So I'm watching the Today show before I take my son to his bus stop, and there's Mattel CEO Robert Eckert ($43.6 million earned in the last six years) chatting amiably with Meredith Viera about his latest toy recall.
He does the dance executives have been doing ever since the Tylenol scare. Here's what we know. We're getting to the bottom of this. Trust us.
It's a model for corporate accountability, the experts agree.
And he defends his Chinese suppliers. The latest recall isn't their fault. It's a "design flaw."
What does this mean? It means Mattel designed tiny magnets inside breakable plastic toys deliberately. It wasn't a bug. It was a feature.
So what are bloggers saying about all this? They're worried about the company's reputation. They're talking, still, about China, although China had nothing to do with the 9 million toys recalled for having magnets in them.
Some consumer oriented-blogs are waking up. For the love of God, writes Fussbucket. Where are the outraged bloggers, writes Robert Roger Anderson. Can regulation cure Mattel's problem, asks The Everyday Economist, before giving the answer no. (Since worthless regulation didn't help, that means regulation is worthless. Sheesh.)
What has happened, in the last few decades, is that we have gone so far down the track of protecting businesses and businessmen from accountability for their actions that they have gotten immunity. Just as our government officials have gotten immunity.
As a result, our leaders think all they have to do is explain things to us as though we're children, then we'll understand, accept, and forgive.
Bullshit. The fault here does not lie with CEOs and government
officials, who are bound to do all they can to protect themselves. And
it doesn't have a thing to do with too much regulation -- if
regulation doesn't find problems like this before they occur we need to
get regulation earlier in the process.
The fault lies with us.
We're too forgiving of the rich. We have one standard for our masters and one for the rest of us.
If Michael Vick can be sent to jail for 5 years, and lose his future livelihood, because he fought dogs to the death, what is the penalty for corporate executives who show willful disregard for their customers, and who wind up creating products that will doubtless lead to some serious injuries and deaths among children. (That fallout hasn't been reported yet, but now that people know where to look it's coming.)
For Mattel to face a bunch of civil suits in this case is not good enough. We need real accountability.
When the gang at Law & Order have their office scenes, noodling
around about who might be responsible for some heinous crime, you can
bet someone, usually Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy, is going to pipe up
with "willful disregard, murder two."
If your actions show a willful disregard for human life, and those actions cause someone to die, you killed them.
Time for some D.A. to make his bones on Mattel CEO Robert Eckert. Time for the punishment to fit the crime.
Time for some Chinese accountability. Time to send a message. Execute a couple of CEOs and the rest will start to toe the line.
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