Losing faith

I've lost complete faith in corporate America. This loss of faith has been building for many years but seems to have crystallized over the past couple of years. From a health care industry that has us by the balls (and knows it), to Wall St. making bets so risky, they look like a first time card player at the World Series of Poker, to the latest massive boondoggle, the BP oil disaster. To be perfectly honest this is not a spill, it is a disaster.

Over the last few year British Petroleum has been shifting it's brand to appear as if it's the only oil company that is interested in the environment. The commercials discuss green energies and protecting the Earth. They changed their logo to give it a "greener" look. They even had me wondering if they really were an Earth friendly company. Because I'm such a cynical prick, I hadn't bought in yet, but they did have me wondering. Now we all know this image makeover is complete horseshit.

Not only is the image equine scat, BP may be the worst safety and environmental offender there is. Consider this, over a three year period BP racked of an amazing 760 "egregious, willful" violations handed out by OSHA. Compare that to the next biggest violators, Sunoco and Conoco-Phillips each had 8!!!!! Exxon another huge energy company had 1!!!!! So to sum up BP 760 violations to 19! The rest of the field has a lot of catching up to do. Just so we're clear these aren't little piddily violations, like "not wearing a hard hat" these are serious safety violations. The kind that lead to workers being killed and entire enviroments being destroyed. In the past five years 3o BP workers have been killed in two seperate oil rig explosions a helicopter crash and other accidents. With 760 violations and 30 deaths you would expect the full weight of the federal government would be pressing on them and they were. BP for all of it's corporate malfeasance was fined $373 million. Now to you and I, $373 million is a shit ton of cash but to a company that makes billions a year, that kind of cash is just a cost of doing biz. So what about the current disaster? I'm not going to tell you anything you don't know. We all know they didn't have a real plan for preventing and fixing a disaster like we have now. We know that they are uncaring company hell bent on only profits. This is the point of this blog. Companies aren't built for caring, they are built for profits.

A corporation is designed and run to make money. They aren't designed to plant flowers and make little girls smile. OK, some are but you know what I'm saying. The main purpose is to make money for their shareholders. Every single dollar a company spends on safety measures is a dollar which is taken away from the profits which then go into shareholder pockets. So, when the profits are so high and the accidents are spread out by years and across the globe the impact doesn't seem so great. Except of course when the disaster is so large that an entire region is going to be devastated.

Let's be clear, corporations by themselves aren't evil. They are led by people who's goal is to make money, which isn't evil either. These people however, make decesions based upon making money for the company this quarter.This short sighted approach, often it's at the expense of everything else. Due to the complexity of the business world and the lack of governmental oversight, these same people are insulated from the repercussions of their actions.

In the end one would hope that those running these corporations would have more of a social conscience but they don't. The only entity which can reign them in, is government and we've done a horrible job. We've allowed regulations to be weakened in favor of business and in turn at the the expense of "we the people". We've allowed our regulatory institutions to be underfunded and devoid of talent and in most cases staffed by industry veterans who then go back to that industry to fat six figure salaries for a job well done. This happens and we don't seem to care. Also, let's be clear this isn't a GOP or Dem thing, they're both complicit. Nobody seems to give a shit until the entire economy stares into the abyss or an ecological disaster threatens to destroy a vast eco system and in turn ruining a way of life for millions of Americans.

I love the capitalist economic system we use. I've been a small businessman for a long time. I love the opportunities our country has to offer. But I hate thinking that corporate control of government is real and is becoming a reality.

So yes, I've lost faith in corporate America. They will never do the right thing unless made to do so. With that said, I guess I'm losing faith in government as well. The game is stacked and business has a bigger checkbook than I.

Whatcha gonna do?

It's been over a month since a British Petroleum oil rig exploded in the gulf of Mexico. Since that time eleven people working on that rig lost their lives, millions of gallons of crude oil has been released into the richest fishing waters our country has and Rush Limbaugh has again affirmed his role as America's biggest jack ass.

One more thing, President Obama has proved you can't have it both ways. Or at least you can't always have it both ways. President Obama is trying very hard to be a business friendly president very much like President Clinton was. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The problem is business' are in business to make money not lose money on costly clean ups. Because of a friendly relationship with our government during the Bush years business is not prepared to clean up the disasters they create. So, when the oil rig in the gulf exploded British Petroleum told the White House they could handle the problem. The word disaster had not come up yet even though eleven people lost their lives pulling oil out of the gulf for BP. Now if Obama were the socialistic big government tyrant the right makes him out to be, he would've handled the response differently. Most likely he would've strolled in front of the cameras and declared a massive government response with the military taking the lead. There would've been coverage of US Navy ships rushing to the scene and helicopters hovering over head drop oil sponges into the sea. No expense would've been spared by the White House Press office to show how on top of things the government was. It didn't happen that way.

President Obama took BP's word that they could handle the spill. The president didn't want to appear as a guy who overreacts and that he trusts companies to take care of their responsibilities. Unfortunately BP was unwillingly or unable to handle the problem they created. Obama and his administration has for the most part stood on the sidelines and prayed BP could fix problem. That strategy has failed miserably and is making Obama look more like George W. Bush everyday.

Before any of you right wingers stand up and rejoice let me stop you right now and tell you, "shut up, you don't get a say in this". You can not espouse small government day in and day out and and then witness what happens when government stands on the sidelines and lets business have their way to disastrous effects. Then have the stones to say "see told ya, big govmint is bad!". This is a perfect example of the simple fact that massive problems can not be solved by big business because it's not in their interests to solve them.

There doesn't seem to be a solution in the immediate future. I do hope the Obama administration has learned that when something looks like a potential disaster that they rush in with everything they have even if it looks like over kill. Let the conservative pundits howl about how the president looked scared and unsure when he overreacted. The fisherman and their families in the gulf would've appreciated a little more help than they've gotten from BP or the federal government.

So what are you going to do now Mr. President? Are you going to continue to sit on the sidelines or are you going to commit every government resource to try to mitigate the damage. Or are you going to fly over the gulf and stare dispassionately out of the window like a failed oilman once did?