There's a New Sheriff in Town

Corporate America, Break Yourself

By Kelvin Wade

Big government isn’t an inherently bad thing. There. I said it.

Getting in my car, I’m required to have a current drivers license, a vehicle that’s passed a smog check and auto insurance. I have to wear a seatbelt and can’t talk on a cell phone handset or text while driving. I cannot be intoxicated or have an open container of alcohol in the car. I must drive the speed limit and obey the rules of the road while observing what other drivers are doing. When I need more gas, I have to pay excise taxes on the fuel. And if I violate any rules of the road, I must pay fines.

Still, despite all of these rules and regulations, I don’t feel oppressed by an out-of-control government. In fact, when I hit the open road, I feel free, not burdened.

Recent events have shown us we need sharper regulatory teeth. How big should government be? Big enough to be the policeman on the corporate beat and lay the smackdown on big corporations abusing the rules.

Look at the ecological disaster we have in the gulf with the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig and oil spill. BP has been trying to shift the blame to TransOcean, the company they leased the rig from.

Offshore drilling by giants like BP has cried out for more regulation for years. Congress is thinking about requiring offshore oil rigs to have acoustic triggers that would automatically shut underwater pipes sealing leaks in an accident. Brazil and Norway require them. While some companies use them, others find the $500,000 cost prohibitive.

Last October, the Secretary of Labor proposed fining BP $87.4 million for failure to correct systemic problems relating to an explosion at a refinery in 2005. That would’ve been the largest fine in OSHA’s history, eclipsing the $21 million fine they’d previously levied against…BP.

Congress is trying to raise oil companies’ liability from $75 million to $10 billion. How the hell did it ever get capped at $75 million? And why cap it at all? Is it so at some point they can go to government, hat in hand, for a big fat bailout?

Last month, 29 miners were killed in an explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch-South Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia. This mine has been cited over 3,000 times for safety violations since 1995, 638 since 2009. They’ve been fined over $2.2 million. Miners left and right have come out of the woodwork since the tragedy saying that everyone knew the mine was dangerous.

It’s been reported that Massey CEO Don Blankenship was angered that a WV Supreme Court justice ruled against him, so he unleashed a truckload of cash defeating him and replacing him with a virtual unknown. And with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case, Blankenship will have free reign to open his corporate checkbook and shape the regulators to his liking.

Look at what the banks did with their derivatives and credit default swaps gambling. When they hit snake eyes, it was our pockets they reached into to cover their bets. The top six banks, with assets equal to 60% of our gross domestic product, set aside $140 billion for executive compensation last year.

Corporate entities this size motivated solely by the almighty dollar are capable of changing our republic in horrific ways.

This is what happens when you have nutless regulatory agencies overseeing corporations.

While we’ve been conditioned to reflexively fear big government regulations, I can think of something even more frightful. And that’s enormous amounts of corporate money flowing into Washington to make sure companies can operate with as little regard for worker safety or environmental impact as possible.

I started this column talking about driving. What if we all got to make our own driving rules? What would the roadway be like?

The argument against more stringent regulation is familiar: goods will cost more and jobs will be lost. To that I say: Twenty-nine dead miners. Devastated families and communities. Pollution. Unsafe working conditions. Two hundred thousand gallons of oil a day into the ocean. Dead fish. Dead birds. The seafood and tourism industries on the brink. Billions of dollars of your grandchildren’s money in bailouts. The six largest banks setting the table to repeat their epic crash and drink our milkshake again.

There’s not a cost now?