Pantheacon coverage will return shortly – I gotta catch a plane.

Markets are wonderful means by which people can make voluntary exchanges.  They are indispensable servants.  But when they become our masters all values are subordinated to enabling the most ruthless manipulators make as much money as possible.  We have seen recently what these corporate parasites are capable of doing, both in robbing their businesses and impoverishing so many of us.  

With all the bleating and whining going on about how the executives who helped bankrupt their businesses take so much ‘risk’ and so should be allowed to pay themselves obscenely, it is refreshing to see how real creative businesspeople can act.  

Compare our big bankers and auto executives seeking taxpayer handouts with Leonard Abess, jr.  The Miama Herald reports

After selling a majority stake in Miami-based City National Bancshares last November, all he did was take $60 million of the proceeds — $60 million out of his own pocket — and hand it to his tellers, bookkeepers, clerks, everyone on the payroll. All 399 workers on the staff received bonuses, and he even tracked down 72 former employees so they could share in the windfall.

    For longtime employees, the bonus — based on years of service — amounted to tens of thousands of dollars, and in some cases, more than $100,000.

The story ends

Workers were provided with financial counseling and special high-rate certificates of deposit at City National.

”It was like a lottery, only better,” Virginia C. Dunn, managing senior vice president, said of the gift. “Because it came from someone’s heart.”

MSNBC reported

A total of $6.6 million is being shared by just 230 employees of Waukegan-based Peer Bearing Co., with facilities in England and the United States. Amounts varied and were based on years of service.

“They treated us like extended family,” said Maria Dima, who works at Peer Bearing along with her husband, Valentin, and received a somewhat smaller check than he did. “We won the lottery.”

With $100 million in sales last year, Peer recently was acquired by a Swedish company for an undisclosed amount. Danny Spungen, whose grandfather founded the company in 1941, said it was a unanimous family decision to thank employees with the bonuses.

Of course sociopaths and greedy hard hearted scoundrels are all too present in these smaller enterprises, as in every other realm of life.  But when ownership is concentrated in an individual or a family, they can exercise a sense of moral responsibility.  When ownership is scattered among millions of shareholders, a Petri dish for the rise of sociopaths to domination has been prepared.