BLE, I’m not ready to convict corporations, I just want to end corporate welfare and prosecute corporations that do wrong, and go after corporations that ask for bailouts and tax breaks, saying they need them to hire more Americans, but don’t hire more Americans when they get what they asked for.
I know a biologist who has been taking scientific excursions into the Gulf of Mexico. The tests he has performed indicates seafood from the Gulf isn’t safe to eat, although government testing, and BP-funded testing indicates it is safe to eat. In addition to all the environmental damage BP caused, and all the dead wildlife, let us not forget how many workers died in the initial explosion because of BP’s negligence. If any corporation deserves the corporate version of the death penalty, BP would be the first one to prosecute (notice I’m not ready to convict, just prosecute). If BP had been a privately owned partnership or proprietorship, the government, victims, and victims’ families would go after the owners’ assets, and it would have driven the company out of business, so this is a clear example of the difference between a person and a corporation.
Try as you might to deny it, corporations are not people.
I don’t think anyone wants to convict corporations…but many of us think it’s stupid to even suggest that corporations are people…How can anyone say that with a straight face??? The point many of us have been trying to make is…if corporations are people then why don’t they live by the same rules we do.
I am a perfect example of how some people live far from work because it is the most economically sound decision. Right now, I work in Jupiter, FL, in an area called Abacoa. It’s in Palm Beach County, which is a pretty expensive place to live, and parts of Jupiter are even more expensive than the rest of Palm Beach County. Even the parts of Jupiter where the migrant workers live is more expensive than where I live. On top of that, Abacoa is a very rich area. The closest cheap apartment I could find is in Stuart (across the county line), 30 miles away. Commuting 60 miles (round trip), even when gas costs $4/gallon, is cheaper than living within walking or bicycling distance. In addition, the county I live in has lower gasoline taxes, which contributes to the fact that commuting from Stuart is the most economically sound choice.
Please don’t get the wrong impression. I don’t live in an unsafe area. In addition to being cheaper than the cheap apartments in Jupiter, my home is in an area with a very low crime rate, so I am also safer than if I were to live among the migrant workers in Jupiter. There is a police station and a fire station right down the street from where I live, and both are on the same side of the train tracks as my apartment, so they will never have to wait for a train to go by to get to me. In the 11 months I’ve lived there, nobody has touched my car or my motorcycle, or attempted to break in.
If I were to make my commuting distance and fuel usage my top priority, I would be living in a crime-ridden area, paying more rent, and paying more for fuel. In addition, I would probably have to deal with having a roommate. If there was a bus line or a train I could take to work from Stuart, I would love to utilize it, but there isn’t, and the traffic builds up just south of the exit I take to get to work.
I just had an interview for a job in Downtown Jacksonville. I wouldn’t want to live in Downtown Jacksonville any more than I would want to live in Jupiter. Downtown Jacksonville has a high crime rate, and the homes are expensive there. However, I might be able to find a place close enough to the job on a bus line to make mass transit an option. If I can, I would love to drive my car less and commute on a bus.
Here in New England…Location means everything. Just 10 miles south in MA from where I live in NH…homes are DOUBLE the price. And go another 10 miles directly North of where I live and homes drop another 20%.
It’s cheaper to commute then it is to buy. Also in my work…with the Dot Net boom and then Bust…people changed jobs a lot. Plus when I did consulting work I’d only be with a company 6 months to a couple of years. And my commute was all over the map. My current commute is about 60 miles round trip…but well worth it…2 days a week I work at home…so that helps a lot. But the company is growing and taking advantage of the lower rents…So we’re thinking of moving in 4 months when our lease is up.
Drive just a little south into Boston and house prices really rise…2-3 times what it is up here…Or places like Lexington or Newton MA where prices haven’t dropped much because of the location.
Regarding the idea of bringing back the 55 MPH speed limit, check this out:
Go Slow To Go Fast
Why highways move more swiftly when you force cars to crawl along at 55 mph.
I don’t think this would be a good idea in rural open highways, but in congested urban areas, it looks like dropping the speed limit to 55 might makes things better.
“I don’t think this would be a good idea in rural open highways, but in congested urban areas, it looks like dropping the speed limit to 55 might makes things better”
In many congested urban areas, the speed limit is already 55 and I find myself wishing I could go even that fast.
And since that’s less then .1% of the corporation…they are NOT being treated like people. The corporation escaped prosecution…just 4 individuals were prosecuted.
As Mike says, only a very small fraction of the brass at Enron faced any punishment, but thousands of people lost their savings, livelihood, and retirement. Even people that could take the hit certainly had their lives affected negatively. Even if they managed to scrape by, the depression of having the results of years of your hard work taken away shouldn’t be underestimated.
So what can you do? Even if you put the execs in pillories in the town square, bled them penniless, and tortured them daily with hot irons, it wouldn’t begin to compensate for the grief they caused. There’s only so much punishment you can eke out of a small group of people, and despite their wealth, they don’t have the resources to make it right, though they certainly should be held accountable. Malice aside, it’s the same situation as when some nut-job plants a bomb or goes on a shooting spree and manages to kill lots of people. Unless you believe in reincarnation and karma, there’s no way they can repay for the harm they’ve caused.
I suppose all you can do is what’s being done–put controls and checks in place to try and prevent another occurrence of the problem, such as what the Sarbanes-Oxley laws are meant to do.
"And since that’s less then .1% of the corporation…they are NOT being treated like people. The corporation escaped prosecution…just 4 individuals were prosecuted. "
Has it occured to you that perhaps the other 99% of the people that worked there simply had nothing to do with the scandal, they were the secretaries, janitors, mail room staff, drivers, etc. that were simply going to work each day and doing a job.
Because of Enron’s collapse, they all became unemployed. What else do you want to do to them?
More to the point, there are a very few people that have a fiduciary duty to meet the obligations of the law. They are typically the only ones that are liable for criminal prosecution, unless the perps are fed to the lions by the management. In the case of Enron, upper management was criminally liable and paid the price. Sometimes, life is good.
Enron executives may have “paid the price” but not till they did their part to bankrupt California, get Arnold elected and decimated the savings of thousands of people. Like all crime, some one may pay for the crime but seldom are the victims repaid. We need even more deregulation…sure, we then will have no “criminal” acts, just victims of just, fair and unfettered capitalism.