Bass Master "K" said:
Another thing, steiny, far from being a huge corporate beast employs about 100 people. Have you asked ANY of their employees whether or not they feel exploited? If not, and you are a 'logical' person, you would then know that you have no business passing judgement on this company.
The only reason that I didn't respond to this post was that you were in the process of writing it when I posted my last reply, thus it appeared above my last reply and was thus overlooked.
First of all, let's refute your fallacious assertion.
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=11868
"YAMAHA CORPORATION announced that it has reached a basic agreement to acquire 100% of the common stock of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, a division of Pinnacle Systems, Inc., a California-based maker and seller of video editing systems. The acquisition, which includes Steinberg?s US sales operations, took place through closed competitive bidding on December 20, 2004, US local time.
Founded in 1984, Steinberg Media Technologies is the market share leader in computer software used to produce music. Steinberg became part of the Pinnacle Systems Group in January 2003.
In the mid 1990s, YAMAHA forged a relationship with Steinberg by using its computer music products and bundled software. In April 2004, YAMAHA and Steinberg deepened their cooperative relationship with the Studio Connections initiative, a joint-development project to seamlessly integrate YAMAHA?s hardware products with Steinberg?s software.
Now, YAMAHA has reached agreement to acquire all of Steinberg?s common stock through closed competitive bidding. Eying growth in the music creation market and expanded sales of sound equipment, YAMAHA has incorporated Steinberg?s assets, including its strong technical capabilities in software development and intellectual property, into its Group efforts and further strengthened these activities through joint-development projects. Having determined that Steinberg?s competitive capabilities will be very formidable going forward, YAMAHA decided to acquire all of that company?s common stock through participation in closed competitive bidding."
Furthermore, I do not need to ask an employee of a profit generating company whether they feel exploited because, BY DEFINITION, anyone who is an employee of a profit generating company is being exploited by whoever claims ownership of the profits that the company generates (except in the case of upper level management, or in the case of a workers' cooperative. Look it up if you aren’t familiar.) The owners do from very little to nothing, other than collect profits.
Even in the rare case (though increasingly likely with decreasing business size) that the owners actively participate in the work that the company does, the owners are compensated at a higher rate than the employees (assuming that the business is or eventually becomes profitable to a certain extent.)
The only justification made for this higher rate of compensation is that the owner has invested his/her money into the business. However, the owner must have inherited or otherwise had sufficient opportunity to obtain the capital with which to start or acquire the business in the first place. Only a complete ignoramus would assert that such inheritances or opportunities are distributed equally across the human population (I can provide statistics to back this up if you need to see them). Although it is historically true that a handful of poor people have been able to become wealthy by a combination of great luck and ability, one only needs to do some research to find that the vast majority of people who are rich have not risen from the lowest classes.
Therefore, what the owner-employee relationship boils down to is a relationship in which one party (the owner(s)) receives great amounts of compensation for little to no work, justified on the basis (the vast majority of the time) of their being in an advantaged position above their employees, while the employees do most if not all of the work. This is exploitation.