Incomplete quoting to fit ideology

Many who want government to stay out of corporate affairs quote Milton Friedman with “The only purpose of the corporation is to maximize shareholder value.”

However, he actually had a more nuanced statement:

"There is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."

See “The Benefits and Costs of Social Investing”, Alex Brian, Morningstar, 2015-01-07.

Too many forget everything after “so long as it stays within the rules of the game…”

Also, who should be the arbiter of “the game”?  The Chambers of Commerce?  But Chambers interests are those of its members.  Government?  Horrors!  Who else do we have that could be “impartial”?

Note my use of “could” rather than “can”.  Too many corporations work to get government to make decisions favorable to themselves without regard to the “General Welfare” stated in the U. S. Constitution.

What we have is that the “rules of the game” as manipulated by corporate interests often lead to lots of “deception or fraud”.

Reading the fine print so we don't have to

Morningstar has started a new service called footnoted, which reports and analyzes the fine print of many companies' SEC filings.

The edition available today includes articles on

Jerry Yang leaving Yahoo "to pursue other interests, and not due to any disagreement with the Company",
The perks at a dental supply company that explain why your dental work costs so much,
The golden parachutes for executives who screw up, and
The whopping entitlements that directors at Google get.

I've added footnoted.com to my bookmarks. It will be interesting to delve into it now and then.