It seems that, not content with {grabbing, weaseling, earning through sheer genius and hard work} (you choose) these guys want me to ADMIRE them for it TOO. No chance. The people I admire in this world have very different qualities from this, ones that wouldn't make me worry about sharing a desert island with them. If you look at it historically, using these criteria, you end up idolising the Borgias et al., whilst jailing Galileo and burning Bruno. Hooray for filthy lucre at the ten percents.

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Share an island with a Borgia? Depends on which one. Just don't drink the wine.

Share an island with? A sympathetic female survivalist. Or two....


Whom to share a planet with? A broad mix of folks. Some like my aforementioned goddess and a few Mother Teresa's and a few like Bill Gates. I'd love to have Jesus Christ as a neighbor. I'd be doin' some serious life-changes.... I'd prefer not to share a planet with Saddam Hussein. I believe I may soon get that wish.

Shouldn't folks who actually do something be lionized for their accomplishments, rather than the jerks who simply take credit for it?

Don't Thurgood Marshall and his tenacious legal team, as well as the many thousands of civil rights workers in the '50's and '60's deserve massive cash payouts for their efforts on behalf of millions of others? Those folks really did something, and deserve far more 'compensation' than some leisure-class dip$h!t who snaps his fingers while others do his bidding. A nurse saving lives while working overtime in a public hospital deserves way more than the CEO of a worker-exploiting, community-destroying, and resource-raping corporate institution.

Our society has its priorities seriously skewed in the wrong direction.

A nurse may save a few hundred lives in a lifetime of dedicated professionalism.

A farmer may feed tens of thousands over the course of a sweating, worrisome life.

A pharmaceutical company with a capable CEO could save millions of people with some sound decisions.

Their work may positively influence a varying number of other folks to some greater or lesser degree. Their peculiar training, aptitude, and abilities may demand differences in compensation.

Botnst

...a pharmaceutical company and its CEO can also bilk millions of taxpayers and healthcare consumers for gazillions of dollars in overcharges on technology that was originally developed in public research institutions. I wonder what the CEO of a pharmaceutical generics company in Brazil or India makes?

A nurse "can" murder a few tens of patients.

A farmer "can" misuse pesticides and sicken or kill lots of folks.

A mistake by a pharmecuetical CEO "can" harm or kill tens of thousands.

and so....who has the greater responsibility to do the right thing?

How does one compensate great responsibility?
Botnst

...uh, how often does 'great' responsibility really ever get prosecuted anyway? Does Bhopal India strike a bell? Corporate personhood and limited liability laws seem to protect those actually responsible for great crimes from ever being brought to justice...

Its rather difficult tracking your argument as it wander from subject to subject.

Explain to me about Bhopal.


Botnst

...post-modern rhetoric has no beginning and no end, just a droning middle.

Press release from: Boston Common Asset Management

Dow Chemical Continues to Deny Legal Responsibility for Bhopal Disaster Victims

Investors Call on Dow to Address Environmental, Social and Health Concerns of Survivors


Today, Boston Common Asset Management filed a shareholder resolution with Dow Chemical addressing its liability for the Bhopal disaster. The resolution calls on Dow to prepare a report describing the initiatives it has instituted to address the specific health, environmental and social concerns of the Bhopal survivors. Boston Common is also requesting that Dow quantify and analyze the impacts that the Bhopal disaster may reasonably pose to the company, its reputation, its finances, and its expansion in Asia and elsewhere. Boston Common filed the resolution on behalf of its client, the Brethren Benefit Trust, Inc., which holds 4,871 shares of Dow Chemical stock valued at approximately $179,000. The filers are responding to the growing controversy Dow faces because it continues to shirk its accountability to the Bhopal survivors.

The 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal - known as the Hiroshima of the Chemical Industry - has claimed more than 20,000 lives to date and left an estimated 150,000 people chronically ill, 50,000 of whom are too sick to earn a living. "The impact on survivors' health continues to exceed the most pessimistic predictions. The compensation paid by Union Carbide is less than nine U.S. cents a day per victim - a pathetically inadequate amount, given the economic and health needs of survivors," says Tim Edwards of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. Dow Chemical assumed liability for the Bhopal plant when it acquired Union Carbide in 2001.

Union Carbide's $470 million compensation package covered only civil awards for the half million people exposed, leaving unresolved the potential damages for criminal charges and for environmental contamination unrelated to the disaster. "Accused of culpable homicide, Union Carbide is officially a 'fugitive from justice,' defying orders of the US and Indian courts to face trial in India," said Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action. "After leaving its factory a 'global toxic hotspot,' so poisoning Bhopal a second time, Carbide also faces a case in the US courts. The growing movement for corporate accountability will never let this issue rest."

Gary Cohen of Healthcare Without Harm remarked, "When Dow Chemical bought Union Carbide two years ago, it inherited not only its assets but the liability and karma attached to Carbide's lack of accountability for the Bhopal chemical disaster. Dow will need to pay this debt or risk serious reputation damage and increasing societal conflict."

Will Thomas of the Brethren Benefit Trust, Inc. said "We believe that companies with a commitment to customers, employees, communities and the environment will prosper long-term. Corporate social responsibility and accountability are among our top concerns".

Lauren Compere of Boston Common Asset Management remarked, "Dow Chemical senior executives purport to be committed to sustainable development but they continue to deny any legal or moral responsibility for the victims of the Bhopal disaster. We feel that if Dow continues to do nothing to resolve this issue it may cause serious damage to Dow's reputation, which may affect its growth prospects in Asia and beyond. Therefore, we are giving shareholders the opportunity to send a strong message to management that Dow should address these issues quickly."

For more information please contact:

Lauren Compere
Boston Common Asset Management
[email protected]
+1-(617) 720-5557
www.bostoncommonasset.com

Was it Dow that caused Bhopal?

Who is "Boston Common Asset Management"?

Here are a few facts.

Dow bought Union Carbide after the disaster. "When UCC became a subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company in February 2001, the civil litigation in India had been resolved for a decade. However, Dow has listened to the concerns of local and international organizations representing the Bhopal community and other advisory groups. We respect the different opinions and viewpoints expressed in this dialogue. Dow continues to make a genuine effort to identify an appropriate humanitarian contribution in India consistent with our philanthropic commitment around the world in countries where Dow or its subsidiaries operate." --Dow

Records were seized by the Indian government and withheld from failure investigators.

The plant was closed by the government.

The failure investigation was delayed in other ways, until a US court order forced the Indian government to release the records and remove the padlocks.

By the time the padlocks were off, the witnesses had mostly relocated, often in search of new jobs.

Witnesses who had been tracked down, as much as a year or more after the fact, sometimes gave conflicting testimony.

The Indian government, negotiating with Union Carbide on behalf of the families and survivors.

http://www.tcnj.edu/~rgraham/failures/UCBhopal.html

...d'oh! I'd placed Union Carbide on the 'greedy b*stard' side of my ledger. Clearly they belong in the 'so f@#king altruistic it hurts' column...

I return to my primary point -- corporate criminals throw money around, yet are rarely if ever prosecuted for their criminal exploits.

In your earlier post, that nurse who killed tens of people stands a far greater chance of being prosecuted for her 'responsibilities', than does a corporate jerkoff who kills tens of thousands.

Where's the accountability in that?

Just be accurate when you use examples.

Fatcat inside traders get caught.

Murdering nurses get caught.

I don't know the stats, but I would love it if all perps got caught. It would help if folks were willing to drop a dime on'em.

Hope springs eternal.

Botnst

...accurate? Are you suggesting that a corporation who 'willingly' purchased another corporation that killed 20,000 and injured possibly 100,000 folks is somehow not 'accurately' relevant to a discussion about greed and accountability? Dow assumed all the liabilities of the criminally liable Union Carbide corporation. I'll defer to the legal and financial experts at Boston Common Asset Management www.bostoncommonasset.com as to the 'accuracy' of their claims, but these claims correspond with other info I've come across in the past.

Read the facts and get to know the real Dow Chemical Corporation:
http://www.bhopal.net/oldsite/dow-watch/index.html
http://www.bhopal.org/jamastudy.html

Boston Common Asset Management has a stake in the outcome. They are not disinterested.

The .net and .org people have an interest in continuing some form of litigation even though the suit was settled years ago. What would their interest be? Justice? Couldn't be money.

The Union Carbide was bankrupted in the process. Now folks are trying to drill a new well into new territory, Dow Chemical, and they call it "fairness".

The courts say there were about 3,800 deaths. Greenpeace says 20,000.

That's what I mean by accurate.

Botnst

As usual, the disaster is always MUCH larger in the eyes of the vultures who are looking to profit from it.

Mike

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