For those of us in the business and industry press, earnings season is upon us again. Four times a year, for a little more than two weeks, corporations large and small report revenue, income, profits and losses. And in the case of oil and gas firms, proved and probable reserves.
There's been a lot of belly aching here about Sarbanes-Oxley, and the costs it has imposed upon business (all very real), but very little talk about just how miserable the whole regulatory structure of corporate/government "capitalism" is. Quarterly earnings season is as artificial an environment as a putting green. It forces companies to think only in short terms and to constantly show "growth" when there may be none or not as much as some would like (the problem that led to Enron and the collapse of the merchant energy sector). After having covered agriculture and energy for the last eight years, I have a great deal more respect for privately held businesses. They strike me as more, um, "natural" than the corporation as we know it.
