Obama Making BP Pay Is Good Government, and That's Why GOP and the Corporate Media Are Freaking out

[Enrique]

http://www.alternet.org/news/147325/obama_making_bp_pay_is_good_government%2C_and_that%27s_why_republicans_and_the_corporate_media_are_freaking_out/?page=5

Obama Making BP Pay Is Good Government, and That's Why Republicans and the Corporate Media Are Freaking Out

Obama's hardline move on BP is exactly what government is supposed to do; whatever it can, within the limits of the law, to protect its citizens’ interests.

Last week, the nation witnessed an act of good governance when the Obama administration put the full-court press on oil giant BP to set aside $20 billion in assets to compensate the thousands of Americans whose livelihoods -- and in some cases, lives -- are being devastated by the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. It was an example of exactly what government is supposed to do; whatever it can, within the limits of the law, to protect its citizens’ interests.

(...)

But much of the “neutral” corporate media also embraced a similar, if less extreme narrative. David Sanger, a highly respected feature reporter for the supposedly liberal New York Times, called the move a “display of raw arm-twisting” in a front-page article that might have been drafted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Sanger wrote that the fund had “reinvigorated a debate about the renewed reach of government power, or, alternatively, the power of government overreach,” which he characterized as “an argument that has come to define Mr. Obama’s first 18 months in office.”

The fact that applying pressure to a corporation whose risky cost-cutting resulted in what may prove to be the worst man-made disaster in history is seen as an act of government overreach says a lot about how deep down the rabbit hole of corporate propaganda we’ve gone since the Reagan/Thatcher “revolution.” Whereas at one time analysts warned of governments nationalizing firms or distorting the market with rigid price controls, we’ve now come to a point where a strongly worded letter or a few harsh words are enough to elicit mainstream hand-wringing on behalf of delicate multinational corporations like BP.

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Corporate America advances a constant drumbeat that large, well-funded multinational corporations are wilting flowers that might die on the vine as a result of even modest efforts to hold them accountable. But that’s simply an exercise in shifting the goal-posts. Had the Obama administration seized BP’s assets or threatened its ability to continue operating in the United States, then David Sanger’s imagined “debate about the renewed reach of government power, or, alternatively, the power of government overreach” might have some merit.

As it stands, getting BP to set aside a year’s profits to pay for some of the damage the firm has done in the Gulf of Mexico, using nothing more expansive than the power of persuasion, is simply good governance in action. People died, many others’ livelihoods have been ruined, and a foreign corporation that has no legal obligation to pay more than $75 million in damages will do so nonetheless.

(...)

[liberal N proud]

1. Holding a corporation accountable

How dare he cross the company line.

[Enrique]

2. kick

:kick:

[unblock]

3. when corporations expose third parties to risks, they are STEALING from them

when oil drillers expose businesses on the shore to a risk of being completely shut down without compensation, they are simply stealing from them, in an economic sense.

adam smith's concept of the virtues of capitalism ONLY WORK when there are no such externalities. anyone harmed by an economic transaction must be a willing participant and/or be adequately compensated. if the "free" market doesn't do this, then the government MUST intervene by fining or making such activities illegal.

OTHERWISE CAPITALISM DOESN'T WORK.

obama did what was necessary to make capitalism work the way it's supposed to.

those opposed to obama's actions are anti-capitalists.