
Vivendi Universal -- £1.5billion (loaaads)
Sony -- £200m (shocking really)
Tesco -- £2billion (yikes)
BMI (music) -- £400m (record increase - guess filesharing is REALLY bad for business if it induces a record increase in your profits huh)
UK cinema goers revenue -- £840m (up 4% from last year)

I could go on you know. Despite the doom and gloom of filesharing, despite uk farmers going bankrupt, some companies are making millions and even billions in profit. Profit. Not revenue. Profit. Thats excess money. Money that is surplus to operating costs. What to do with those profits? Well, if I were Tesco, i'd lower shed loads of prices, and pay my suppliers something decent for a change. What is the actual point of £2billion in profit? If I were Universal MGM, I'd slowly release some of my crappy films as .avi/.mov files on P2P networks to get momentum going - rather than suing kids for downloading movies.
Oh, and if they are downloading movies, how come there was a 4% increase in cinema revenue (which, incidentally has always been going up).

What we see here, is Capitalism at its fantastic best. I love these movies, I love these songs, and I love the fact that I can go shopping when I want. What I don't like, is to know that I'm being well and truely ripped off - or worse still, some poor sod in Zimbabwe or Chile is working his nuts off to grow my corn or coffee beans, just so that a company can buy them at 2p and sell me them for 80p. You know what? I'd rather they pay him 20p, sell them to me for 80p and only make £1billion in profits.

As for the Movie and Music industries. Oh purleaaase. Do I really want to download Boyzone or Girls Aloud? Heck no, I want decent music. Use the money you get to produce decent music.

Want to know something great? Employees of these companies probably don't see much of this either. Its shared up top in each organisation in million pound bonuses and the like. Fantastic. So, lets see, do I dedicate myself to the advancement and bettering of my social community fabric, or do I don a suit and go for those million pound bonuses so that I can actually contemplate buying a nice house in London? Let me think...

--
dp

Posted 1/19/2005.

Comments:

1.  Aravis says @ 5:58 am
   It's those soulless undead greedy money-grubbers I was talking about before...
2.  The Num Num says @ 8:55 am
   Yep. In the words of George Michael "How much is enough?"
   
   No social system is perfect, they all have flaws. And pretty soon there will have to be an upheaval within our so called modern society, since there are so many living on the brink of poverty, whilst nameless corporations rake in billions of pounds and put it to excellent use - advertising, corporate jets, bonuses for a ceo.
   
   But what about the bulk of the population...education, health, security, justice, civil services..these are core to civilisation. We seem to be failing them.
3.  changeofhart says @ 9:52 am
   ah you see, I was with you until that GM comment.
   
   Its a f*ecked up world when an anti-capitalist rant can be backed up by a Geroge Michael lyric... ;-)
   
   Maybe your mama gave you up boy, its the same old same old...
   
   you see? just sounds a bit.... well....like you're the only one in the village, iykwim :P
4.  Damo says @ 11:21 am
   The amount of money being made upsets me personally too. The way we're exploiting others is well documented. But to be selfish for one minute, here's our side. My salary hasn't gone up that much in the last few years, nor has that of most people. But the cost of living (housing, food, everything) has gone up hugely - net result: most of us are poorer. I certainly am. But if we're paying a huge amount more and being poorer as a result, SOMEONE is coining it. And I think you can see who. Those at the top of the tree. The selfishness of others has ruined the lives of those abroad for many years - now it's our turn. Not that there's any comparison - I CAN afford to eat - but you see my point. People can't screw foreigners a great deal more than they already do, so now they have to look elsewhere for the bigger margins.

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