Corporate Social Responsibility As A Cause For The Deepwater Horizon Disaster?
Are corporations practicing kindness that can kill? Is BP too devoted to appearing green and ‘beyond petroleum’ to get down to the tricky work of deepwater drilling for oil? What about Massey mining concern and the disaster from April? And perhaps Wall Street Banks were too focused on gender equality not to study the bubble they were pumping up? So suggests Chrystia Freeland in a column in The Washington Post this past week. Surely corporate leaders can walk and chew gum, no?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
BP/Haliburton/Transocean Blowout Recapped – What About The PR Blowout?
The explosion on 20 April killed eleven workers
BP’s third effort to cap the destroyed Deepwater Horizon well seems to have been successful, as pressure tests have not done further damage to the emergency mechanisms. As of posting (the afternoon of 16 July), the BP Global website stresses the cleanup of the Gulf without immediate mention of the successful capping done yesterday. Discussion of the cap is found via the link “Gulf of Mexico Response Homepage.” Such an improvement in the situation might deserve mention on each and every page of BP Global’s site, but this post is not going to question BP’s website design. Nevertheless, the successful capping of the well (touch wood), serves as a telling moment to skim some of the thoughts that have been shared about BP’s myriad PR blowouts since the disaster happened. Perhaps the best known of those is @BPGlobalPR as led by @BPTerry and Leroy Stick. We have often encouraged our readers to follow them through this disaster, at least to enjoy some black humor (and offer donations) through the crisis. But many in the communications and media arena have responded to the ways BP has tried to marshal the PR gaffes and crises it keeps finding itself in – the most recent of which are allegations that BP influenced the British Government to allow the only Lockerbie Bomber held in Britain to return to Libya in an effort to secure an off-shore drilling contract with Quadafi. What ‘lessons’ can be learned from these fiascoes?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Americans Love Bargains, Unless The Bargains Involve Health Care
Few discussions inspire such vehemence as the discussion about health care in the US. We have been wrestling with what to do with it since the Great War, and we tend to talk big about changes every four years that we have national elections before we go back to (grudgingly?) accepting what we have. Such raving leftists as President Harry Truman called for a national insurance plan that would cover anyone who wished to join. Such level-headed and scientifically-minded groups as the American Medical Association denounced it as the thin wedge of Communism. The debate has see-sawed over the decades between a debate about lost productivity to illness and the individual’s responsibility to earn health care. Of course, it was hot campaign issue in 2008, with then Candidate Obama trying to move the debate away from a social-right to an economic necessity. Though health-care ‘reform’ was passed this past spring, opposition was vociferous and most Republicans are still planning to use that opposition as a catalyst for their fall campaigns.
Health care is about as personal-yet-public a topic as one can imagine. Health seems like one of those things we will sacrifice anything to retain, and putting mere dollars on our wellbeing seems tawdry. By the same token, the business of America is business. And health care is a business – to the tune of some 17% of GDP in 2009 (though the percentage probably reflects an overall reduction in GDP rather than a ballooning of health care expenditure). What do we pay? And what do we get for what we pay for?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Constitutional Balance of Powers Helps Avoid Tyranny of Majority (and Minority)
The framers of the US Constitution wanted to establish a number of levels (the document assumes local governments and outlines the national government’s inability to interfere in the jurisdictional prerogatives of the states) and branches of government (Executive, Legislative, and Judicial). One of their ideals was to avoid the sort of monarchic or aristocratic amalgamations of legislator/judge that ruled in early modern England. The design was also meant to try to ensure that no individual institution within the government could unilaterally act. Such a system has launched a good number of debates and conflicts (oh, and a Civil War). And we are about to have another one that will have a significant influence on the specific issue of (illegal) immigration and on the general issue of which level of government is responsible for which kinds of policies. The US Justice Department is suing the State of Arizona over its recent law requiring the enforcement of federal immigration laws and the expedited deportation of any suspected illegals (SB 1070). The argument is that immigration is the purview of the national government. What is the background to this dispute and who will win?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Elizabeth Warren Still Fighting For Consumer Protection
Almost a year ago, Elizabeth Warren began a focused campaign to bring consumer protections to the discussion about financial and credit reform. She is Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard University, and (yet?) chose to introduce her position on such protections via the following YouTube video:
That was a year ago. Where is she now and how is she reaching out with her ideas? More importantly, how goes the move to create such an agency?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Jobs Report Suggests Slight Or Slighter Growth Depending on Source
The release of the government’s jobs report this past week was cause for about as much speculation as Apple Inc.’s World Wide Developers’ Conference is this week. And just as people pretty much knew about Apple’s fourth-generation iPhone weeks ago, so people were pretty sure what the jobs report would look like before it was made official. The jobs report needed contextualization within the economic disasters we have endured for the last three years. We will leave contextualization of Apple’s WWDC and new iPhone for another post.
Job Losses and Gains Since Jan. 2010
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
“BP Cares” About Public Relations, Though ‘Public’ Seems A Sticking Point
Like we said, the great satire of @BPGlobalPR forces one to hesitate before laughing or crying, unsure which is the proper response. Leroy Stick continues to lambast people’s mushy responses to this little setback. I mean, “So YOU want to see pictures of dead animals covered in oil and WE are the bad guys!? Sick bastards. #bpcares” (3 July). Yes, BP continues to fumble its way to a solving of the oil gush, and the stories that are beginning to leak out about how BP continues to fumble the publicity statements are almost as alarming. Unlike the faulty deep water well, we have the technologies and experience to handle press releases, do we not?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Remembering Memorial Day
Remember the Fallen
First and foremost, let us take a moment to remember those who have served in the country’s armed services. Whatever your politics, whatever your position on US foreign policy, whatever your position on the contentious issues of Afghanistan and Iraq, surely you will agree that our service men and women sacrifice a lot – if not their lives – so that most of us can kick back, have a day off, and openly complain about or praise our politics, foreign policy, and interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As for the day itself: The first Memorial Day was on May 30th, 1868, though it was called “Decoration Day.” The holiday was declared by Civil War General John Logan. General Logan wanted the day to help mend the relationship between the North and the South after the Civil War. He stated that he chose May 30th for two reasons: First, it was a day that no Civil-War battles took place. Second, he was confident that flowers would be in bloom all over the United States by the end of May.
Have a happy and safe Memorial Day.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Kicking A (Housing) Market While It’s Down
We are not a glum group at MKCREATIVE by any means. We just believe ‘forewarned is forearmed.’ Yesterday we discussed the local (read: Baltimore-Washington region) housing market, which did not enjoy a notable bubble and (thus?) has not suffered a violent bust. Nevertheless, the region is seeing a striking deflation in home values as foreclosures bite into more and more families. Anecdotal and personal evidence has seen not a few houses go from lived-in to empty to for sale in a few months, victims of foreclosure. In this region’s case, the problems stem not so much from over leveraged home loans made to people told/believing the market would never again shrink but from the fact that the Recession and unemployment (or worse, the terrible and larger problem of underemployment) continue to erode people’s savings and thus their abilities to keep up with their mortgages. Two years into The Great Recession has left many at the end of their abilities to pay, so their homes join the growing list of foreclosures (as reported yesterday, 35% of the homes for sale through April are foreclosed, compared to 22% from last year in Baltimore alone). A short-sold home gives no relief to the home owner from creditors, of course, as creditors get to buy back the house on the cheap and hold it until the market improves so they can sell it again.
Ah, but when will that happen?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
BP’s Oil Spill in Gulf Looks Like Déjà Vu All Over Again
Cleaning Efforts in the
Gulf of Mexico
No, we are not referring to the many other oil spills and cleanup operations that have happened in recent memory. We are talking about the dance the BP Corporation is leading to get around being blamed for the spill, and the righteous indignation Congress people are getting themselves lathered up to look like they will make BP suffer the consequences. Just as they did a week ago when Chairman Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs was the whipping boy as Congress people needed to look like they were going to do something about their contributors’ greed. Did we mention it is a midterm election year?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Consumer Protection Agency Drifts
From Public Discourse
The media (with good reason) have concentrated recently on the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the pseudo-grilling Goldman Sachs got by Congresspeople desperate to look tough to their constituents, and the British election that has resulted in a hung Parliament. Discussion of the formation of a Consumer Protection Agency has drifted off the radar, which we believe is unfortunate. Indeed, yesterday’s plunge-and-slight-recovery on Wall Street surely argues for the need of such an agency because so much of our economy runs on our faith in trades done in traders’ computers on our behalf. The notion of such an agency is hardly foreign to our economy. Every state has has one form or another of a CPA ready to hear appeals and offer services. But will the states lead the way to the federal level, as California did for car emissions?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
End-of-Week/Quarter Economic News:
Glass Half Full Or…?
Don’t call us stupid. We know it’s the economy. It is of central importance to our political, philanthropic, aesthetic, and working decisions. So for the end of this week MKCREATIVE tapped into the bright minds at The Atlantic Magazine as some of its economists commented on the recent numbers released for Q1 2010. The numbers beg for the rhetorical question of whether the glass is half full or half empty, for some of the numbers are wonderful, though, as Derek Thompson also points out, we are still dragging a ‘heavy anchor,’ namely, the housing sector.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Public Option in Health Care Still On The Table, Because We Aren’t Getting What We Pay For
The Atlantic Magazine sponsored a forum on health care on Monday in Washington DC, at which Henry Waxman gave the keynote address. According to the write-up of the moderator, Atlantic editor Joshua Green, the public option remains the go-to strategy if the current plan of establishing insurance exchanges does not create the sorts of health-care coverage and competition demanded. Mr. Green also pointed out that such monumental legislation takes on its own life, which means it needs constant monitoring and reconsideration as the US healthcare environment changes. To assist in that monitoring, Gerard F. Anderson and Patricia Markovich of Johns Hopkins University (with support from The Commonwealth Fund) have recently posted a statistical report entitled “Multinational Comparisons of Health Systems Data, 2008.” Though statistical, the report presents a series of easy-to-grasp comparative charts that compare spending and outcomes of a number of advanced western economies/countries.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
A (Giga)Bit More on Net Neutrality Debate In Wake of Appeals Court Ruling
The decision from the Federal Appeals Court continues to reverberate within the news cycle, as debate continues about the viability (or mythology) of neutrality in the marketplace and how sternly the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should oversee the industry. For those of you wanting to hear a lively discussion of the issue, a bit of its history, and proponents from both sides of the decision, may we recommend today’s one-hour discussion on The Diane Rhem Show?
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Net Neutrality Loses (First?) Appeal
The MKCREATIVE blog has posted on issues of net neutrality, network infrastructures, and the impending Google gigabit network for some fortunate community in these United States. So our antennae were twitching as the decision/appeal concerning the FCC’s statute of ‘net neutrality.’ And the court has decided that the FCC’s statutes are unconstitutional. Here is a nice introduction from The Wall Street Journal (including the fact that the pundits interviewed do not expect the Obama Administration to spend political capital appealing the appeal:
Of course, the issue is not resolved (any more than health care is ‘resolved’).
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
ACORN Shuts Down and/or Breaks Up
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now closes national offices.
The board of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now announced today that its national organization was shutting down operations, though state-level community organizations may (and surely will) continue to function. The move likely was, as Frank James at NPR‘s blog put it, a “mercy killing.” The national organization faced charges of bending rules on early elections leading up to the presidential election of 2008, and its situation got only more precarious after the infamous ‘pimp’ video apparently showed ACORN employees assisting a self-proclaimed (albeit undercover former employee) pimp get a mortgage loan for a single-family home he wanted to turn into his brothel.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
We Know You Know, But: Health Care Reform Passed Last Night
It has proven to be about as contentious as whether to override the Articles of Confederation in 1788-1789 into a federal constitution, but laaaate last night H.R. 3590 by a vote of 219-212. The vote was exactly party partisan. President Obama responded with reference to the Constitution and to Franklin D. Roosevelt:
Tonight, at a time when the pundits said it was no longer possible, we rose above the weight of our politics. We pushed back on the undue influence of special interests. We didn’t give in to mistrust or to cynicism or to fear. Instead, we proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges. We proved that this government — a government of the people and by the people — still works for the people.
John Boehner, Republican Representative from Ohio and House Minority Leader responded with calls for fear:
Americans are out there are making sacrifices and struggling to build a better future for their kids. And over the last year as the damn-the-torpedoes outline of this legislation became more clear, millions lifted their voices, and many for the first time, asking us to slow down, not try to cram through more than the system could handle. … In this time of recession, they wanted us to focus on jobs, not more spending, not more government, certainly not more taxes. But what they see today frightens them. They’re frightened because they don’t know what comes next. They’re disgusted, because they see one political party closing out the other from what should be a national solution. And they are angry. They are angry that no matter how they engage in this debate, this body moves forward against their will. Shame on us. Shame on each and every one of you who substitutes your will and your desires above those of your fellow countrymen.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Homeowners Getting Federal Help
- Image via Wikipedia
The mortgage bubble that Wall Street players were puffing up and were betting would break has, of course, brought down almost everything else with it (save investor bonuses). The fallout was one of the many catalysts for the sweeping political change of the elections of 2008. One of the loudest political debates was over whether federal recovery and stimulus money should go to banks and investment houses who could not expect repayment on their loans or to homeowners whose hastily purchased and heavily leveraged houses were suddenly underwater. Though the debate continues, many of us seem already to have accepted the inevitable: banks and investment houses have lobbyists, home owners have bills. But some efforts to improve the situation on the ground can be found.
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Written by: Christopher Gardner, Ph. D
Like Rome Before the Fall? Not Yet.
Article by Piers Brendon. Originally published in the New York Times.
Vice President Joe Biden complains that he is being driven crazy because so many people are betting on America’s demise. Reports of it are not just exaggerated; they are, he insists, ridiculous. Like President Obama, he will not accept “second place” for the United States. Despite the present crippling budget deficit and the crushing burden of projected debt, he denies that the country is destined to fulfill a “prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended.” (more…)
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Written by: Marco K.