Tom Toles for April 11, 2010

Its okay. I’ll do the job for less and with less regulation because the Americans are too scared to work in unfavorable working conditions.

Go for it TruthfulT. I’ll see you at your funeral.

Of course, there’s more money in it.

I’d ceertainly hate to think that my disregard for the rules killed ONE person, not nto mention two dozen in one lick!

I worked 8 years 2000-4000 feet underground in a copper mine. The reason that there are Unions are because of mine owners.

Um, TT, they aren’t exactly well-paid. Poverty rates in West Virginia are quite high. And explain to me why even if your comment made sense, that the company should be entitled to ignore obvious safety regulations, allow things like ventilators to break down and not fix them for two years, and simply pay fines instead of fixing things?

Those were Americans working and dying in unfavorable working conditions. Close the mine. Hang Massey for multiple murders.

Thank you, TT, for stating the obvious and helping readers make connections.

Coal mines are not in my backyard so they can get away with murder.

The restaurant around the corner, however, gets inspected every 6 months. If it has a life threatening health violation, it must be cleaned up or threaten closure.

The restaurant around the corner doesn’t have the funds to buy off the regulators.

Hey, the SCOTUS ruled that corporations are now people! Let’s arrest Massey - the board, and all the shareholders, and put them all on trial as one person.

People who own stocks (and this includes mutual funds) should be aware that even the small inverstor’s demand for dividend performance contributes to corporate atrocities like this.

As Tom notes, copper mines are also extremely dangerous places to work. Going underground is something I’ve done, and do NOT do any more. Strip mining and mountain top removal are also dangerous work environments, for the workers, and the environment.

Consumption and greed feed on each other, and THAT is a big part of the danger.

The problem with that Runar is that corporations can’t go to jail and C.E.O.’s aren’t liable for anything since the corporation takes the fall. All the miner’s loved ones can hope for is that:

The miners didn’t sign a waiver that releases these grave robbers from law suits.

At best settle out of court.

At worst going to the supreme court, lose, and making their business practices legal and setting precedent to screw all of us over.

Under civil law, corporate officers and directors can face personal liability for corporate misdeeds. There are limits, though, and I don’t know whether shareholders face anything more than the loss of value of their shares (although shareholders can likewise bring suit against the officers and directors; it ends up like a corporation suing itself).

Following the ruling that corporations are “persons”, it seems likely that there’ll be attempts to find a way to bring up corporations as criminal defendants. I don’t know whether there’ll be any successful attempts, but it’ll probably make for some interesting caselaw.

bradwilliams, DrCanuck, thank you.

I think TT was being just a bit sarcastic …

WarBush and fritzoid, that’s unfortunately been true until now. After the Citizens United ruling, that may change. As mentioned, there may be some interesting case law ahead (we can but hope).

It seems to me that the intent of corporations was to defer the financial liability, not the moral one.

Where’s the oil spill?