The shareholders were furious and even voted against the bonus scheme but because those votes are only advisory, Shell chose to ignore them. This was my primary argument against this advisory vote plan that Obama had promoted last year on the trail. It’s too easy for businesses to ignore suggestions or even basic business ethics. Whether in Big Oil, Wall Street, Big Pharma, whatever, the end result is always consistently the same. They do whatever they want to do unless one of the grown ups (or supposed grown ups) forces them to do otherwise. They spend plenty of cash lobbying the system so they can do as they please.

Who could ever imagine such an outcome?