Michael: Stanley!
Stanley: Can’t you see I’m urinating?
Michael: Listen, listen, Stanley. You don’t need to answer me now.
Stanley: No.
Michael: Just ... I want you to think about it. I am starting my own company ...
Stanley: No.
Michael: You’re not letting me finish and you just lost out on a million dollars.
Stanley: No I didn’t. The Office US s5e21: Two Weeks, NBC 2009
Alan: There are many things to be optimistic about in Dunder Mifflin’s future and one of them is here with us today – Michael Scott, Scranton Branch Manager.
Dwight: Yes!
Alan: In these uncertain times, Michael has managed to maintain steady profits from his Scranton branch. We all thank you, Michael. [little applause] Another bright spot in the Dunder Mifflin landscape, our new waste-pulp re-purposing plant in Milford. [louder, more enthusiastic applause] The Office US s6e11: Shareholders’ Meeting, Michael
Dunder Mifflin is about to be sold. But first an investment banker has to drop by and sign off on our branch. And I’m ... pretty nervous about it. And I’m ... making some cosmetic tweaks to help create a more appealing environment. Is that dishonest? Well, think of it this way: when you look in the mirror and you see your push-up bra and your fake eyelashes and your make-up and your press-on nails; the principles that I am applying to the office are the same ones that have made Lady Gaga a star ... or any number of drag queens. The Office US s6e14: The Banker, Michael
This company does not waste time or resources ever. ibid. Michael to Toby & Kurt
This is a building where friends become lovers, and lovers become sexually interactive. ibid.
So you’ve just been bought by Sabre. You’ve probably got a lot of questions. Hi, I’m Christian Slater. What’s it like to work for Sabre? Let’s find out together. Working at Sabre means taking on the challenge of the road that rises to meet you. Sabre is respecting the past, but opening a window to the future. Have you ever tasted a rainbow? At Sabre you will. The Office US s6e15: Sabre, Christian Slater
The way this place used to work is make friends first, make sales second, make love third, in no particular order. The Office US s6e20: New Leads
I have emailed you four times asking you to come to my desk. ibid. Angela
You have to live in Silicon Valley and hear the horror stories. You go and hang out at the cafés, and you meet entrepreneur after entrepreneur who’s struggling, basically – who’s had a visa problem who wants to start a company, but they can’t start companies. Vivek Wadhwa
You’d better get those books sorted, Susan, before the tax man gets here; sees them and he’ll think Christmas come early. Ian Bleasdale, Play for Today: The Muscle Market ***** starring Bernard Hill & Pete Postlethwaite et al, Danny Duggan to secretary, BBC 1981
Times are hard all right. Same again? ibid. golfers at bar
I’ve worked hard for all this. This [car] and me business and me house. And everything. And for you. And what happens when I get here? Country’s falling apart. Me arse is hanging out the building game. Kids couldn’t wait to leave home. I’ve got no real friends. Me wife’s a sex maniac, and me mistress gets headaches. ibid. Danny to secretary in car
What sort of a world do you think it is eh outside your rules and regulations? Listen, bollocks, I’ll tell ya. Everyone in this business starts off on the rob. Every big firm in this country started out by some grabbing bastard hustling and lying and thieving. ’Cause that’s the only way to get up there. But it doesn’t matter. And do you know why? ’Cause when you get up there there’s more robbin’ goes on in Park Land and priggin’ Mayfair and tax havens and computers and the like that in site huts and wellies and farting little offices like this. ibid. Danny to taxmen
Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs – we entrepreneurs – have set up these outsourcing companies that virtually run America. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger p4
North American companies view the Soviet Union and the newly opening nations in Eastern Europe as potential markets for their products or as sources of low-cost manufacturing labor. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
The occupants of the first [safer coach] – Rushton, Didlum and Co. – might be classed as criminal lunatics who injured others as well as themselves. In a properly constituted system of society such men as these would be regarded as danger to the community, and would be placed under such restraint as would effectually prevent them from harming themselves or others. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
They knew that the money they accumulated was foul with the sweat of their brother men, and wet with the tears of little children, but they were deaf and blind and callous to the consequences of their greed. Devoid of any ennobling thought or aspiration, they grovelled on the filthy ground, tearing up the flowers to get at the worms. ibid.
The huge arrogance of the companies developing GMO crops and their determination to destroy the line of accountability which links the developer to the product is breath-taking. When something goes wrong, as it inevitably will, there will be a great benefit to those who have taken a stance against genetically modified organisms. Jonathan Porritt
We wonder if they take that approach [as strikes] to company law. And we started to look around because there is a company law that says all directors of a company, by company law, must register their usual home address at Companies House … Security is not an excuse to give a wrong address … Fourteen company directors of Ford all share the same flat in Dagenham … The queue for the toilet must be terrible … And then we started going through all these other companies. Mark Thomas Comedy Product s3e6, Channel 4 1999
Why aren’t there more company directors in jail? … Piper Alpha … Not one company director has been sent to jail for any of those … The Jerry Archer Wing: we’ll open one up, start shovelling in the pinstripes … ‘Are you sure this is part of the Masonic ritual?’ … The law is completely inadequate … There have been five prosecutions for corporate manslaughter since that law came into play … You have got more chance of getting justice if you are a goat in Britain. Mark Thomas Comedy Product s6e3
300 people killed at work each year … This is a class issue. ibid.
They were going to introduce this corporate killing. ibid.
An advert in the CBI: ‘Wanted: Mug’. ibid.
Over 100 of them are occurring on building sites, construction industry, these fatalities, and part of this is down to casualisation. ibid.
In November 1991 the body of tycoon Robert Maxwell was recovered from the Atlantic. He had fallen overboard from his own luxury yacht … Maxwell was a crook. He had stolen hundreds of millions of pounds from his employees’ pension fund … In the boardroom Maxwell displayed some strong psychopathic traits. Meet the Psychopaths II, Power Psychopaths, Channel 5 2015
‘Enron has all the hallmarks of a classic psychopathic company.’ ibid. Professor Clive Boddy
The next step in the story of the ascent of money was the rise of the joint-stock limited-liability company. But the ability of the company to transform our lives would depend on another innovation – the stock market. Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money e3: Blowing Bubbles, Channel 4/PBS 2009
Stock markets really can be like soap bubbles – we never quiet know when they’re going to burst. ibid.
Ponzi scheme – after the legendary Italian-American con-man Charles Ponzi: to pay out the generous returns its promised to the first lot of suckers, a Ponzi scheme needed to take in more money from the next lot of suckers. ibid.
The Mississippi bubble of 1719 was the first stock market bubble in history. ibid.
Enron: It pioneered many of the dubious business practices that continue to plague us today. ibid.
I thought I had found the perfect car … The ads sucked me in … What I didn’t know was that I was driving a killing machine … ‘Volkswagen Shares Tumble Following Emissions Allegations’ … VW had lied to me: they had pitched me a vision of my dream car that was polluting fifty times more than advertised. Dirty Money I: Hard Nox, Netflix 2018
How could a company have lied to its customers on such a massive scale? ibid.
Diesel exhaust disgorges much nastier stuff. ibid.
‘The pressure on everybody to increase sales became unbearable.’ ibid. VW executive
The cheating and how to handle it was an open secret among many executives in Germany. ibid.
‘This was a corporate culture permeated by fraud.’ ibid. lawyer
VW was forced to pay over $25 billion in fines. ibid.
They [countries] are willing to look the other way when companies cheat. ibid.