As the New York Times reports, under Chief Justice John Roberts, “the court not only moved to the right but also became the most conservative one in living memory, based on an analysis of four sets of political science data.”
I disagree with them politically, but I do admire the Republicans for their skill at long-term strategy. The results are disastrous for working people, of course, but corporations will see a new era of unchecked freedom.
In the fall of 1999, the drug giant SmithKline Beecham secretly began a study to find out if its diabetes medicine, Avandia, was safer for the heart than a competing pill, Actos, made by Takeda.
Avandia’s success was crucial to SmithKline, whose labs were otherwise all but barren of new products. But the study’s results, completed that same year, were disastrous. Not only was Avandia no better than Actos, but the study also provided clear signs that it was riskier to the heart.
But instead of publishing the results, the company spent the next 11 years trying to cover them up, according to documents recently obtained by The New York Times. The company did not post the results on its Web site or submit them to federal drug regulators, as is required in most cases by law.
The particulars are obviously different from BP’s compromised safety record, but they highlight a shared trend: corporations disregarding any notion of social responsibility in their grab for short-term profits. They’re also laying waste to the conservative argument that corporations can police themselves. This was happening under arguably the best regulatory body we have, the FDA.
If possible, I think the authorities need to look into distributing some serious jail time as a deterrent to future corner-cutters. Perhaps the government should explore revoking GlaxoSmithKline’s corporate charter as well. Of course, given current feelings about corporate personhood, I would wager the literal death penalty has more support.
But even as he became the toast of Britain’s business world and was made a knight and member of the House of Lords, Mr. Browne was ruthlessly slashing costs. He outsourced many operations and fired tens of thousands of employees, including many engineers.
Tom Kirchmaier, a lecturer in strategy at the Manchester Business School, said that Mr. Browne tried to run BP like a financial company, rotating managers into new jobs with tough profit targets and then moving them before they had to deal with the consequences. The troubled Texas City refinery, for example, had five managers in six years.
This New York Times article on BP’s safety disasters highlights the need for enforceable regulation. Instead, we continue to believe the myth of laissez faire excellence. As we’ve seen with the oil school in the Gulf, it’s disastrous when companies attempt to profit at the margins of recklessness.
Benjamin Kunkel has an interesting article in N+1 examining the influence of employment policy on economic growth. He ends by presenting his vision of full employment.
I’m sure Rush Limbaugh and all the other bottom dwellers who blame poor, minority home-owners for the economic implosion will get right on this one (from the New York Times).
Biggest Defaulters on Mortgages are the Rich
Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.
Of course, rich people defaulting isn’t what caused the downturn either, but it’s a sweet rebuttal to remoras whose economic platform is to rub the sub-90th percentile’s faces in the dirt.