Thursday, July 8, 2010

ON CORPORATE VILLANS

Today, the Daily Beast, a fine news service, had an article on Transocean, the owner of the oil platform they leased to BP that is killing the Gulf. The article discusses the odious practices of Transocean and who they deal with.

I remember a recent article on the 10 worst companies in the world and the reason for the ranking. Transocean could be the poster boy, the keynote speaker at the "Corporate Worsts Convention" appropriate held on the Cayman Islands.

I believe for most businesses their corporate culture gives us an indelible blueprint predicting their future dealings. Some are great corporate citizens even to the point of requiring all suppliers to meet certain codes of conduct and even encourage employees to spend time in public service.

Yet, there are many who consider the public or national interest tertiary at best, who will throw their grandmothers under the bus to turn a buck, who will cut forests, poison the water and air, deal with rogue nations, and fiddle while Earth burns.

Even if fined a few hundred million, they pay it out of petty cash if their lawyers can't get the fine delayed or reduced and they throw a party for lawmakers on some tropic island while their PR team tells us they are our long lost brothers who help make our life and environment safe and clean.

I think their PR team picks a neatly dressed Cougar, who walks like a ramp model and talks in a sultry voice telling us that the screwing we get is really worth the screwing we get. Sometimes, they use an ugly Octogenarian so we can believe that this granny wouldn't lie to us.

On occasion the spin is subtle. Like the former monopoly AT&T changing their logo to lower case (at&t)because some Madison Avenue exec told them it has a softer more cuddly image. Now they can screw us and we hope they'll remember our name in the morning.

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