BP/Transocean Criminally Negligent

(photo: US coast guard via AP via NYTimes)

New evidence has come to light that workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig had safety concerns about the rig. Many components were in poor repair, and many of the working practices were unsound.

According to a separate 112-page equipment assessment also commissioned by Transocean, many key components — including the blowout preventer rams and failsafe valves — had not been fully inspected since 2000, even though guidelines require its inspection every three to five years.

The report cited at least 26 components and systems on the rig that were in “bad” or “poor” condition.

Eleven workers died when the rig exploded.

But my question is this: even if BP and Transocean are found criminally negligent, can the government actually assess a fair punishment? I'm sure there will be some hefty fines involved, but BP is a huge corporation and can probably absorb the losses.

Will anyone at BP actually pay for the poor practices that led to eleven deaths and unmeasurable environmental damage? I do not believe we will see a punishment equal to the crime, which basically makes our legal system pointless. If I commit a heinous crime while trying to increase profits, and my only punishment is to have to give some of those profits back, there is hardly enough incentive for me to stop my immoral practices, and definitely not enough incentive for me to avoid those practices from the start. The punishment must fit the crime.

I think about it like NFL football. Sometimes, players will incur penalties if they think the benefit will outweigh the 5 yards their team will lose. Often, they are right, especially if the play helps their team score, or prevents the other team from scoring. In this way, players have gamed the system. They break the rules to get ahead, even though they get penalized it's still worth it.

As soon as the NFL leadership realizes that the system has been gamed, they modify the penalties to make them hurt more, to prevent players from wanting to break the rules. Example: players were going for hard, bone crushing hits whenever they could, to rattle their opponents and possibly injure them and put them out of the game. The NFL realized that people were getting hurt, and that the game could be broken by an unscrupulous team.

The NFL added new rules restricting helmet to helmet contact, and made it a personal foul, with came with the maximum penalty of 15 yards, plus monetary fines for the offending player.. This had the predictable effect of reducing hard head to head collisions, and made the game safer and more enjoyable for everyone by effectively modifying the rules and increasing the punishments.

We are clearly living in an era where unscrupulous business practices are causing widespread harm to our society. We need good government and leadership now more than ever, but our politicians are tied so tightly to businesses they should be regulating that they cannot, or will not, modify our rules and punishments to promote a fairer, safer society.

This is one of the great failures of our leadership today, and comes as a consequence of corporations having better Congressional representation than regular citizens, which in turn is a consequence of our money-soaked political system.

Bring on the Corporate Bribes

After the Supreme Court decided that limiting corporate speech amounted to limiting individual speech, thus violating the First Amendment, roughly half of America began running through the streets screaming bloody murder.

I'm here to explain to you why those people are idiots.

Over the past several decades, America has been running an experiment to answer this very question:

What happens when corporations are allowed to spend as much as they want on elections?

You might not know it, but about half the states make no restrictions on what corporations or labor unions can spend on state elections.

Governing Magazine, in collaboration with the Pew Center On The States, releases an annual "Grading the States Report Card," where they compare the governments of all 50 states.

According to the report card, the top three states were Washington, Utah, and Virgina. They each recieved A-minus. And all three allow unlimited spending by corporations and labor unions.


California does not limit corporate spending.

Some facts about California's top campaign contributors:

The Top 10 contributers gave $42 million. Of the Top 10 contributers, 2 were corporations, who gave a combined $7 million.

The Top 3 contributers:

A father and his daughter - $8 million
Alliance for a Better California - $5 million
An Indian Tribe - $4 million

That means, of the $42 million given by the Top 10 contributors, $35 million came from individuals, labor unions, indian tribes, teachers, and prison guards.

So boo fucking hoo, corporations can spend on campaigns, it won't make a bit of difference, so will you idiots do us all a favor and kindly shut the hell up about it already?

[NPR Planet Money]

Two Solutions to Corporate Speech

The debate over corporate speech continues, with lawmakers in the middle trying to find a constitutional way to limit corporate influence in government.

The first such proposal would require a corporation intent on political advocacy to first take a vote from their shareholders.

Representative MIKE CAPUANO (Democratic, Massachusetts): Quite simply, the shareholders, its their money and I think that anybody who is spending money should ask those people who own that money what their opinion is. If the shareholders choose to be involved in political action, thats fine. Apparently the court has said that is legal and thats okay with me. Thats all I want. I wouldnt want somebody reaching into my pocket and taking my money to be used for something I didnt want.

The second idea limits the speech of corporations who have, or want to have, government contracts.

A 2008 Government Accountability Office study found that almost three-quarters of the largest 100 publicly traded firms are federal contractors. If Congress endorsed our proposal, these companies -- and tens of thousands of others -- would face a stark choice: They could endorse candidates or do business with the government, but they couldn't do both. When push came to shove, it's likely that very few would be willing to pay such a high price for their "free speech."

These both seem pretty reasonable to me.