Only thing that comes to mind is South Park's "We're sooorrry" clip. This sentence in the Dec 2020 article says it all, doesn't it?
"They were seen as one of Australia's most significant archaeological research sites, but they also had more than eight million tonnes of high-grade iron ore, with an estimated value of £75m (A$132m; $96m)."
Rio Tinto's official page on this is also worth a read.
Fascinating catch on their usage of active vs. passive language.
The Hero, Villain, Victim triangle plays out beautifully there.
In the Active, you have the company positioning itself as the Hero helping the Victim.
In the Passive, you find them pointing to some unidentified character from the company’s past (8 years ago) who stands as the Villain responsible for this.
They’ve positioned it as if the company is merely the Hero currently trying to help the Victims.
My favorite part about bloodsucking corporations like this and Verizon/AT&T is that the actual stock value of these corporations has barely moved in the last two decades. I thought this kind of unfettered profiteering and capitalism would be good for long term value?
All this suffering and destruction to meekly underperform the stock market. Why do these executives have jobs?
Ah, but the bloodsucking and profiteering is predictable, so it was already priced in. If they stopped and acted like responsible global citizens instead, now that would be a surprise, and their stock price would drop precipitously.
>My favorite part about bloodsucking corporations like this and Verizon/AT&T is that the actual stock value of these corporations has barely moved in the last two decades
Maybe because they're paying out profits in dividends?
I actually didn't know this. Does Rio Tinto also fall into this category of 'objectively terrible for the human race, but pays wonderful dividends to the stakeholders'?
The point is that the stock value remains in the same place because they distribute part of their earnings to shareholders. On the day of a dividend, the stock gets discounted by the amount of the dividend. So if you pay out a large dividend and the share price is static over the long term, that’s actually quite good for investors.
(In other words, your earlier comment about bloodsucking profiteers misses the mark a little bit.)
No, this is not any paritcular individuals fault but the system itself since the incentives and legal system are set up this way. If one wasn't like a sociopath then they either wouldn't be hired or would be fired for not doing their job. Due to the environment that the company ooerates in (which we have created), this is exactly what it'd be predicted to do regardless of the individuals involved.
Exactly my thoughts, but then again, commodity gatherers have to do everything and anything - including blowing up archeological sites - to make living money these days due to extremely low commodity prices. Not that I sympathize with those guys, but rather that I can smell the desperation on them.
That I think has more to do with the downing of F117 a month prior. I'm thinking the Chinese bought some secret parts, and the Americans made a last ditch attempt to prevent the Chinese from obtaining some tech.
The F-117 was shot down in Yugoslavia. China acquired quite a few parts from it, ran into difficulties getting them out of the country, and stored them temporarily at the embassy in Belgrade as their base of operations. Chinese papers have published that part. The US denies the bombing was on purpose, but admitted in a Congressional hearing that it was the only bombing in the campaign directed by the CIA. The "wrong map" reasoning seems a little thin at that point.
With the removal of monuments and vacations to historic sites, I think I’m settling on this idea.
Things made by humans are temporary. If not miners, then flood, earthquake, or other human pursuit would eventually wipe the slate clean.
From a more local perspective, imagine moving away from an area for whatever reason and then a thousand years later someone finds your dirty dishes and Twisted Sister poster and wants to preserve it for posterity.
Assuming that was the only visual trace of Twisted Sister remaining it'd be pretty neat. Also I'm sure that anthropologists would have a field day inspecting the chemical makeup of those hotpocket crumbs and announce that they're "Just as edible today as they were all those thousands of years ago!"
Every time this brought up the person doing so doesn't seem to realize that some companies have lower margins than others (eg. walmart vs microsoft), so you end up those companies more.
I understand margin quite well. The whole point of the penalty is to make it painful enough they don't do it again. You can hide profit, you can't hide revenue.
You can't hide revenue, but you can hide assets. You might get your $100M judgement, but it's pointless when you can't collect it because the company you fined is a pass-through entity with no assets.
I’ve thought about a system where a company has to purchase liability insurance when they dump assets.
So if a plant has a chemical leak, the company can’t sell every other plant, pay a huge dividend, and then declare bankruptcy to avoid paying damages. The plant would have to be insured for up to the total dividend payout. The insurance company would charge a huge fee based on what they think the plant will end up costing after a court battle, etc.
What would happen if someone blew up the mining company office due to a "paperwork oversight"?
You would probably kill a few janitors, and the executives would come out unscathed, again.
If you're going to go as far as engaging in violence, it's much better to go after the executives directly, as they're the ones who deserve it, not the guys making minimum wage to clean out the trash cans.
With the extreme levels of government impotence and apathy towards prosecuting corporations and their leaders for crimes against humanity, I worry vigilante assassinations are going to become increasingly common over the next decade as justice is not otherwise being served.
Mining company blows stuff up, pays a small fee, and profits handsomely.
What would happen if someone blew up the mining company office due to a "paperwork oversight"?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23527303
Dec 2020 update: RT ordered to rebuild the cave:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55250137.amp
Mar 2021 update: Execs fired, given golden parachutes. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56261514.amp
May 2021 update: Shareholders vote 60%-40% to symbolic protest of golden parachutes
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/05/06/business/rio-tinto-shareh...
I'm impressed by the followup reporting. Usually it's hard to find updates on things.