What do you think your punishment would be if you caused 15 billion in damages?

AnArmyVeteran

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Tue May-25-10 03:56 PM
Original message

Poll question: What do you think your punishment would be if you caused 15 billion in damages?

Edited on Tue May-25-10 04:27 PM by AnArmyVeteran

If you caused 15 billion dollars of damage, like BP did under the leadership of their CEO, Tony Hayward, what do you think YOUR punishment would be?

(Note: $15 billion could be just a fraction of the actual damages)

Every interview with BP's CEO looks the same. It sounds like he is just robotically saying what his legal and PR advisors told him to repeat and nothing more. He seems to have a complete absence of concern or empathy for others. And even though his greed and irresponsibility caused the Gulf Disaster, he shows no remorse. I'm not a psychiatrist but when you add up all those personality traits exhibited by Tony Hayward, it seems like he is a classic example of a sociopath.

Ever since the disaster, BP has been secretive and lying about the actual amounts of oil destroying our Gulf. CEO Hayward repeatedly downplayed the significance of the disaster. Any time any corporation causes harm to others or the environment their leaders never say "Im sorry" or admit any blame. They instead spew out one excuse or deception after another. And no matter what calamity they cause they all use the same corporate phrases. They are incapable of accepting blame or responsibility. So how can people who are seeming not responsible for any of their actions make so much money? If they have no responsibility or they have no idea what is going on in their companies, then why are they making fortunes, while hard working, honest people are barely existing? What's repulsive is the fact that Tony Hayward will probably get a huge multi-million dollar bonus, just because he is a 'godly CEO'.

Have you noticed how BP's Tony Hayward is not offering to take one dime out of his own pockets to help the millions of his victims? If you or I harmed someone we would want to make immediate restitution. We would take money out of our own pockets to help them. But corporate laws virtually insulate corporate leaders from any personal liability. Why? Why are there different standards of punishment for the poor and the super rich? And if we didn't voluntarily pay restitution to someone we wronged we would be sued and possibly have everything we own taken from us. So why are corporate leaders exempt from the same laws we are forced to follow?

Isn't it about time we changed corporate laws to make CEOs personally responsible for anything their corporation does? They are paid millions, but they apparently have zero personal responsibilities for anything their company does. Compare that to your job. If you did something irresponsible you would be fired immediately and YOU would have to pay all damages out of your own pocket. Unlike corporate leaders, your costs wouldn't be passed off to shareholders, taxpayers or the consumer. YOU would have to pay...