How Disgusting Are Big Corporations?

P

PoliTalker

Diversity Makes Greatness
Let us take a moment to recap what big corporations have done for us, shall we?

I can think of a few examples. I'm sure you can add more.

Basically, the decision-making is all about increasing profits; all else takes on far less priority. And how is that working out for us?

PG&E, the same company that gave us drinking water laced with Hexavalent Chromium:

"From 1952 to 1966, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) dumped about 370 million gallons of chromium-tainted wastewater into unlined wastewater spreading ponds around the town of Hinkley, California, located in the Mojave Desert (about 120 miles north-northeast of Los Angeles).[1][2]

PG&E used chromium 6, or hexavalent chromium (a cheap and efficient rust suppressor), in its compressor station for natural-gas transmission pipelines.[1]:[3] Hexavalent-chromium compounds are genotoxic carcinogens.

In 1993, legal clerk Erin Brockovich began an investigation into the health impacts of the contamination. A class-action lawsuit about the contamination was settled in 1996 for $333 million, the largest settlement of a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. In 2008, PG&E settled the last of the cases involved with the Hinkley claims. Since then, the town's population has dwindled to the point that in 2016 The New York Times described Hinkley as having slowly become a ghost town.[4][5] " (wiki)

That same company is now in big trouble for PG&E wild fires being caused by it's equipment, which is not made to resist the normal winds of the dry season in the tinder-box of California.

Boeing made decisions which resulted in two 737MAX airliner crashes which killed 300 people. This is the same company which narrowly averted loss of life due to 787 battery fires. The rush to profits prevented safe measures.

Volkswagon decided emissions regulations were just too onerous to allow enough profits, so they cheated the entire world out of cleaner air for more money.

Dupont killed more people than 911 in India with a gas leak from a pesticide plant. Safety regulations were bypassed to save money.

Bayer-Monsanto decided to sell the same chemicals used in Agent Orange for domestic weed control. Who could possibly have predicted that would not end well? They just settled a huge lawsuit after a worker using their product got cancer. That was only one case, with others sure to follow. btw, they also use the same thing on our food crops. Yummy!

Amazon placed ambulances outside it's warehouse because there was no air conditioning, and the inside temperatures soared as high as 115 degrees, but workers there were not allowed to slow down or take a break. Also, if any dropped and had to be stretchered off, more workers were on call and waiting to take their place. Anyone who refused lost their job. The owner of Amazon is the third richest man in the world.

The Koch Brothers corporation knew there was lots of money to be made in the fossil fuel industry if only the public sentiment did not embrace a mass movement toward the green movement. So they embarked on a very effective mass PR effort to cloud the debate over climate change.

Perdue Pharma decided to become a 'legal' drug pusher. They heavily marketed oxycontin and other pain medications, which resulted in getting a lot of people addicted, leading to destroyed lives, families and fortunes. But the Sackler family got incredibly rich.

ENRON corporation, along with Arthur Anderson Accounting, pulled off a mass deception which made it's stock appear to be a really good deal. Many Americans bought in. They got ripped off, the books were cooked and most investors lost nearly everything.

The Tobacco Industry marketed cigarettes to children. Get 'em hooked while they are young and you have a customer for life. Well, as long as that life lasts.

The Auto Industry resisted installing seat belts and other safety related measures. Ralph Nader had to shame them into it. Safety improved.

The White Star Line rushed the completion of the Titanic in a bid to have the fastest most luxurious 'unsinkable' ships on the seas. We know how that ended. Speaking of a mighty ship sinking,

The Trump Organization defrauded 'students' of Trump University, promising them the secrets of wealth. The lesson they got instead was that the wealthy get that way by extracting wealth from the non-wealthy, any way they can. Lying is just as good a method as any. Trump settled for $25 Million to avoid the bad PR of a scandalous well publicized court trial. This was no one-time slip up. Instead, this was indicative of business as usual for that organization, with MANY such digressions having come to light since Trump took such a high-profile position as President of the USA.

I could go on and on. I'm sure you can add more to this brief list. The bottom line is we cannot trust big corporations to have our better interest in mind as they pursue more profits. We must have a powerful government with strong regulations to protect ourselves and the planet from this institutionalized greed.

Anybody who thinks government should just 'get out of the way' and let capitalism deliver for us? We should be asking them exactly WHAT they expect capitalism to deliver!

Capitalism is a way for people with capital to get rich. That's it. Capitalism does not provide for our needs and does not have our backs. Instead, we have to WATCH our backs with capitalism around.

Now, I am not saying we should get rid of capitalism. Conservatives should be sure to ignore my words here. We do not have to choose between capitalism and socialism. We need capitalism for all the good things it produces. Products, services, reasonable profits - these are good things! But capitalism has no reason to take care of people in need. That's why we have socialism. So we can 'Promote the General Welfare,' and 'Promote Domestic Tranquility.'

Our challenge is not to choose between capitalism and socialism. It is to strike the correct balance between the two. (Conservatives should completely ignore that and continue to argue as if it is a choice and we can only have one system.) Admitting reality is not conservative's strong suit.
 
We live in a plutocracy, no doubt about it, with corporations being a major player, when Citizens United became law it pretty much cemented the reality
 
For sh*ts and giggles:

Hedge Fund Money Has Vastly Favored Clinton Over Trump

Political donations from people at hedge funds have vaulted this election, and far more has gone to the Democratic nominee than to the Republican

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hedge-fund-money-has-vastly-favored-clinton-over-trump-1469784601


And Wall St backed Obama as well. The wealthy areas of this country are heavily Democratic and its interesting the idea that big money and big corporations don't support and/or donate to Democrats.
 
PoliTalker said:
Let us take a moment to recap what big corporations have done for us, shall we?

I can think of a few examples. I'm sure you can add more.

Basically, the decision-making is all about increasing profits; all else takes on far less priority. And how is that working out for us?

PG&E, the same company that gave us drinking water laced with Hexavalent Chromium:

"From 1952 to 1966, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) dumped about 370 million gallons of chromium-tainted wastewater into unlined wastewater spreading ponds around the town of Hinkley, California, located in the Mojave Desert (about 120 miles north-northeast of Los Angeles).[1][2]

PG&E used chromium 6, or hexavalent chromium (a cheap and efficient rust suppressor), in its compressor station for natural-gas transmission pipelines.[1]:[3] Hexavalent-chromium compounds are genotoxic carcinogens.

In 1993, legal clerk Erin Brockovich began an investigation into the health impacts of the contamination. A class-action lawsuit about the contamination was settled in 1996 for $333 million, the largest settlement of a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. In 2008, PG&E settled the last of the cases involved with the Hinkley claims. Since then, the town's population has dwindled to the point that in 2016 The New York Times described Hinkley as having slowly become a ghost town.[4][5] " (wiki)

That same company is now in big trouble for PG&E wild fires being caused by it's equipment, which is not made to resist the normal winds of the dry season in the tinder-box of California.

Boeing made decisions which resulted in two 737MAX airliner crashes which killed 300 people. This is the same company which narrowly averted loss of life due to 787 battery fires. The rush to profits prevented safe measures.

Volkswagon decided emissions regulations were just too onerous to allow enough profits, so they cheated the entire world out of cleaner air for more money.

Dupont killed more people than 911 in India with a gas leak from a pesticide plant. Safety regulations were bypassed to save money.

Bayer-Monsanto decided to sell the same chemicals used in Agent Orange for domestic weed control. Who could possibly have predicted that would not end well? They just settled a huge lawsuit after a worker using their product got cancer. That was only one case, with others sure to follow. btw, they also use the same thing on our food crops. Yummy!

Amazon placed ambulances outside it's warehouse because there was no air conditioning, and the inside temperatures soared as high as 115 degrees, but workers there were not allowed to slow down or take a break. Also, if any dropped and had to be stretchered off, more workers were on call and waiting to take their place. Anyone who refused lost their job. The owner of Amazon is the third richest man in the world.

The Koch Brothers corporation knew there was lots of money to be made in the fossil fuel industry if only the public sentiment did not embrace a mass movement toward the green movement. So they embarked on a very effective mass PR effort to cloud the debate over climate change.

Perdue Pharma decided to become a 'legal' drug pusher. They heavily marketed oxycontin and other pain medications, which resulted in getting a lot of people addicted, leading to destroyed lives, families and fortunes. But the Sackler family got incredibly rich.

ENRON corporation, along with Arthur Anderson Accounting, pulled off a mass deception which made it's stock appear to be a really good deal. Many Americans bought in. They got ripped off, the books were cooked and most investors lost nearly everything.

The Tobacco Industry marketed cigarettes to children. Get 'em hooked while they are young and you have a customer for life. Well, as long as that life lasts.

The Auto Industry resisted installing seat belts and other safety related measures. Ralph Nader had to shame them into it. Safety improved.

The White Star Line rushed the completion of the Titanic in a bid to have the fastest most luxurious 'unsinkable' ships on the seas. We know how that ended. Speaking of a mighty ship sinking,

The Trump Organization defrauded 'students' of Trump University, promising them the secrets of wealth. The lesson they got instead was that the wealthy get that way by extracting wealth from the non-wealthy, any way they can. Lying is just as good a method as any. Trump settled for $25 Million to avoid the bad PR of a scandalous well publicized court trial. This was no one-time slip up. Instead, this was indicative of business as usual for that organization, with MANY such digressions having come to light since Trump took such a high-profile position as President of the USA.

I could go on and on. I'm sure you can add more to this brief list. The bottom line is we cannot trust big corporations to have our better interest in mind as they pursue more profits. We must have a powerful government with strong regulations to protect ourselves and the planet from this institutionalized greed.

Anybody who thinks government should just 'get out of the way' and let capitalism deliver for us? We should be asking them exactly WHAT they expect capitalism to deliver!

Capitalism is a way for people with capital to get rich. That's it. Capitalism does not provide for our needs and does not have our backs. Instead, we have to WATCH our backs with capitalism around.

Now, I am not saying we should get rid of capitalism. Conservatives should be sure to ignore my words here. We do not have to choose between capitalism and socialism. We need capitalism for all the good things it produces. Products, services, reasonable profits - these are good things! But capitalism has no reason to take care of people in need. That's why we have socialism. So we can 'Promote the General Welfare,' and 'Promote Domestic Tranquility.'

Our challenge is not to choose between capitalism and socialism. It is to strike the correct balance between the two. (Conservatives should completely ignore that and continue to argue as if it is a choice and we can only have one system.) Admitting reality is not conservative's strong suit.
Click to expand...

All large human institutions are prone to corruption, criminality, and gross negligence. Corporations, churches, universities, governments.

Corporations are made up of people. Many decent people in corporations trying to employ good business ethics.
The question becomes how decision-makers balance the cold calculation of the profit motive against human virtue, the social contract, and ethical conduct.
 
Hello cawacko,

cawacko said:
For sh*ts and giggles:

Hedge Fund Money Has Vastly Favored Clinton Over Trump

Political donations from people at hedge funds have vaulted this election, and far more has gone to the Democratic nominee than to the Republican

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hedge-fund-money-has-vastly-favored-clinton-over-trump-1469784601


And Wall St backed Obama as well. The wealthy areas of this country are heavily Democratic and its interesting the idea that big money and big corporations don't support and/or donate to Democrats.
Click to expand...

'Big money and big corporations don't support and/or donate to Democrats.' That's a Conservative Myth.

Please don't try to pin that one on me. I never said anything of the sort. The Democratic Party old guard is heavily sold out to big money. That's why the Democratic Party had it 'IN' for Clinton over Bernie in 2016, despite the fact that Bernie had more supporters, more individual donations, and bigger crowds.

Obama was also a corporate sell-out.

The only difference in the two parties is that the Democrats are like the 'Republican-light' party. Big money controls both parties, but generally gets more bang for their buck with the Republican Party.

Recently, grass roots movements have been making inroads into the Democratic Party with such figures as AOC. Time will tell if these new recruits stick to their convictions or sell out as their power increases.
 
Hello Cypress,

Cypress said:
All large human institutions are prone to corruption, criminality, and gross negligence. Corporations, churches, universities, governments.

Corporations are made up of people. Many decent people in corporations trying to employ good business ethics.
The question becomes how decision-makers balance the cold calculation of the profit motive against human virtue, the social contract, and ethical conduct.
Click to expand...

Thank you for voicing a reality.

I think the problem of making that calculation is the coldness of it. Very large institutions such as corporations mean that the decision-makers are well-insulated from those who will bear the brunt of those decisions. A small business is more directly answerable to the needs of workers and customers because people look one another in the eye, shake hands, and have a stronger connection with one another. Big corporate executives never even meet the workers or customers. If they make decisions that hurt those people, they don't have to feel as much guilt over that because those people are little more than numbers on a ledger, simply data, to them.

Since these cold calculations are institutionalized on a grand scale, it becomes imperative that regulation is equally institutionalized, and that the regulation cannot be tainted by the involvement of the regulated. That's a big problem because such corruption is currently totally legal in the USA. (But we have the power to fix that...)
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Cypress,



Thank you for voicing a reality.

I think the problem of making that calculation is the coldness of it. Very large institutions such as corporations mean that the decision-makers are well-insulated from those who will bear the brunt of those decisions. A small business is more directly answerable to the needs of workers and customers because people look one another in the eye, shake hands, and have a stronger connection with one another. Big corporate executives never even meet the workers or customers. If they make decisions that hurt those people, they don't have to feel as much guilt over that because those people are little more than numbers on a ledger, simply data, to them.

Since these cold calculations are institutionalized on a grand scale, it becomes imperative that regulation is equally institutionalized, and that the regulation cannot be tainted by the involvement of the regulated. That's a big problem because such corruption is currently totally legal in the USA. (But we have the power to fix that...)
Click to expand...

My philosophy has long been that regulated capitalism works quite well for producing consumer products.

Money and material possessions are only one measure of a nation's wealth, success, and prosperity.

The public commons, the social welfare, and the social contract of the nation needs to be implemented and guaranteed by a representative democratic government.

In other words, a hybrid economy. The model I generally look to is the quasi democratic socialism of Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, et al.

"Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive." - Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn
Click to expand...
 
Cypress said:
My philosophy has long been that regulated capitalism works quite well for producing consumer products.

Money and material possessions are only one measure of a nation's wealth, success, and prosperity.

The public commons, the social welfare, and the social contract of the nation needs to be implemented and guaranteed by a representative democratic government.

In other words, a hybrid economy. The model I generally look to is the quasi democratic socialism of Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, et al.
Click to expand...

Stop begging for the government to do for you what you should be doing for yourself.

If you like Norway, Sweden, etc. so much, fucking move there. We don't need your kind here.
 
Hello Cypress,

Cypress said:
My philosophy has long been that regulated capitalism works quite well for producing consumer products.

Money and material possessions are only one measure of a nation's wealth, success, and prosperity.

The public commons, the social welfare, and the social contract of the nation needs to be implemented and guaranteed by a representative democratic government.

In other words, a hybrid economy. The model I generally look to is the quasi democratic socialism of Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, et al.
Click to expand...

Totally agreed.

Our problem is thus scaling that small-nation success up to our level. We have a far bigger 'insulation' challenge.

Humans make really good responsible teams in groups of around 20, even up to 100.

When you get into thousands it changes things.

Then it gets pretty challenging to keep people dedicated to the common goal, working just as hard, and avoiding selfishness.

A good way to do that in big corporations is to share the profits and introduce democracy and fair representation into the workplace. If workers were incentivized by shared profits, and felt they had a representative voice in the decision-making, they are much more likely to hold tighter to the common goal. Lack of this is the main reason for Unions.
 
PoliTalker said:
Let us take a moment to recap what big corporations have done for us, shall we?

I can think of a few examples. I'm sure you can add more.

Basically, the decision-making is all about increasing profits; all else takes on far less priority. And how is that working out for us?

PG&E, the same company that gave us drinking water laced with Hexavalent Chromium:

"From 1952 to 1966, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) dumped about 370 million gallons of chromium-tainted wastewater into unlined wastewater spreading ponds around the town of Hinkley, California, located in the Mojave Desert (about 120 miles north-northeast of Los Angeles).[1][2]

PG&E used chromium 6, or hexavalent chromium (a cheap and efficient rust suppressor), in its compressor station for natural-gas transmission pipelines.[1]:[3] Hexavalent-chromium compounds are genotoxic carcinogens.

In 1993, legal clerk Erin Brockovich began an investigation into the health impacts of the contamination. A class-action lawsuit about the contamination was settled in 1996 for $333 million, the largest settlement of a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. In 2008, PG&E settled the last of the cases involved with the Hinkley claims. Since then, the town's population has dwindled to the point that in 2016 The New York Times described Hinkley as having slowly become a ghost town.[4][5] " (wiki)

That same company is now in big trouble for PG&E wild fires being caused by it's equipment, which is not made to resist the normal winds of the dry season in the tinder-box of California.

Boeing made decisions which resulted in two 737MAX airliner crashes which killed 300 people. This is the same company which narrowly averted loss of life due to 787 battery fires. The rush to profits prevented safe measures.

Volkswagon decided emissions regulations were just too onerous to allow enough profits, so they cheated the entire world out of cleaner air for more money.

Dupont killed more people than 911 in India with a gas leak from a pesticide plant. Safety regulations were bypassed to save money.

Bayer-Monsanto decided to sell the same chemicals used in Agent Orange for domestic weed control. Who could possibly have predicted that would not end well? They just settled a huge lawsuit after a worker using their product got cancer. That was only one case, with others sure to follow. btw, they also use the same thing on our food crops. Yummy!

Amazon placed ambulances outside it's warehouse because there was no air conditioning, and the inside temperatures soared as high as 115 degrees, but workers there were not allowed to slow down or take a break. Also, if any dropped and had to be stretchered off, more workers were on call and waiting to take their place. Anyone who refused lost their job. The owner of Amazon is the third richest man in the world.

The Koch Brothers corporation knew there was lots of money to be made in the fossil fuel industry if only the public sentiment did not embrace a mass movement toward the green movement. So they embarked on a very effective mass PR effort to cloud the debate over climate change.

Perdue Pharma decided to become a 'legal' drug pusher. They heavily marketed oxycontin and other pain medications, which resulted in getting a lot of people addicted, leading to destroyed lives, families and fortunes. But the Sackler family got incredibly rich.

ENRON corporation, along with Arthur Anderson Accounting, pulled off a mass deception which made it's stock appear to be a really good deal. Many Americans bought in. They got ripped off, the books were cooked and most investors lost nearly everything.

The Tobacco Industry marketed cigarettes to children. Get 'em hooked while they are young and you have a customer for life. Well, as long as that life lasts.

The Auto Industry resisted installing seat belts and other safety related measures. Ralph Nader had to shame them into it. Safety improved.

The White Star Line rushed the completion of the Titanic in a bid to have the fastest most luxurious 'unsinkable' ships on the seas. We know how that ended. Speaking of a mighty ship sinking,

The Trump Organization defrauded 'students' of Trump University, promising them the secrets of wealth. The lesson they got instead was that the wealthy get that way by extracting wealth from the non-wealthy, any way they can. Lying is just as good a method as any. Trump settled for $25 Million to avoid the bad PR of a scandalous well publicized court trial. This was no one-time slip up. Instead, this was indicative of business as usual for that organization, with MANY such digressions having come to light since Trump took such a high-profile position as President of the USA.

I could go on and on. I'm sure you can add more to this brief list. The bottom line is we cannot trust big corporations to have our better interest in mind as they pursue more profits. We must have a powerful government with strong regulations to protect ourselves and the planet from this institutionalized greed.

Anybody who thinks government should just 'get out of the way' and let capitalism deliver for us? We should be asking them exactly WHAT they expect capitalism to deliver!

Capitalism is a way for people with capital to get rich. That's it. Capitalism does not provide for our needs and does not have our backs. Instead, we have to WATCH our backs with capitalism around.

Now, I am not saying we should get rid of capitalism. Conservatives should be sure to ignore my words here. We do not have to choose between capitalism and socialism. We need capitalism for all the good things it produces. Products, services, reasonable profits - these are good things! But capitalism has no reason to take care of people in need. That's why we have socialism. So we can 'Promote the General Welfare,' and 'Promote Domestic Tranquility.'

Our challenge is not to choose between capitalism and socialism. It is to strike the correct balance between the two. (Conservatives should completely ignore that and continue to argue as if it is a choice and we can only have one system.) Admitting reality is not conservative's strong suit.
Click to expand...
Very good, Poli. Just as I've been saying for quite a while. We need to take chunks of socialism to patch up the great gaping holes in capitalism and chunks of capitalism to patch up the great gaping holes in socialism. Neither system works as it is.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
Cypress said:
My philosophy has long been that regulated capitalism works quite well for producing consumer products.

Money and material possessions are only one measure of a nation's wealth, success, and prosperity.

The public commons, the social welfare, and the social contract of the nation needs to be implemented and guaranteed by a representative democratic government.

In other words, a hybrid economy. The model I generally look to is the quasi democratic socialism of Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, et al.
Click to expand...

Alexs nailed it!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 
Hello rjhenn,

rjhenn said:
Very good, Poli. Just as I've been saying for quite a while. We need to take chunks of socialism to patch up the great gaping holes in capitalism and chunks of capitalism to patch up the great gaping holes in socialism. Neither system works as it is.
Click to expand...

It makes so much sense that it's the way it is done all over the world, and actually the way it has been done in the USA back when the USA 'was great,' (whenever that was has not been specified by those who want to 'make the USA great again.')
 
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