"Cruise ship Fiasco"

[ezdays]

Let's face it, the bottom line is everything in the corporate world. They saved a few million in update costs, but I'm guessing their losses will be in the billions by the time this is over. Ship cleanup and repairs, refunds, cost of getting passengers home, canceled cruises, lawsuits and lastly, a very tarnished reputation. Let's face it, their response was less than stellar.

Especially considering they've already had two black eyes. And not only that, auditors and probably regulators require somebody at headquarters to be developing contingency plans for any such operation. I know, I had to do that sometimes before I went on permanent vacation. If the Carnival Board has any integrity, there should be an investigation, and their attorneys should be drawing up severance packages for a number of key players.

I always question the wisdom of some corporate leaders. Take the Remington 700 rifle. There is a questionable trigger mechanism that can cause the gun to fire on its own. I was watching a program about this a while back and the designer said that a fix would have cost the company about another five cents to implement from the get-go. The didn't do anything and now after a million or more guns sold, they are faced with a series of lawsuits. The spent more on one lawyer than it would have cost to do it right in the first place.

I also remember a while back when one of the auto companies were being sued for something and it was reveled that they had decided early on that it would be cheaper to settle a few lawsuits than fix the problem in the first place.

There will be lawsuits galore stemming from this cruise fiasco, and a few lawyers will wind up fairly rich over it.