Are US Corporations Immune From Liability For Rape, Torture, Murder, and even Genocide?

The US Supreme Court will be deciding if US corporations are only people when it comes to peddling influence and paying off politicians with campaign contributions, but not when engaging in promoting and supporting the rape, torture and murder of peaceful protesters.

If the Court finds in favor of the corporations, would it also apply to domestic law?

This might open up exciting new investment opportunities. Private police corporations could be used to limit the local government's liability in violently suppressing the Occupy Movement, for example.

And private police corporations could sell ad space on their shields, batons, and helmets. And there are probably tax and insurance benefits as well. Not to mention the potential for an IPO.   It's a win-win.

NPR
Human Rights Victims Seek Remedy At High Court
by Nina Totenberg
February 28, 2012

Human rights are front and center at the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday in two cases testing how American law intersects with international law. At issue in both cases is whether foreign nationals in the United States can sue corporations or other entities in U.S. courts for alleged violations of human rights.

The case that has corporate teeth chattering is a lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell Oil, which is accused of aiding and abetting the Nigerian government in committing atrocities in the 1990s.

The suit was brought by 12 Nigerian citizens, all of whom have been granted political asylum in the United States. They are natives of the Ogoni region of Nigeria where Shell Oil has conducted oil exploration for decades.

In the mid-1990s, local religious, student and civic leaders began demonstrating peacefully against Shell, protesting that their farmland was being ruined by oil spills and that Shell contributed nothing to the local economy and did not pay for cleanup or environmental protection.

Soon, the protest leadership was being rounded up, tortured and even killed. Those who survived, fled, including Charles Wiwa, who says that after he led a rally in his home village, he was picked up and beaten by 18 soldiers before a crowd of thousands at an open-air market.

"They started beating me — horsewhipping me, clubbing me, [kicking me with their] boots for a really long time," Wiwa says. The beating lasted more than two hours.

There were more beatings, he says, and eventually he was charged with unlawful assembly. Released on bail, he says there were two attempts to abduct him.

"When it was obvious that my life was at risk, I fled Nigeria," Wiwa says.

For the past 16 years, Wiwa has lived in the United States. Now in Chicago, where he works as an export consultant, he is among the Ogoni refugees here who have doggedly pursued Shell, contending that the oil company worked hand-in-glove with the Nigerian military to brutally suppress any opposition to the way the company operates.

Among the others bringing charges is a Seventh-day Adventist bishop and a local leader's widow, who was raped and beaten after her husband was arrested and summarily executed.

They started beating me — horsewhipping me, clubbing me, [kicking me with their] boots for a really long time.

Their lawsuit against Shell is based on the Alien Tort Statute, a law enacted in 1789 by the first U.S. Congress and aimed mainly at pirates. The statute says U.S. trial courts can hear civil damage suits brought by a foreign national for wrongs "committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States."

The statute remained largely unused until 1980, when victims of human rights abuses began using it against foreign individuals and corporations. In 2004 the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, upheld the application of the law to human rights abuses, but only for a limited category of crimes — torture, genocide and crimes against humanity. The court said that in modern times the torturer has become like the pirate and the slave trader of earlier times, "an enemy of all mankind."

Unresolved, however, was who could be sued. The case the court ruled on involved a lawsuit against an individual. This case asks whether the victims of such crimes can sue corporations.

Lawyers representing the victims maintain that historically there is a quid pro quo for corporate status. In exchange for the many benefits of incorporation, including limited liability, corporations are responsible for the actions of their employees, known in legalese as their agents.

"All that we're saying in this case is that when a corporation contributes to genocide or crimes against humanity, that they should be held liable ... the same way they would be held liable if one of their agents is engaged in an automobile accident that injures somebody" on the job, says Paul Hoffman, who is representing the Nigerian victims...

Biderman: Real Time Economic Data Shows No Recovery, US Dollar Is a 'Phantom.'

"Gold is not a phantom currency as many say, it is the US currency that is the phantom."

Charles Biderman, February 27, 2012

Charles Biderman gives a step by step analysis of the key data that some say shows an 'economic recovery.'

Accounting tricks, statistical smoke and mirrors, and a stock rally fueled by Fed printing do not reflect the real state of the US economy.

There is evidence that the situation has stabilized.  The problem is that the stimulus which the Fed is providing is not directed towards productive activity sufficient to spark a genuine recovery with a rising median wage. Rather, it is being used to prop up a dysfunctional economy that is still rife with corruption, malinvestment, and insider dealings designed to transfer even more wealth to the top one percent.   And the prescription being offered by the perpetrators, for the maladies of their crisis, is to take more from the poor and the weak, and pay for an excess of fraud with their pains.

And those who know better, with the exception of a notable few, either stand aside and are silent, or sell their integrity to a partisan cause, self-interest, or the highest bidder.

The financial crisis has provided the excuse for what has the appearance of institutionalized looting by a powerful elite through a dual standard of justice and the steady debasement of the national currency. Neither austerity or stimulus will work until the economy is restructured and reformed.   But stagnation is achievable, as long as the dollar lasts.  Or until the great reckoning comes, and the grapes of wrath are pressed.

Tavakoli: The Great MF Global Comedy Cover Up

Powerful interests are involved. Too Big To Fail and Too Connected To Jail.

This brief piece by noted financial analyst and author Janet Tavakoli is the sharp edge of her incisive wit.

The coverage of MF Global by the financial print media has been laughable, with the notable exception of Forbes. MF Global was the eighth largest bankruptcy in the US, with thousands of customers victimized by theft, and yet one hardly ever hears about it.

I have had a few conversations with people knowledgeable about Fedwire, the most reliable system for wire transfers in the states for large transfers between financial entities, and the one that MF Global might have used. After all, they were one of the Fed's own Primary Dealers. If so, is the Fed withholding information about the transfers? The problems in finding out who received certain transfers in excess of $100 million left the people I discussed this with incredulous.

"The Fedwire Services are the premier electronic payments and securities transfer services that banks, businesses and government agencies rely on for mission-critical same-day transactions. When it absolutely matters, trust Fedwire Services to deliver transactions with certainty and finality."

I wonder which mainstream news media program will finally interview someone informed and honest on the MF Global story, and bring this injustice to the awareness of the public. I have heard that they will attempt to drag this investigation out until after the national elections in November, but if it comes out before that it will be wrapped up in a "don't ask don't tell admit no guilt" settlement.

"Our government...teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."

Louis D. Brandeis

Someone like the maverick Jon Stewart might break ranks from the corporate allegiance and political partisanship of the major television outlets. Corzine is a powerful figure in the Democratic funding machine, and JPM is the biggest kid on the Street.

And where better to discuss the protection of the US public trust from well-connected financial predators than on Comedy Central, which is fast becoming the premier news outlet in post-corporate America.

Huffington Post
MF Global: Crime, Comedy and the Cover-Up
By Janet Tavakoli
2/28/2012 5:37 am

MF Global's October 2011 bankruptcy was the eighth largest bankruptcy by assets in the United States. James Giddens, the bankruptcy trustee, issued a press release on February 6 stating that his investigation found that money from customer accounts that was supposed to be segregated was improperly used to fund MF Global's daily activities. Improper transfers of customer money occurred regularly in amounts under $50 million before MF Global's bankruptcy. MF Global wasn't caught, because it put the money back before customers knew it was missing.

On January 30, 2012 the Wall Street Journal did a hilariously bad job of reporting when its front page article stated that a "person close to the investigation" said that as a result of chaotic trading in the week before MF Global's October 31 bankruptcy, customers' money "vaporized." Money doesn't vaporize. It's true that tracing money transfers can be tedious, but that's why we call it work.

As for the Wall Street Journal's article, the editor should have made it vaporize. I was having breakfast with several traders at Chicago's East Bank Club. One trader read the passage aloud. The entire table burst out laughing. Then he got up and ceremoniously threw the paper in the trash. The entire table applauded.

Fox Business News had people in stitches when it reported that federal investigators are saying that this wasn't criminal, it's just a matter of sloppy bookkeeping.

The habitual filching of customers' funds -- even if the funds are later replaced -- goes way beyond sloppy bookkeeping. It goes way beyond bad judgment. Just because MF Global got away with it for a long time before it blew up in its face doesn't mean one can call it sloppy bookkeeping and have any reasonable person believe it. If federal investigators and law enforcement people want to make public statements like this, one should investigate corruption in their ranks. They seem to be providing undeserved excuses as a trial balloon to see if it will fly. Nice try, but it's not working.

According to the bankruptcy trustee, money was repeatedly filched from customers' accounts. That goes way beyond sloppy bookkeeping.

Senior officials of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and of MF Global's regulator, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), have already testified to Congress their belief that MF Global violated regulations -- it broke the law -- because using customers funds, money that was supposed to be in segregated accounts, to pay off MF Global's creditors or to use that money to fund MF Global's day-to-day operations is not permitted.

MF Global CEO Jon Corzine, a former head of Goldman Sachs, signed off on statements that said his internal controls were adequate. After Enron, the Sarbanes Oxley Act was meant to assure Americans that officers that signed such statements would be held accountable for their accuracy....

Read the rest here.

Scientific Study Shows That The Powerful and Privileged Are More LIkely to Lie, Cheat, and Steal

I seem to recall my grandmother telling me this about 50 years ago.

I have encountered quite a few of the nouveau riche, barely upper middle class, that are unscrupulous and almost unbearable. And I have met a number of very wealthy people, both old money people and the accidental rich, who are kindly, enjoyable, and exceptionally hospitable.

From my own experience it is not whether a person has money per se. Rather it is the perceived power that a person feels that they have and their attitude towards it, and how differently they consider themselves to be therefore from others.

I have heard that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich person to get into heaven. Perhaps it is a simplicity of heart that opens such doors for us, and the baggage of pride that closes them. None of the spirit can justly feel such pride compared to another. Our comparison, our aspiration, is not to the fellow next to us, but to a model so perfect and so loving that it leaves us equally alike in our unworthiness, attempting that which is unattainable to us on our own, except for the undeserved gift of grace.

But the world says 'Greed is good, baby.' Build the foundations of society on that historically untenable aphorism and enjoy the ride. It's been done many times before.

"Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals.

In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals.

Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed."

Higher Social Class Predicts Unethical Behaviour, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, February 27, 2012 Paul K. Piffa, Daniel M. Stancatoa, Stéphane Côtéb, Rodolfo Mendoza-Dentona, and Dacher Keltnera

"According to Piff, unethical behavior in the study was driven both by greed, which makes people less empathic, and the nature of wealth in a highly stratified society. It insulates people from the consequences of their actions, reduces their need for social connections and fuels feelings of entitlement, all of which become self-reinforcing cultural norms.

“When pursuit of self-interest is allowed to run unchecked, it can lead to socially pernicious outcomes,” said Piff, who noted that the findings are not politically partisan. “The same rules apply to liberals and conservatives. We always control for political persuasion,” he said."

Greed Is Not Good, Wealth Can Make People Unethical