short mid long

New York Times. December 2019. Free-market capitalism won’t survive unless it makes structural changes toward long-term investing.

We live in an economy increasingly at odds with this truth. Short-term business practices are polluting our environment and harming our health and well-being for the sake of quick payouts.

Vox. 2016. Hillary Clinton has made short-term thinking in corporate America — also known as “quarterly capitalism,” a reference to the pressure companies feel to meet quarterly earnings predictions — a central issue in her campaign.

That issue has been bubbling beneath the surface of policy discussion for years, but it’s gained fresh attention as influential investors such as Warren Buffett and Lawrence Fink (of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset holder), and politicians like Vice President Joe Biden, have stepped up to warn of the perils to our economy of turning away from a long-term perspective.

Forbes. 2021. Life and work can at times prove to be exceedingly difficult, as the past year plus has shown, and we can all be forgiven if, in our current circumstances, we look not towards the future but the next moment of relief.

All the platitudes about tough times making for tough people are well and good, but they’re easier to offer from the outside rather than during a trying period. Let’s face it, this period of uncertainty is seemingly ever-ending. In these circumstances, it’s easy to see how people can make decisions aimed at the short-term amelioration of their problems that might work against their long-term interests.

Aspen Institute. 2015. While the immediate value of reducing these costs is easily seen on the company balance sheet, the lost revenue of reduced worker performance goes uncounted. What’s worse, all of these practices create arms-length relationships between employers and workers, weakening trust and dampening enthusiasm for the work.

This in turn reduces the likelihood that businesses will invest in productivity-enhancing training of the workforce. Recent research bears this out, noting that an “easy hire, easy fire” policy leads to diminished worker productivity and innovation.