In the last two years we have seen two catastrophes driven by corperate greed and incompetance. The near collapse of the world's financial sector, and the present fouling of the Gulf of Mexico.
In both cases, the driving factor for the corperations was greed, irregardless of the consequences. The people in the financial corperations never considered the eventual impacts of their actions, just looked at the billions they were racking up daily. BP never even considered the possible cost of not installing that $500,000 dollar valve. Or the consequences of the many other shortcuts that were taken on that drilling rig. Enough shortcuts that the possibility of a disaster became a certainty of a disaster.
Is there any reason to allow any major corperation to operate without intensive oversight and regulations? Can we afford not to keep a short leash on these people.
And in this display, we see in action the false free market example by ignoring the impact of government interference in the function of markets.
Selective and over regulation combined with laws designed to unfairly benefit some corporations over others all distort the market. The playing field is made uneven so certain outcomes are created for the sake of extra market desires.
For example. McDonalds wishes to increase burger sales. Therefore the corporate office tells their franchisees to lower the price of a burger to a nickel. Sales of McDonalds burgers skyrocket beyond belief. All the time, the franchisees are losing 20 cents a burger but they are selling 2,3,5,10 times as many burgers as they were when they were charging a dollar. At the next board meeting the shareholders are told that the sales of McDonalds Burgers have increased 7.5 times over the same point last quarter. With such incredible growth, they should invest even more because they are doing so well. What the board does NOT tell the shareholders regarding the wonderful Nickel Burger plan is that each burger COSTS them 25 cents!
This is a false market improvement. Yes, burger sales have increased but losses have also skyrocketed because they lose money on every burger.
Now let's look at the consequences of the Nickel Burger. Not only is McDonalds now losing money hand over fist, they have harmed their competition because people aren't eating there for the deal is too good putting them out of business and driving more consumers to their door increasing the sales and losses further. Compound difficulties further, the sales of everything else but for soda have plummeted because of the cheap burger.
Realizing the mistake of pricing the burger too low, the board looks to fix things. They don't want to increase burger prices because it's selling so well and don't want to hurt sales. So they increase prices on other products that aren't selling well. Sales for those items dry up. Now, there is no other way to save the company from certain bankruptcy except to raise the amount of money taken from the franchisee owners so they can recoup losses. The result is franchisees try to get bought out or sell their shares back to McDonalds to escape increasing costs. They also see behind the sales numbers at the loss column and know there is no way their investment is going to increase in value. So McDs start closing as the strain on the corporation increases, lack of managers exist and those promoted from within often are unqualified for the job that nobody else will take. Soon after this, the company collapses into bankruptcy and receivership because they had no money left, their credit was denied by the bank to maintain operations. All to sustain a bad program, created by the corporate board that made them look good originally.
This is just an example of how false markets are created. We're living with many many many false markets that pretend to be free. Housing, Health Care, Energy, Automobiles and many more. Government meddling cannot be trusted.
To the point of the OP, you are making the classic wrong assumption that profit is always greed. The desire to improve your lot in life is evil by nature. It is not wrong for a company to do well. It is the nature of life and economics. But not everyone is like your worst nightmares as you seem to view every last person who runs a business. You want to keep business on a short leash. I understand that because you are afraid of it. You're afraid of what it can do without you or to you. Fear is your motivator. For some reason though, you trust government to be perfect. That baffles me because government has a worse track record of corruption and failure than business. Neither should be trusted implicitly. They both should be distrusted, but weigh the balance slightly on the side of private individuals and corporations.
Lastly, you cannot expect or demand a 'risk free' or even a 'safe' world. This accident happened on a rig where mistakes were made by the crew, the inspectors, the company procedures, and the administration at large. It was considered a 'model of safety' by the Obama administration. You cannot lay this totally on BP's feet. It is on many people's feet. You cannot convict an entire industry on the failures on a single incident. You cannot cut off the lifeblood of society because you are scared of a mistake being made. Yes it's horrible. Yes it's a terrific disaster that could possibly have been avoided. But you need to live in the real world and in that real world, there is risk. The benefits must outweigh the risks otherwise you need to find a new way. You also cannot cut off your nose to spite your face. There is no going back on oil. There is only going forward. That direction has no changes in the energies available for the world to survive on and replace oil for another 50 plus years.
Realism, not reactionary fantasy is the order of the day. If you cannot handle it, you need to get out of the way of those who can.
