The continuing story of the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf Coast is like a horror movie in slow motion. Workers killed and injured, clean up crew members becoming ill, environmental destruction of unimaginable proportions, and economic impacts that will be felt for years to come.
We rely on international companies to be good and ethical corporate citizens but their priorities are to maximize profits. Maximizing profits sometimes means taking risks, focusing on production over safety, and playing down the potential impacts of system failures.
When the Icelandic volcano erupted we included a link to a commentary about an airline flying directly into the closed airspace while petitioning governments to open the airports. The airports were opened while the fully loaded passenger jets were making approaches. Was this a calculated risk in minimize economic losses by the airline?
Automobile manufacturers have suppressed the reports of safety issues including accelerators sticking, fuel tanks subject to explosion, break system failures, etc.
Some coal mining companies have continued to operate with high levels of safety infractions.
Banks knowingly take bets against their own products and loan more funds than they have access to.
Food processing companies and recently a major pharmaceutical company have been in the media for poor quality assurance monitoring processes, poor housekeeping practices and producing products not fit for consumption.
And we could go on and on of major incidents that have occurred, most in North America, over the past couple of years.
A few years earlier, one of the most respected companies at the time, Enron, was creating massive power failures to create the appearance of electricity shortages in order to drive up the electricity rates for the power systems they controlled.
The lesson... just because there is a large, appearing successful corporation doesn't mean everything is above board - the resulting impact can be a Disaster.
For on-going updates on the gulf crisis check the Reuters media outlet:
http://www.reuters.com/subjects/gulf-oil-spill
http://www.reuters.com/subjects/gulf-oil-spill
