Quotes & Sayings About Corporate Greed

Occupy Wall Street means making Wall Street and the corporate power elite understand that the people affected by the binge of unregulated greed are not going away, and they are not going to give up. — Dana Spiotta

The history of the twentieth century was dominated by the struggle against totalitarian systems of state power. The twenty-first will no doubt be marked by a struggle to curtail excessive corporate power. — Eric Schlosser

Greed has increasingly become a virtue among Wall Street bankers and corporate CEOs in the U.S. Nowhere else in the world do CEOs insist on receiving compensation as high compared to what their employees earn. — Simon Mainwaring

The social havoc wreaked by unfettered economic greed comes to be interiorised as the personal weakness and irresponsibility of those principally affected. — David Smail

This is where people misunderstand war. When you attack another country for its resources, you are the pirate. But when you protect your country from the pirates, you are the hero. — Suzy Kassem

I think the greedy corporate owners have to be confronted with the fact that they are ignoring their most powerful resource - their workers. — John Sweeney

Whoever coined the phrase '"I can work well under pressure" should be put on trial for crimes against Humanity. — Adriano Bulla

I think it's a shame when the arts have to suffer because of corporate greed. People will always strive to make film, and the only important thing is that we keep trying to make ourselves heard and keep making our films, no matter what the climate is. — Paddy Considine

A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people, but those of multinational corporations. — Suzy Kassem

Koch's youthful idealism about libertarianism had largely devolved into a rationale for corporate self-interest. — John Charles Chasteen

One step closer to the end of the world. The one-two combo of corporate greed and organised religion apparently proved to be too much for reason, sanity and compassion. — Trent Reznor

To enter the corporate rat race, you need to become a rat. — Lakshmy Menon Chatterjee

Ideology that believes government is bad, and that public institutions and places are not valuable, is as destructive as corporate greed. — Cynthia Dill

Do you hear that, Dillon? Inadvertent self-wedgie! Write that down! That's what you want your characters to say, not some anodyne bullshit about corporate greed. — Aleksandar Hemon

I understand individuals and their personal motivations, but when those same individuals become a part of something bigger, some amorphous corporate ball of greed, I can't anticipate the logical next move, because it has long ago stopped being human. Your average human being has a conscience and the world is structured with checks and balances to shed light on that individual should he or she become something ugly and cruel. But a company can hide its corruption; the individuals responsible can sit innocently and united behind their desks for years before they are discovered. They are as guilty as the guy robbing the liquor store in the ski mask, only they're free to show their faces. I had no idea whether I should be looking for the worker bee or the nest, or both, and my nearsightedness cost my boss his job. — Lisa Lutz

After Jacob had worked for Laban for seven years, do you know what happened? Laban fooled him and gave him his ugly daughter Leah. So to marry Rachel, Jacob was forced to work another seven years.

So, you see, children, the Bible clearly teaches us you can never trust an employer. — Joseph Stein

I vote far-left. I am frequently angered by corporate greed and think education ought to be free and teachers paid well. — Eleanor Catton

John Cobb is saying that perhaps we are beginning to see that now as our greed goes completely out of control and everything is seen through money, through corporate power, etc., etc. We know it well. He asked the question, What will be the holocaust that takes us to the next era? - which he describes as "Earthism." — Terry Tempest Williams

We want to bear witness today that we know the relation between corporate greed and what goes on too often in the Supreme Court decisions. — Cornel West

Cities controlled by big companies are old hat in science fiction. My grandmother left a whole bookcase of old science fiction novels. The company-city subgenre always seemed to star a hero who outsmarted, overthrew, or escaped "the company." I've never seen one where the hero fought like hell to get taken in and underpaid by the company. In real life, that's the way it will be. That's the way it always is. — Octavia E. Butler

Where the Army we loved sold us out for careerist brass, a war-porn-fixated media and military-industrial-complex corporate greed; where the only honor and integrity seemed to exist among the troops on the line. — Luis Carlos Montalvan

You would be surprised at how many corporations "none of your business" applies to! — Steven Magee

It's time for the wealthy to pay their fair share before the middle class becomes the forgotten class.- And it's time for the banks to give back what they were given. There are those in politics, particularly those on the conservative side, who can't get enough of telling people that the wealthy one per cent must not be taxed because doing so kills jobs. The real job-killers are corporate greed and political expediency. It's time for working people in Maine and all across the country to take back the American dream. — Stephen King

When the greedy executives of rich religions go before Him, they will say, "Remember me for who I was." And God will answer, "I do remember but you have forgotten who you use to be. — Shannon L. Alder

Enforcement isn't about big government or small government. It's about whether government works and who it works for. — Elizabeth Warren

Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America. — Bernie Sanders

In the 1980s and 1990s, Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, laid off over 100,000 employees. His reward? When he retired from GE, he received a golden parachute of over $400 million dollars. This is the kind of corporate greed and irresponsibility that is destroying the middle class and must be ended. — Bernie Sanders

The only thing that stands between corporate greed and poverty is the union. — Lee Whitnum

You still could go to some industry or some university or the government and if you could persuade them you had something on the ball - why, then, they might put up the cash after cutting themselves in on just about all of the profits. And, naturally, they'd run the show because it was their money and all you had done was the sweating and the bleeding. — Clifford D. Simak

Lying there, I thought of my own culture, of the assembly of books in the library at Alexandria; of the deliberations of Darwin and Mendel in their respective gardens; of the architectural conception of the cathedral at Chartres; of Bach's cello suites, the philosophy of Schweitzer, the insights of Planck and Dirac. Have we come all this way, I wondered, only to be dismantled by our own technologies, to be betrayed by political connivance or the impersonal avarice of a corporation? — Barry Lopez

Greed is not a consequence of poverty. If it were so, why does the art of acquisition continue to hone and whet itself towards ever more sophisticated strategies? Why is there no end to personal betrayal, corporate espionage, and diplomatic deception among nations? In accolade to greed, even semantics and rationalization have graduated to such undreamed-of heights! History, in failing to embrace the truth, always genuflects to the orchestral swings and sways of contemporary power. — Mariano Ngan

Liability limit has become a symbol of corporate greed in passing the risk of disaster to the U.S. government and U.S. citizens. — Marvin Ammori

People who foster dependence on illicit drugs such as heroin are regarded among the most unscrupulous pariahs of modern civilisation. In contrast, pushers of licit drugs tend to be viewed as altruistically motivated purveyors of social good. — John Braithwaite

One fact is beyond dispute: Homogenization prevents the consumer from realizing just how little fat is contained in modern processed milk, even "full fat" milk. Before homogenization, milk purchasers looked for milk that had lots of cream - that was the sign that the milk came from healthy cows, cows on pasture. Old-fashioned milk contained from 4 to 8 percent butterfat, which translated into lots of cream on the top. Modern milk is standardize at 3.5 percent, no more. Butterfat brings bigger profits to the dairy industry as butter or as an ingredient in ice cream than as a component of liquid milk. The consumer has been cheated, but with homogenization, he can't tell. — Ron Schmid

I believe the vulpine greed of the corporate world is cut from the very same cloth as the tyrant of history. — Adam Nevill

In my world, people are always plotting. You
have no idea of all the crimes people in business commit every
day. Like it was nothing. Or there's a set of special rules for them.
Remember when Bush made that whole speech about 'corporate
ethics' last year? What a fraud. You think stuff like Enron or
WorldCom is an aberration? It's only the tip. Business is a religion.
Probably the only one practiced all over the world. — Andrew Vachss

The thing American people fear about corporations is that they might achieve too much power. We have an antipathy to power even as we admire it. — Annie Proulx

The opposite of corporate greed is personal generosity. Government policies that enable the former and prevent the latter are both worthy of protest. — Cynthia Dill

What's interesting is that most free-marketers don't seem to want a free market at all, but a status quo market. The market in the United States is anything but free. If it were, big business would have to survive without corporate welfare to the tune of about $1 trillion (that's trillion) in government subsidies, the majority of which, about $650 billion, go to the fossil fuel industry! They are living off of the public dole on subsidies totaling billions of dollar - that we hand out either directly, or through tax breaks for their big corporations - with the false assumption that they are creating jobs. They are not. They are creating yachts, Leer Jets, and McMansions with swimming pools. — Steve Bivans

I believe capitalism will eventually be replaced by a communitarian ethic where the rights and care of all beings will be taken into consideration, not just the greed of a corporate few. — Terry Tempest Williams

My casino experience is to someone else their experience with their employer, of how the company has elected to behave solely for greed, profits, and spite. But we shouldn't give up hope in such situations. We have an obligation to separate the justices from the injustices. We should hold these corporate neighbors accountable for the wrongs that they commit.
Someone has to. — John-Talmage Mathis

Contemporary Christians have declared war on individual immorality but seem remarkably silent about the evil of systems, especially corporate greed and malfeasance. (p. 176) — Robin R. Meyers

We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out of control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break isolation, show us to ourselves when we are outlawed or made invisible, remind us of beauty where no beauty seems possible, remind us kinship where all is represented as separation.
(Defy the Space That Separates, The Nation, October 7, 1996) — Adrienne Rich

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed. — Barack Obama

Corporate greed controls political will. — Aaron B. Powell

When libertarians deride the idea of social fairness as just one more nuisance, they unleash greed. The kind of unconstrained greed that is now loose in America is leading not to real liberty but to corporate criminality and deceit; not to democracy but to politics dominated by special interests; and not to prosperity but to income stagnation for much of the population and untold riches at the very top. — Jeffrey D. Sachs

I feel terrible about corporate greed. Growing up in a household that was a little more humble and didn't put so much emphasis on money and material goods, I think I have a pretty good head on my shoulders. — Chloe Sevigny

While "greed" is one of the most popular - and most fallacious - explanations of the very high salaries of corporate executives, when your salary depends on what other people are willing to pay you, you can be the greediest person on earth and that will not raise your pay in the slightest. Any serious explanation of corporate executives' salaries must be based on the reasons for those salaries being offered, not the reasons why the recipients desire them. — Thomas Sowell

Then, in the 1980's, came the paroxysm of downsizing, and the very nature of the corporation was thrown into doubt. In what began almost as a fad and quickly matured into an unshakable habit, companies were 'restructuring,' 'reengineering,' and generally cutting as many jobs as possible, white collar as well as blue ... The New York Times captured the new corporate order succintly in 1987, reporting that it 'eschews loyalty to workers, products, corporate structures, businesses, factories, communities, even the nation. All such allegiances are viewed as expendable under the new rules. With survival at stake, only market leadership, strong profits and a high stock price can be allowed to matter'. — Barbara Ehrenreich

The Establishment is amassing wealth and aggressively annexing power in a way that has no precedent in modern times. After all, there is nothing to stop it. — Owen Jones

...it reveals the legacy of an environmental catastrophe, its human tolls and triumphs, its corporate greed and indifference, its governmental lapses and neglect. In its historic sweep, it stands as a cautionary tale -- timeless and time-bound -- in a country divided by class and religion, buffeted by corporate misconduct, and dismantling its environmental protection laws. This is the story of a dying coal town ensnared in the Reagan Revolution's afterbirth, of a small community rent by one of the mining industry's worst disasters, and of the irreplaceable bond of home. — Joan Quigley

Public education is not broken. It is not failing or declining. The diagnosis is wrong, and the solutions of the corporate reformers are wrong. Our urban schools are in trouble because of concentrated poverty and racial segregation. But public education is not 'broken.' Public education is in a crisis only so far as society is and only so far as this new narrative of crisis has destabilized it. — Diane Ravitch

The problems are our lives. In the "developed" countries, at least, the large problems occur because all of us are living either partly wrong or almost entirely wrong. It was not just the greed of corporate shareholders and the hubris of corporate executives that put the fate of Prince William Sound into one ship; it was also our demand that energy be cheap and plentiful. — Wendell Berry

The privileged individuals and families who comprise the global elite will happily bankrupt their own countrymen, decimate their own community and evict their neighbors from houses in their desperate bid to increase their wealth. — James Morcan

Corporate greed is killing America, and that's what we battling at Boeing. — Bill Johnson