February 3, 2020: Power Always Corrupts - and We Should Not Ignore That

2/3/20: Airbus agrees to pay a $4 billion fine, related to a bribery scandal that affected a dozen countries, including the United States.

 

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Power concentrated is always a threat to the welfare of those who are weaker.

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We now know that Airbus repeatedly paid bribes to public officials around the world, all in an effort to win a greater share of aircraft sales. So, let’s be clear. Airbus was happy to corrupt governments to boost profits. In one case, the company paid the wife of a Sri Lankan Airlines executive $2 million to advance their scheme. In other cases, bribes went to communist officials in China, to executives at Korean Air, and expenses for foreign officials interested in luxury travel in the United States were paid. Airbus went to great lengths to keep crooked relationships and illicit payments secret, “including the use of code names such as ‘Van Gogh’ and payments described as ‘medications and dosages prescribed by Dr Brown.’” 

These stories continue to interest Mr. Blogger because President Trump continues to paint government regulation and oversight of business as the real problem. In his view all Big Business types are heroes. They can always be trusted, and they will always make life better for “we, the peons.” 

More than a century ago, powerful trusts controlled the U.S. government.

We should not relax our vigilance, where money power is involved.

According to recent reporting, during a meeting with then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in early 2017, the president said he wanted help in scrapping the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That act forbids companies that operate in the United States (like Airbus) from bribing officials. Trump is said to have told Tillerson, it was “just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes [emphasis added] to get business overseas.”  

We do know Trump has long been troubled by a law that bans bribery. In 2012, when the Obama administration was enforcing the law, he grumbled, “the whole world is laughing at us.” 

Honesty. 

Laughable!

 

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FOR MORE FUN with twisted ethics, consider the scandal involving J&F Investimentos, the parent company of a meat packing business that organized a scheme to bribe almost 2,000 Brazilian politicians. 

J&F agreed to pay a fine of $3.2 billion in 2017. 

When Lord Acton famously said in 1887, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” his statement wasn’t applicable only to government. It held true then, and still does today, for powerful bosses who prey upon workers for sex. It applies to Catholic priests who abused choir boys, and to prelates who covered up sin, and to pharmaceutical giants who pay kickbacks to doctors to push more and more opioids out onto the streets. Lord Acton’s words fit when labor unions, like the Teamsters, under the guiding hand of Jimmy Hoffa, raided members’ pension systems. Gang power in the inner cities. The Mafia. Amazon and Walmart. The Top 1% manipulating the system and evading taxes by stashing cash in offshore havens like the Cayman Islands. Power concentrated is always a threat to the welfare of those who are weaker. 

 

POSTSCRIPT: One reason this liberal blogger is emphatic in insisting we need to see Trump’s taxes is to ensure that the leader who says he wants to drain the swamp isn’t an alligator in a suit and a too-long red tie. 

Does he stash his loot in the Cayman Islands, like Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross? Only one way to find out.