Let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time a very “smart” man demanded a car be built that would weigh no more than 2000 pounds and cost no more than $2000. That man was Lee Iacocca, and the car was the Ford Pinto. But to make that car to those specifications, something had to be compromised. That something was consumer safety.
You see, the Pinto was a gas tank explosion waiting to happen. In order to keep the weight of the vehicle down a protective shield around the Pinto’s gas tank that would saved the lives of many rear end car crash victims was not installed. Instead numerous drivers and passengers in Pintos were horribly burned to death (and they were often the lucky ones) because Ford deemed that cost of correcting this design flaw exceeded the benefit of saving the lives of it’s customers. For years Ford fought correcting this design flaw through lobbying efforts in Congress, and in court rooms throughout the US, because its “financial experts” had determined it was cheaper to sell a car with a serious design flaw that would kill a certain number of people each year than correct that problem and save those people’s lives.
You see, corporations are in the business of making money. If they can make more money saving lives and protecting people (customers, employees, people in general) they’ll do so. However, if it’s cheaper for them to skimp on measures that protect people, they’ll do that. Corporations are not moral agents. They have only one value: profit. If something stands in the way of that profit, well that something has to go. As Michael Corleone famously said in the movies once: “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.”
Which brings me to the title for this piece. You see, we didn’t really elect a President in George Bush. What we really did was appoint a CEO for America’s businesses. I know that lately he’s fond of referring to himself as the “Commander-in Chief” because that sounds nobler and more forceful than being a chief executive, but not that long ago he rather liked the label of a CEO President. You know, the guy who operated government just like a business. And how apt that title now is.
In so many areas, Bush has done what any good CEO does these days: cut expenses that don’t help the bottom line; in this case the bottom line for American Big Business. He has slashed (or attempted to slash) government funding for public health, occupational safety and environmental protections. The cost of such things was too high for American business to endure, after all.
And like most good CEO’s, he’s rewarded the people who put him in power: America’s corporations. The latest, most visible sign of this, of course, was the West Virginia Mine disaster,
The Sago mine had 14 injuries last year, almost twice as many as in 2004, and was cited for 46 alleged violations of federal mine safety rules during an 11-week review that ended Dec. 22, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. State violations doubled to 144, from 74 the previous year.
where we now learn (via David Sirota at Huffington Post) that the Bush administration actively weakened mine safety regulations and enforcement on behalf of the mining industry:
Now, after another bad accident, we find out that since the last accident in 2002, not only did the President ignore calls by Democrats to address the situation seriously, but he actually enacted more cuts to mine safety programs and weakened mine safety regulations.
The 2002 fact sheet and the Chicago Tribune story shows that Bush knew full well that mine safety was suffering – and now we know he didn’t do anything about it, to tragic consequences. They can put out GOP hacks and administration spokespeople to deny this reality – but the facts are there.
Of course, so what if 12 people died this week. The financial benefits to his “friends” (and the political benefits from campaign contributions, etc.) far outweigh the cost of a few poor, dirty miners’ lives.
Naturally, just like the last time a big mining accident occurred, the Bush administration will make all the appropriate gestures of concern and utter solemn promises that mine workers’ safety will be improved. That, after all, is what a CEO does whenever he or she is faced with a public relations disaster: put the best spin on it they can while waiting for the media to move on to the next story in the news cycle.
Actually fix the problem, however? That just wouldn’t be cost effective.
but it seems to me that anybody who thinks that cutting money from infrastructure is profitable has a very short term view of the situation.
It seems obvious to me that by keeping people safe, healthy, and educated that businesses will have more reliable revenues and sustainable growth in the long term.
But what do I know.
But that’s the new paradigm: Slash and burn. There are any number of “turnaround” CEO’s who practice this. All that matters is the next quarterly report and the stock price.
And what they can loot from the company’s coffers too, of course.
The Wash state senate passed a bill a couple years ago that added several cents to our gasoline tax to pay for infrastructure — roads, bridges. etc. in desperate need of repair.
Immediately, an anti-tax group got signatures for an initiative to get rid of the tax.
It was utterly astonishing that, in November, Washington state voters voted down the initiative.
Just before the election, I found it SO SAD to see the state highway workers put up signs along the decrepit Hwy 101 I drive almost every day — the same signs they use to warn you about construction ahead — only this time the signs said, “PLEASE SAVE OUR HIGHWAYS. VOTE NO.”
Of course, in this rural area, where the repairs are the MOST needed, the initiative passed — although there was a healthy minority of us voting against it.
But, Seattle’s voters saved the day. They’re far better at looking at the big picture instead of how their wallets are affected short-term.
Kanye West was wrong about Bush.West said “Bush does not care about black people”.After looking at Mush’s track record on Miners’ safety, I want to say he does not care about any human beings who are not born to privilege like himself.
His depraved indifference toward life, either in NO or WVa or Iraq is all the evidence one needs.And don’t even get me started on Karla Faye Tucker.
You’re right, of course. I was trying to come up with counterexamples and all I could come up with was CostCo. Pretty sad.
I guess the question then is the same one that we’re facing in the political world : How far does it go before the backlash and consequences necessitate a reversal in these trends?
STEVE — kudos on pushing this story:
… where we now learn (via David Sirota at Huffington Post) that the Bush administration actively weakened mine safety regulations and enforcement on behalf of the mining industry:
Amy Goodman’s headline stories add:
it turns out that Amy’s show also has two segments about mining and the dangers:
Segments:
that George W. Bush is not a business genius, then? Look at all his former business ventures . . . oh, wait, that’s right, he drove them all into the ground!
Infrastructure-style investments almost inevitably have such large multiplier effects flowing from them that they end up paying for themselves (and then some). This is of course why most serious economists regard such spending — even when it causes short-term deficits — to be worthwhile. The kind of deficit spending that the Bush Administration believes in, however, is of a dead-end variety and only serves to drive up the continuing debt.
The great myth (pre-9/11) of George W. Bush, the one that he was able to put over on the the American people in his Texas gubernatorial races and in 2000, was that he was “just folks” and truly cared about — and could relate — ordinary people and their concerns. Remember that he’d talked then about how, as governor, he valued hugging people after they’d suffered through a disaster.
But there’s no evidence that he’s ever had the slightest understanding of genuine human suffering, and thus is utterly incapable of comprehending the consequences of his policy actions. Here, I’m sure, he’ll be unable to make any connection between his policy changes on mine safety and the conditions that permitted this tragedy to occur. And it’s left to us, the “little people”, to suffer as a result.
that George W. Bush is not a business genius, then?
His corporate friends think he’s a genius.
The longterm results of his policies? Let other people worry about those.
I think a Dammed bunch more than the auto makers.
That is exactly it, in a nutshell. Corporations are not motivated by public good or by any other moral or ethical concerns — they are motivated only by their bottom line. Generally the members of their boards of directors are so far removed from the actual industry or business that particular corporation pursues as to know nothing about anything save what matters most to them: the bottom line, the dividends for the next quarter.
Because corporations are only motivated by profit and loss (and short-term profit and loss at that), the only way to force them to clean up after themselves (environmental protection and restoration) or provide for their workers (safety, pensions, benefits, even salary) or have any concern for the safety and reliability of their products (consumer safety) is to provide strict and absolutely clear regulations as to what exactly is acceptable and what is not, and to impose exhorbitant fines and/or substantial business penalties for violations of those regulations. Because that’s exactly what corporations do: they calculate whether paying court costs and “hush money” to victims of hazardous production practices or faulty products will be less than the cost of actually fixing the problem. As long as it’s cheaper to settle with victims out of court than fix the problem that is causing injuries, that’s exactly what they will do.
The only other alternative is to impose some personal and legal responsibility upon high-ranking officers and board members of a corporation for its violations of regulations, particularly those that result in death or injury of workers or consumers, or substantial environmental damage — so long as those who make the decisions and reap the greatest profits from a corporation’s “cost-cutting” measures are totally insulated from the consequences, they have no reason to institute any changes that might cost them money in profits and dividends.
Corporations are amoral by nature; the only means of regulating them has to be backed up by substantial threats to their profit margins. Only when McDonald’s had to pay a whole day’s worth of profits from coffee sales in damages did they lower the scalding temperature at which their stores kept coffee hot (because it apparently stayed fresh longer, and thus saved them money in coffee that had to be discarded because it had sat too long, IIRC). Prior to that — well, it just wasn’t worth it to them to make that change, no matter how many employees or customers were burned.
…or to take the financial responsibility of 12 Terri Schiavos for 20 years or so.
The darkest parts of the heart of human behavior have been seen more lately. All the way through following this tragedy (WV mine), every contradiction stood out to catch my attention. There were several that didn’t get much media attention, same as Alpizar’s and Menezes’.
{The mine workers union also has criticized Bush’s choice of Stanley Suboleski, an executive at coal operator Massey Energy, to serve on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. That agency judges disputes over alleged safety violations.}
This is paragraph from a ‘workingforchange’ article and points up all the more how bush purposely teams up someone who is absolutely the worst person for a certain job or as payback/cronyism…much like he put a timber lobbyist in charge of protecting the forests.
I’m afraid like the last disaster that didn’t have to happen nothing of course will be done to protect miner safety(is that an oxymoron by the way?). I unfortunately don’t believe anything will be done to protect working people as long as bush and company are in office.
This is all a very worthy cause but futile. There is no security for any employee that decides a work situation is unsafe. They have the choice to not participate in an unsafe work environment. Someone else will be waiting to take their place.
The root causes are still not being discussed here.
My feeling is that the root cause is pretty simple-we don’t value the worker in this country in any way, shape or form. Not in providing medical/fair wages/vacations/covered family leave/safe sponsored day care centers and so on. When the incredible stupid Sec. of Labor says the the ultimate indicator of how the economy is going is to check the stock market only shows how incredibly fucked up this administrations or anyone’s thinking is on the subject of the everyday worker.
I’ve said it before that if we did value workers in this country we’d have as many segments on workers unions/how workers in various companies in all the states are being treated, constantly talking about what companies are good for workers which are not and so on…if this was on the news as much as stock market segments/updates or even a channel devoted to the working person then we’d be getting somewhere..maybe.
Or to quote Lincoln: “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capitol. Capitol is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capitol, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
Yeah, that’s a lot of it. We bitch about price/quality and the workers who are underpaid then fulfill that with apathy and less ability to keep the price down. That justifies paying workers even less or outsourcing to keep prices low but actually, we all have less to spend.
Unions were started to protect the workers and evolved into a profit damaging device to justify corruption in some cases or bankruptcy in others. A small influential group can work together to drive a business out and gobble up the assets while escaping responsibility for the liabilities.
I think it comes down to varying degrees of greed at all levels.
…’Greed is good’..Gordon Geko/Michael Douglas in Wall Street and how all those corporate assholes must have absolutely loved that line.
Abe must have been reading his copy of
Das Kapital, still the best analysis of capitalism ever written.
talked about spending his “political capital”, I turned to the spouse and said, “Just shows what a lousy businessman he is/was.”
As a former accounting student, even I know that when a business acquires capital, they’re best off when they invest that capital into the business, either by acquiring assets to help the business grow, or by paying down liabilities to reduce debt. Out here in Silly Con Valley, companies grew at amazing rates in the dot-com boom, and they spent their money on fancy office chairs and foosball tables…which ended up on the auction block when those companies went under.
It makes sense to invest in programs that can save money down the road…but not to the average CEO; they can only see to their own retirement when they can cash out their stock options — once they’ve gone and cashed out, screw whoever’s left, they’ve got theirs. That mentality is trebled by a belief in the impending End Times and Rapture — heck, why should Bush and his cronies care about the environment and anyone else when Jesus is coming back? Let’em cash out what they can now, and leave the mess for the filthy sinners who’ll deserve the Hell on Earth they’re leaving.
It’s a case of caveat emptor — and the American voters have been the consumers sold a bill of goods by an Administration that has no way or intention of keeping its promises…
Here endeth the rant…
I’m going to do what so often bugs me about comment threads. Take a minor issue and go with it. But first, your point is dead on about Bush. His decision maker is “If it doesn’t benefit Big Corp. I ain’t a-doin’ it.”
You mentioned that “corporations are in the business of making money.” That’s certainly true, but our problems with unethical and short-sighted corporations has been magnified since the 1980’s when our business schools fell for the trap that Wall Street is the model for business.
Yeah right, a big casino is the best business model.
The purpose of Wall Street is simply to make money. In the past, (and still if you’re Warren Buffet) that meant picking corporations with long term growth potential and sharing in the profitability of that growth. With the rash of MBA’s coming out of business schools in the 80’s, this fetish of simply making money has gotten completely divorced from any purpose other than itself.
While any business must make a profit, making a profit is not the purpose of the business. The purpose is to provide a good or service, to identify a need to fill or problem to solve, and to do so efficiently enough so that there’s something left over. Too many corporations no longer operate this way: now they buy and sell companies, throw thousands out of work, destroy environments and communities, out source jobs to other countries, just so an incredibly minute number of people can make an obscenely huge amount of money. It’s the new American Way. It’s why these same corporations outsource jobs to India and China. It’s why China will soon become the “America” of the 21st century like the United States was in the 20th.
When making money becomes the sole point, then drug dealing is equivalent with selling pumpkin pies, making flammable automobiles is equivalent to making non flammable ones.
When corporations in America return to the idea of profit as the result of solving a problem or meeting a need efficiently rather than a fetish, then maybe those corporations will be worth more than a pile of donkey dung run by and for the benefit of a bunch of ass rocket CEO’s like Dick Cheney, Ken Lay, and oh so many others.
Democrats must always make sure that people know that Wall Street is not Main Street. Republicans shill for Wall street, Democrats push policies that benefit Main Street.
Your comment was excellent and dead on until the end. I’ve been asking people to show me how Democrats are different from Republicans in areas such as this but haven’t found any.
Dear rumi: Don’t mean to be snarky here at all, so please do not take offense. Let me ask you something. Are you a Democrat? If so, how are you different from the Republicans? If not, what is your political persuasion?? How is it different from the Democrats??
I choose to be a Democrat, because most of the Dems that I know, regardless of personal economic status, understand the social responsibility part of the equation. They are not willing to declare large chunks of our population obsolete.
If you have a better party to belong to, please let me and others here know. While it is true that there are many in the Democratic party that cause me to grind my molars at night, but I believe Democrats, as a whole, represent our best electable alternative to the current click in power.
If you haven’t found a home yet, politically speaking, join us. Help us throw the right wingers out. Change what you don’t like about us through your involvement.
Like I said at the beginning, I mean no offense. I respect your comments here, and like you, am looking to help make our country a better place for all of us.
Hey, snark is always welcome and I rarely, if ever, take personal offense to comments. I think all of these subjects need discussed to make any progress and I welcome any chance to do that. Don’t worry about any offense.
I don’t care much for politics and never did more than vote before the 9/11-Iraq benchmark. My parents were Rep-Dem and didn’t vote on the claim they only cancelled each others’ vote out…heh. I registered Ind as soon as I turned 18 but mostly identified with Democrats for social issues. I’ve been a self employed contractor in an area of low median income so I understand restrictions of small business and tax issues that normally are advocated by Reps….usually, but not so well. I’ve been a single parent father of 2 small kids at the same time so I faced other issues of unaffordable daycare and also helped put a wife through 5 years of college as a nontraditional 35 yr old student so the educational money/format/results toss me back to the Democrats.
From what I’ve seen in my life, I will never be a Republican, so that means the issues normally attributed to them must be taken up elsewhere by other candidates. I don’t rule out the possibility of ever voting for a Republican, if its the best choice, but that’s as far as I’ll go.
I’ve been disappointed with the Democrats in general in all of this post 9/11 turmoil. It seems they have lost touch with the core principles that made them different from Rethuglicans. I understand the difference between lobbying and corruption and I think it’s one of the issues that must be honestly faced in the Democratic party to fix the Major Corruption in the Rep party.
The biggest problem of similarity though is the sellout to corporate interests by Dems and also the false sincerity to equality and equal justice-due process for everyone. I think the GWoT is a marketing ploy more than anything. It hurts me to see so many people wrongly prosecuted simply for their nationality/culture and I consider that a significant failure of the Dems that could set them apart.
We really need a strong, viable progressive third party or sincere Democrats to elect and effect some changes.
I’ll drink to a slate of sincere Dems who will affect change.
I sometimes futility argue with a few business types I know that corporations do not exist in a vacuum. The society allows them to operate and exist and create profits for themselves, because the society expects something back in return. I don’t mean Ford Pintos either. I mean jobs for its citizens, taxes to support creating/maintaining public infrastructure (which, I might add, they use and depend on for continued operations) and quality products and services. In other words, corporations, like it or not, have a social responsibility. Sadly, many of the folks I refer to, look at me as though I am speaking in a language they do not know. Sadly to, most of these folks are MBA’s; many graduates of our finest universities. Go figure!
That same kind of thinking has “cost benefited” the “Big Three” right out of considerable market share and profits when compared to Toyota, Honda and others.
A good definition I once heard of a bean counter. “A person who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.”
I caught a detail in the news that said GM has raised their sales over 30%, just the last year I think, in China. It’s a global economy. They don’t need our business. They can pilfer our assets and resources and even sell them cheaper at a higher profit to other people.
If my sources are correct, heavy equipment from closed factories here IS being shipped to China for use there. So what does buy American mean at this point??
No, this is the actual, physical coal they’re selling over there. These companies are using non-union employees at much cheaper rates, with less regard for safety to mine the coal and part of it is sold for better profit on the global market, China especially.