I love Tony Hayward!
6/7/10 16:49![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsI have mad, cuddly love for Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP.
I love Tony Hayward because he is so transparently out of touch, and is too self-absorbed to care. That comes across in his "Three's no one that wants this over more than I do" statement and his publicly lavish expendatures during this crisis. A more spin-savvy CEO would have kept his thoughts and behaviors under wraps, but not Tony. He lets it all hang out.
I love Tony Hayward because he is more of the CEO norm than he is the exception. The CEOs that I have encountered in my life have all been egotistical, driven by personal gain, and fairly out of touch because they couldn't be arsed to stay in touch. Tony's behavior doesn't surprise me at all. One of my former CEOs showed up the day after a redundancy (in American English, that's a layoff) in a brand new $100,000 BMW. Another regularly published his gripes about employees in our informal internal newsletter. Yet another has the top floor of his building covered with framed pictures of himself, and has made yachting an essential part of his job duties. But that's OK - their jobs aren't to life the life of an ascetic. Their jobs are to give a general direction to their companies, and to make sure that cash keeps flowing. They are not responsible for the public good.
I love Tony Hayward because he reminds us at a time when some conservatives are treating government like it is the cancer on society, that big business is the cancer that infects both government and society. Sure - not all businesses are bad, and not all government is good, but at least a democratic government is ultimately beholden to the people. Even if 90-95% of the time that government stuffs itself with pork-filled shenanigans, there is a point where things go critical and the people find actions intolerable. Then that government must change its ways. The only way a big business can be kept in check like that is throught the intervention of government. Our government, which has a beautiful system of checks and balances for most powers, was created before overreaching corporations became a major political concern. Tony reminds us why we need to push our government to keep business under reasonable checks.
I love Tony Hayward because of the way he's run BP. No, no I don't. When he became CEO, he made it very clear that he didn't give a rat's ass about the environment or developing new energies for the future. His goal was to suck as much money out of the Earth as quickly as possible, then worry about consequences later. Well, now it's later. If I ever met Tony Haward, I'd throw him under a bus.
I love Tony Hayward because he is so transparently out of touch, and is too self-absorbed to care. That comes across in his "Three's no one that wants this over more than I do" statement and his publicly lavish expendatures during this crisis. A more spin-savvy CEO would have kept his thoughts and behaviors under wraps, but not Tony. He lets it all hang out.
I love Tony Hayward because he is more of the CEO norm than he is the exception. The CEOs that I have encountered in my life have all been egotistical, driven by personal gain, and fairly out of touch because they couldn't be arsed to stay in touch. Tony's behavior doesn't surprise me at all. One of my former CEOs showed up the day after a redundancy (in American English, that's a layoff) in a brand new $100,000 BMW. Another regularly published his gripes about employees in our informal internal newsletter. Yet another has the top floor of his building covered with framed pictures of himself, and has made yachting an essential part of his job duties. But that's OK - their jobs aren't to life the life of an ascetic. Their jobs are to give a general direction to their companies, and to make sure that cash keeps flowing. They are not responsible for the public good.
I love Tony Hayward because he reminds us at a time when some conservatives are treating government like it is the cancer on society, that big business is the cancer that infects both government and society. Sure - not all businesses are bad, and not all government is good, but at least a democratic government is ultimately beholden to the people. Even if 90-95% of the time that government stuffs itself with pork-filled shenanigans, there is a point where things go critical and the people find actions intolerable. Then that government must change its ways. The only way a big business can be kept in check like that is throught the intervention of government. Our government, which has a beautiful system of checks and balances for most powers, was created before overreaching corporations became a major political concern. Tony reminds us why we need to push our government to keep business under reasonable checks.
I love Tony Hayward because of the way he's run BP. No, no I don't. When he became CEO, he made it very clear that he didn't give a rat's ass about the environment or developing new energies for the future. His goal was to suck as much money out of the Earth as quickly as possible, then worry about consequences later. Well, now it's later. If I ever met Tony Haward, I'd throw him under a bus.
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Date: 6/7/10 22:25 (UTC)