Wick,
Used to be when this country's companies were developing into the capitalist wonders of the admiring world, a CEO would invite investors to participate in the company he was building with the understanding that he was offering an opportunity for others to share in the fortunes of the company he was driving.
Investors felt lucky to be a part of something good.
Beginning in the late eighties, after a couple of years of the biggest bonuses to stockbrokers there ever had been--which continued all through the nineties, and hovers on the edges today--Wall Street drives the companies listed on its exchanges today, not the CEO's.
Where once investors were grateful to take what the company gave them in the way of dividends and share price increases, and complained little about decreases, they now insist on profits or by gosh they'll see to it that management is changed.
Never mind the vision of the company, never mind that it might take years to prifitability, no, if Wall Street is unhappy, heads roll, and small developing companies are gobbled up by already developed companies but never add to our economy what would have been added had the small company been allowed to mature.
We're impatient, brokers are impatient with their withering bonuses, and CEO's spend more time answering to Wall Street than they spend tending to their companies.
Consequently we're headed to an era of mediocrity. The companies which survive to excell will be those which are being absorbed by the wealth of private individuals, taken private, and elude the prying eyes of regulators, and giving those of us who might want to share in the fruits of their visions the middle finger, saying, "Enough, Wall Street, you've driven enough good companies into oblivion with your greedy demands, we intend to return to the time when we didn't have to be looking over our shoulders at panting shareholders."
Notice how many companies have been taken private the last two years, i.e., The Chicago Tribune companies, and recently the Four Seasons hotel chain by Bill Gates and others.
They're tired of yapping and disgruntled shareholders who aren't patient enough to give the entrepreneur the chance to develop his dream.
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