Philip Morris is cutting back its work force, and their goal is to reward shareholders, interesting. How do you cut the widget building force, build less product and make a profit, after your product profit has already fallen drastically?

I have always had a hard time understanding this shareholder profit thing. Seems to me for every winner in a dying, or stable, company there must be a looser. Understood, a growing company like Microsoft can pay dividends as long as sales continue to increase.

As crazy as it sounds the whole thing isn’t real. For starters this stock market thing is run by and for groups whose sole purpose is to, not only keep commerce moving but to create the reality that it is increasing. That’s what happened during the bull years in the 90’s. It kept climbing and climbing and all the while the basic market continued to lose buying power. So how does it happen?

First, it is all an illusion. I imagine it didn’t take Dow and Jones long to figure out that a central place to trade in would be so large that only those who were close would understand its inner workings. Following that thought, for those who understood the process it would become apparent that pennies from millions would turn into dollars. In other words those who invested through this market would lose a percent in the same manner their employer loses pencils. It is hard to notice a few pocket fulls of wheat missing from a silo when the mill worker goes home and besides their entitled, its only a little.

There are many different types of folks who invest. The basic four are; those who actually believe that investing is a prudent way to make money, those who think they are smarter than the market, those who understand that it’s an illusion but think they can get past it because they understand it and lastly those who make money.

The first type brings to mind, a fool and his money are soon parted. The second type, an arrogant fool and his money are soon parted. The third type is someone who has not tapped into the inner workings because they are being worked by type four.

The last three type are the most worrisome. They are the reason this trend continues to weigh heavier on society and some of these folks are the future type fours. There won’t be a good outcome to this trend because there are too few out there that want things to work in a fair and equitable fashion. The harder it gets to get by the quicker those on the morality fence move toward the thoughts of a type four.

Extrapolate this theory into Enron and your local civil servants and you will understand that if you want to get ahead you need to be connected. Honesty will only get you a job and do little more than feed you. However, beware, at some point it has to cave.

Anything more written on this subject would only be in line with how things work; confuse, use and deny.

Bulletin; Philip Morris 2004 shareholder report;