"There is a simple way to understand economic policy-making under George W. Bush:
Whichever pressure group has the strongest and most direct stake in an issue gets its way. Wealthy individuals and business owners have received large tax cuts; farmers have gotten lavish assistance; and insurance and drug companies won enormous subsidies in the Medicare prescription-drug bill. When steel firms lobbied for tariffs, Bush granted them. When automakers and other manufacturers later lobbied Bush to reverse course, complaining that those tariffs had raised the cost of the steel they buy, he began to back down. If there's a single prominent case where Bush offended a powerful corporate interest -- except to benefit an even more powerful corporate interest -- we have not come across it. "
"A case of white-lead poisoning reported in the press this week is worth a little notice by workmen generally. Stripped of verbiage it amounts to this, that a man was killed by being compelled to work in a place where white-lead was flying about, and that no precautions were taken to prevent his dying speedily. A shilling-a-week extra was the handsome sum given to the poor man thus murdered, in compensation for his being killed. It is quite impossible that the man's employers did not know the risk he ran of this speedier death, and the certainty of his being poisoned later, and yet all that the jury durst say about the matter was 'to express a hope that Mr Lakeman (the factory inspector) would be able to make representations to the Home Office with reference to the case, to show the necessity for some extra precautions being taken for people working in mixing factories'.
Yet further this is only an exaggerated example of the way in which the lives of working-people are played with. Under present conditions, almost the whole labour imposed by civilization on the 'lower classes' is unwholesome; that is to say that people's lives are shortened by it; and yet because we don't see people's throats cut before our eyes we think nothing of it."
William Morris
From an article in Commonweal, OCT 1886
Included under the title "Capitalist Morality" in
William Morris: Selected Writings and Designs
by William Morris, Edited by Asa Briggs
page 156
"... it would be nice to hear a politician say 'You're right. Jury awards and fines are out of control. The problem is they're way too low to be effective.' Seriously.
I know we've all been conditioned to believe a multimillion dollar fine is insane, but that's largely because liberals of all stripes have rolled over and played dead while corporate shills have convinced the public that punitive damages are like a winning lottery ticket for the victims who, as they'll often imply, probably didn't even really get hurt that bad to begin with. This "blame the victim" mentality is an entire plank of the GOP's rickety platform and it's time for someone to knock the damn thing down.
Businesses exist for one reason only: to make money. I don't begrudge them that, but I do think one of the big lines that separates the two parties is that Democrats by and large think our laws should protect Americans from amoral entities, while Republicans are content with pretending that corporations have our best interests in mind. ...
Fines and damages should always be greater than the total cost of complying with the law.
As long as it's cheaper to break the law, we're going to keep seeing innocent people killed by corporate negligence. It's not because corporations are necessarily evil, but that it's cheaper to pay the fines and cross your fingers (especially when CEOs are pressured to keep costs down and are competing with other businesses equally willing bend the law). As long as the government lets businesses get away with doing a cost/benefit analysis with your lives, the string of tragedies will continue. If you want this to stop, the first step will be having an opposition party who takes the same "no tolerance" approach towards corporate crime that they do with violent and property crimes.
Here's an idea : Since corporations are legally viewed as persons, why not a corporate three-strikes law?"
(Originally posted at Firedoglake)
"... Bush, along with today’s business aristocrats, shows no compassion for working Americans, robbing them to benefit big business and the very rich. Last year, due to Bush’s tax cuts, over 80 of America’s most profitable 200 corporations did not pay even a penny of their federal and state income taxes. Meanwhile, to pay for his additional tax cuts for the very rich, Bush is drastically cutting back several social services, such as federal lunch programs for poor children."
"No one knows how many computer software projects go awry, but my observations as a software consultant in many corporations suggest that easily a majority are colossal failures, though such blunt labels offend sensibilities and are typically eschewed. ...
Still, even allowing for the way ambiguity and confusion thicken with increasing altitude, there must exist people with clout who suspect something is amiss. The systems, after all, are not working. ...
... the root causes are not technical. The failures are management failures. The direct corollary may be what has so far made America impervious to the truth: there is a widespread problem of competence in the leadership of corporate institutions.
Americans are cynical about their political leaders. They have become cynical about most public institutions. This has been dwelt upon by pundits beyond the point of triteness. The corporate world, however, is another category altogether. It can be reviled as heartless, ruthless, “lean and mean.” But these are after all cheerful qualities, lifting the hearts of otherwise defeated patriots, reminding us why we’re #1, making it clear that beating Communism was no accident. While we are receptive to tales of “slashing” and “aggressive tactics,” it is impermissible to ridicule the corporate world on the whole as bungling and inept. This goes to the heart of American pride. Business management is one thing we’re supposed to be really good at.
Consider some utterly basic principles of good management: hire and promote good people; reward quality; establish incentives consistent with the company’s success. One might expect such precepts to be instinctive even without an MBA. All are flagrantly violated in the corporate IT realm."