[AussieWog93]

>What alternatives are there?

Just spitballing, but an independent auditor that puts a dollar value on the expected long term gains/losses to a company's brand portfolio based on recent management decisions could help reduce certain types of short-term "cashing in" behaviour.

>The most profitable public companies seem to invest quite heavily in long term investments and have long term planning. This does not seem to square with your statement.

Maybe not the largest companies, but he's basically described the default behaviour of private equity firms.