On 6/8/2011 8:32 AM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  writes:
>
>>> Survived what? The Exxon Valdez disaster was a mere footnote in their
>>> history.
>>
>> One of the worst, most infamous ecological catastrophes in human
>> history, and it's a "mere footnote"?? How did it not end their
>> existence? How did they not get sued off the face of creation?
>
> Because they figured out how not to pay as much in damages as they were
> ordered to.
Which, in most of these cases, means, "As little as possible for the 
court to charge them, without actually doing anything that would keep 
them from making the same mistake again." The Coch brother's companies 
are sued over environmental issues, and fined, on an almost yearly basis 
too, their response is to funnel an equal, or more, money into right 
wing think tanks, to go to congress and babble about how they don't need 
the EPA, and all those damn regulations are unnecessary. Its pretty cost 
effective. Pay a few million in fines, funnel ten million to 
professional liars, and rake in billions from your actual products. They 
probably pay more to take lunch in Paris, by flying there in a private 
jet, than they get charged for the violating anything. Until that 
changes, and companies have to pay real money, that actually damages the 
business... But, seriously, they know they can have problems, and they 
spend more time figuring out how much they can afford to pay out, to 
appear contrite, than they do *actually* developing safety programs, or 
making sure equipment works, or watching out for the possibility that 
their workers are drunk off their asses.

After all, they have half the government on their side, to lie about how 
it really hurt them to pay out a few million, how *unfair* it is to make 
them follow rules, and/or pay 35% taxes, down from nearly 50% in the 
50s, and they should instead only have to pay 25% (then loop hole that 
into 1%, or even 0%). Where have we heard that logic before? Oh, right, 
back when a major insurance company:

1. Bought out the company that determined average costs for medical 
treatment.
2. Had them inflate the costs.
3. Got sued
4. Paid out money to create a new alternate company for that, while 
being allowed to keep their own, they opted to *not* use, so that the 
result was that they *still* used inflated prices.
5. Argued, 20 years later, that it was *unfair* that people had to only 
pay 25% over and above what it actually cost to be treated (based on 
their inflated costs), and no, the insured should be paying 35% of the 
bill. A charge that "originally" was only charged to you *if* the cost 
of the doctor you went to was *higher* than the average cost, nation 
wide, but slowly crept up to 10%, then 15%, then 20%, then 25%, then 
finally, "Oh, congress! Poor us! Its bankrupting us to have to pay 75% 
of the bill!"

Same stupid shit. Don't tax us what they did 50 years ago, and, let us 
charge 100% over what we would have, in the same time period, for a 
service we will turn around and tell people they don't qualify for in 
the first place (not just insurance mind, but everyone from your 
computer maker, to your phone company, to cell companies, etc., all of 
whom want to charge you for shit that was free, or is even more trivial 
to provide now than it was 60 years ago, but which would, "bankrupt 
them", if they didn't charge you extra for every damn little thing, 
while then turning around, and in the same year, getting bloody hundred 
million dollar "tax refunds" from the government, possibly on top of 
free money they already got, as "incentives" to supposedly make things 
cheaper, instead of continually raising the frakking prices on us, and 
charging you if they accidentally left pocket lint in the new shorts you 
bought (an added feature/commodity, don't cha know).

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