What I do believe is fair is we've been a very profit-driven company forever.

In some ways, the profit-driven companies like Columbia have set higher standards in how hospitals operate, cutting costs with greater buying power and leaner bureaucracies.

Still, the Tokyo Stock Exchange, like many companies listed on it, is unlikely to turn into a Western-style, profit-driven company anytime soon.

In some respects, however, Canal Plus is more a cultural institution than a profit-driven company.

And that incongruity raises a compelling question: Is there a place for this not-for-profit throwback in a financial-services industry dominated by profit-driven companies obsessed with selling as many products as possible and getting the highest returns?

Recently, however, Met executives have been highlighting the many ways in which their operations are very different from those of profit-driven companies that enjoy no tax exemption.

New York prisons may not be perfect, but New Yorkers have wisely refrained from joining the growing number of states that have abdicated their responsibility for prisoners to profit-driven companies.

Over the past decade, however, KWV became a completely profit-driven private company that has no administrative role anymore.

We (and Tiger) should expect no more from profit-driven public companies.

If this is opened up to profit-driven companies in the area of postal services, it will only lead to the profitable activities being hived off.