Accountability?? What's that?

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28344965/

While I probably shouldn't be surprised that the Banks that received these massive bailout packages don't either know where that money went, or don't want to say, as a concerned citizen, a taxpayer, I am appalled that they are able to sweep the borrowed capital under the proverbial carpet and tell those interested to "Fuck Off".  Imagine if this Bailout had gone to everyday people rather than Corporations and we tried this tactic.  If we each got 20K and when tax season came, we simply didn’t report it and didn’t feel like telling the government exactly where that money went, can you imagine how quickly you'd be audited?  The upsetting thing about all this is that 10 years ago, Big Business and the Government at least pretended that they cared what the consumer, the taxpayer thought of them.  I mean, we all knew it was pretend and they were all out for profit but at least they acted like they were morally responsible and we were happy with the knowledge that they were at least willing to play pretend with us.  Now, they don't even bother trying to act like they owe us some sort of explanation.  I suppose it’s hard to blame them when the Government is willing to write a blank check but there has to be some CEO or Exec. out there that feels a little guilty about all this right?? 

www.metacritic.com/film/titles/corporation/

There is a documentary I watched a few years back called The Corporation that dealt with the creation of the Corporation and how with the help of a few shady/brilliant (fine line I know) lawyers, they were able to LEGALLY make the Corporation a real entity, thereby foregoing most the responsibility, accountability that the CEO, shareholders had for the behavior of said Company.  Instead of attacking the CEO's, VP's of companies like Wal-Mart or AGP for the direction of their companies whether it be the use child labor to maximize profits or approving ludicrous loans, its the Corporation, the company that gets the blame.  It’s a brilliant fool-proof system that allows for the malpractice.  If you were told you could practically do anything you wanted to sell a product, earn money any way you wanted and not be held responsible, why would you listen to your conscience? 

I think the Federal Government needs to play a much more central role in the behavior these mega-billion dollar companies but I'm sure there will be a lot of resistance to that.  I can understand why Big Business would protest that.  They've been able to behave without a leash for decades and don’t' want a thing to change.  It's the general publics’ protest that I find so intriguing.  You'll get thousands of people that protest Government control because they don't want to turn into a socialist state and yet its the general public that lose the most when these companies behave with total abandon.  When Wal-Mart decides to go to China to gets its toys for .02 cents to the dollar, it’s not Joe from Michigan that sees the 450% profit margin.  Yet, ask Joe if he wants the government to take more of an active role in how companies behave, act and the first thing he'll say is that it’s "Un-American".  Its strange to me that it’s almost always the poorest people, those that have very little that defend the core values of American society like Free-Enterprise when they are the ones getting the shaft from companies that use these ideals to maximize profits.