Who is Responsible?

That question begs another.  For what?

My answer is: For ANYTHING.

Take BP and the Deepwater horizon debacle…  Is it BP’s fault because they put it all together?  Is it the fault of Transocean because they owned the Deepwater Horizon and rented it to BP?  How about Halliburton, who poured the concrete that failed?  How about the regulators who seemed to be more agents of BP rather than regulators?

The last reports I saw says they all were!

We have three branches of government, in the federal and state levels, that are supposed to check each other.  The Executive runs things, the Legislative makes the rules for him to use, and the Judicial is pretty much a referee.  Two of them can cancel out the actions of the third, if they all work as they should.  For the budget battle to have been won it, would take budget bill to be passed by both houses, and then signed by the President..  So, if one house passes a bill, and the president OKs the concept, then why does it not get past Harry Reid in the Senate.  So either President Obama is NOT the head of the party, or Reid just wanted to embarrass the President, or they are working together to embarrass the Republicans…    So….  are we responsible because we elected these morons?

What about big business?  We have had house flipping, that contributed to the burst bubble of the housing boom, boards of directors who seem to vote each other obscene salaries, and then have to give large payments to CEOs that they should just fire for incompetence.  A worker who does not perform gets shown the door.  A CEO who does not perform get bonuses, and then a golden parachute out the door.  If the company fails what do the CEOs and Directors lose?  The biggest question would be: who are the real losers?  There you would have to say the employees and customers.  So when a company fails, is the government responsible for letting them fail?

If I have a company that is not making money can I go the the Feds and say “bail me out”?  NO..  I would NOT be too big to fail…  So,to be succesful you have to fail in a VERY BIG way.

There sees to be a lack of people with the integrity to stand up and say “I failed”.  What we wind up with these days is a large group of people who point at each other and say, “he did it, not me”.

I have an idea…  The Japanese used to have, and still might, a rather rigid idea of Honor, and the guy who failed often ended the problem with the use of a sword….

Maybe we could adapt that code of Honor, and the next CEO who drives his bank, cooperation, or whatever, down the toilet would get a choice: use the sword, to do the honorable thing, or we take away everything you have as well as what you have given to your family.

This would, again, ask the question: Who is responsible?

The answer seems to be : the poor.

Related articles

• Judge: Transocean not liable in Gulf spill (cnn.com)
• BP must cover some Transocean oil spill damages (reuters.com)
• BP loses attempt to share Deepwater Horizon oil spill costs (bfreenews.com)
• BP may have to foot entire US$42B Gulf spill bill (business.financialpost.com)
• BP may have to foot entire US$42B Gulf spill bill (business.financialpost.com)
• BP loses attempt to share Deepwater Horizon oil spill costs (guardian.co.uk)
• Gulf of Mexico oil spill: BP loses bid to make others pay compensation (guardian.co.uk)
• Judge: BP contract shielded Transocean in Gulf oil spill (usatoday.com)
• Judge: BP contract shielded Transocean in spill (cbsnews.com)