Corporate personhood vanishes into thin air when the shit hits the fan

[HiPointDem]

Hard to believe, but yet another corporate malefactor turns out to be a hollow shell, devoid of assets and accountability, and this time half of a town got obliterated because of it. With every emerging detail, the derailment and explosion of an unmanned train in Lac Megantic, Quebec turns out to be the same old plot with new characters. A larger concern with assets to protect “spins off” its shoddiest and riskiest parts, and any attendant liabilities, and leaves it alone to flame out, usually not so literally, but still leaving everyone but the con artists at the top holding the conveniently empty bag just the same.

Corporate personhood, it turns out, vanishes into thin air when the shit hits the fan, and the fleeced, injured, or dead might as well try to sue a soap bubble. Thus, even dying industries can make a some people rich, and as death be not proud, they really don’t much care how they go about it.

Ever since the reign of St Ronnie, when managed, slow-motion slides into bankruptcy emerged as a neat trick for corporations to achieve otherwise tricky but hardly uncommon ends: bailing out on pension obligations, cutting pay and benefits, and busting unions. Steelmakers, auto manufacturers, airlines, newspapers, retailers, you name it: once a competitor succeeded at unloading such pesky liabilities, the rest jumped on board, and industry after industry followed suit.

Of course, once a company is reduced to a few MBA’s at the top and a rump contingent of insecure wage slaves below, lo and behold, its life expectancy begins resemble that of a six pack of Mountain Dew in a meth house, and, just as in a meth house, at that point it’s time to strip the wiring.

The “railroad,” if you want to call it that, was a formerly near-dormant short line, once part of the US-based Rail World network, suddenly became potentially profitable again when North Dakota Bakken shale oil appeared as the latest filthy carbon flash in the pan. Of course, the rolling stock was unsafe and had to be grandfathered in, and a few arms had to be twisted to allow trains to operate with one engineer instead of two, but all this was necessary because once it was spun off its larger corporate parents, the poor little company couldn’t afford to do any better...

The current orgy of this sort of corporate asset-stripping, even when not overly deadly, is as astonishing to behold as it is repellent to the onlooker, but luckily enough, we now have riot police and government spies to keep the process running as smoothly as possible, whether they be paramilitaries patrolling Wisconsin strip mines, local cops bashing hippie heads along the Keystone route, or Chevron demanding (and getting) all the phone and email records of its opponents for use against them in court.

But for every large corporation that uses its Goliath-like “personhood” to muscle government and law enforcement into doing its bidding, there are a dozen tiny little spun-off shells expressly created to act as sacrificial lambs when the bodies and lawsuits start piling up, and it looks as though this railroad is one of them. But never fear, families of the (at least) 50 dead: the company, poor as it is, at least has insurance, from something called XL group, based in no-tax Ireland with executive offices in…. you guessed it, Bermuda.

Any guesses how this story will end?

http://firedoglake.com/2013/07/11/late-night-fire-sales/


Death penalty needed for the corporate parents of such spin-offs.

[Hydra]

1. It's another case of how the law is being made to be selective and quasi-legal

In favor of the people at the top.

All the benefits, none of the responsibilities. The 1% seem to be a bunch of greedy children, when you boil it down.

"MINE!"

"I didn't do it! You can't prove it!"

"You OWE me!"

[marmar]

2. k/r

[cali]

3. k&r

fuck Ed Burkhardt.

[Laelth]

4. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[ananda]

29. Yes, that truth is particularly depressing and disturbing.

But it IS the truth.

[Laelth]

30. Quite. And a bonus kick. n/t

-Laelth

[felix_numinous]

5. Crime by any other name.

Crime crime crime crime

[silvershadow]

6. K&R.

[abelenkpe]

7. K&R

[limpyhobbler]

8. kick/rec nt

[tiredtoo]

9. I just clipped and pasted the paragraph starting

Ever since the reign of St Ronnie, to a Facebook group i am a member of. Should I give a link to this site or the firedoglake site? don't want to get in trouble also any information on why i could not paste it to my general page but it went in private group page/

[tiredtoo]

10. Just added link to firedoglake site. no text

[merrily]

33. Yes, but if you read down the thread, you find out an FDL poster called the OP on that point

(meaning cocktailhag) and cocktail had admitted it was Carter, not Reagan. So, you may want to revisit that post. And, I would give a link to the fdl site and this one both, just in case anyone wants to see the comments.

[liberal_at_heart]

11. give profits to the private sector and make risk the responsibility of the public sector.

Classic capitaism, the so called "free market".

[Fuddnik]

12. Kick and Rec!

Fuck Yeah!

[pscot]

13. K&R and fuck the Supremes

[Rebellious Republican]

14. K&R

[ctsnowman]

15. Nailed it.

[CrispyQ]

16. +1

But for every large corporation that uses its Goliath-like “personhood” to muscle government and law enforcement into doing its bidding, there are a dozen tiny little spun-off shells expressly created to act as sacrificial lambs when the bodies and lawsuits start piling up, and it looks as though this railroad is one of them.

Yes to the death penalty.

[nyquil_man]

17. It's like the hoary concept of a free market.

Business loves the free market until it works to their disadvantage. Then they want government to bail them out.

[russspeakeasy]

18. Death penaltys won't deter them. Only the loss of all of

their assets will do that.

[cantbeserious]

19. Thank You For Sharing

eom

[onethatcares]

20. although this happened in Canada,

I was amazed how quickly it became the fault of the lowest paid guy on the payroll. What also amazed me was the similarity in appearance of the head honcho with the owner of Massey energy.

What happened? Do they clone these guys or what?

the entire economy is just another ploy by organized crime in nice suits that claim to be elected to represent us. We're fucked.

[pnwmom]

21. I googled but couldn't find any background on this. Do you know what this is all about?

I mean, the stuff about the shell corporation?

[love_katz]

22. Kicking and recommending...

(Criminal) corporate business...as usual...the usual suspects, that is.

[ReRe]

23. K&R

[annabanana]

24. Clear as a bell

Rung loud on a quiet night.

The theft is bald and bold. Our watchdogs are gnawing on the very finest steaks that money can buy.

[xchrom]

25. du rec.

[Autumn]

26. There's a real live breathing person behind that corporation.

Somewhere. That one should be gone after.

[99Forever]

27. And what can we expect that our "Rockstar" and his ...

... "Justice Department" will do about this?

[snot]

28. Until senior executives have some kind of PERSONAL liability, nothing will change.

You can "execute" all the corps. you want; but so long as senior executives can just go work for some other corp., the crimes will continue.

[malaise]

31. It's called

FASCISM!

[socialist_n_TN]

32. A way to socialize the losses, while privatizing the profits....

It's capitalism. Since I say this often, I'm going to shorthand it:

ITSS- "It's the system stupid"

Note: I'm not calling anyone stupid. I'm merely paraphrasing the famous Clinton campaign slogan of the 90s.

[CanonRay]

34. Our Quebec friends get to join West, Texas as the latest of those screwed by corporations

[Egalitarian Thug]

35. J D Rockefeller, chiefly, brought this abomination about. n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

36. .

.

[pansypoo53219]

37. butbutbut wall street needs to be obscene.