4 ms·

Why do you think that liquidating companies that are employing tens of thousands, and providing transportation mechanisms for billions is a good idea? The mark

Why do you think that liquidating companies that are employing tens of thousands, and providing transportation mechanisms for billions is a good idea? The market for civil airliners is already far too concentrated and dysfunctional, it'd be even worse with a single player (Boeing). Finding who's been involved in the decision-making process and punishing them harshly is fair and does send the right message. Destroying a large corporation arbitrarily doesn't. Besides, in both Volkswagen and Airbus cases, they're far from being the sole bad actors in their respective industries. You'd only hand their marketshare to others who've been slightly better at not getting caught but were really doing the same thing all along.

ryandrake 9y ago
Destroying companies hurts shareholders, who ultimately allow/encourage/demand their companies' bad behavior. If you're a fund manager, and the value of your Xyz Corp stock were at risk of going to $0 due to its execs' bad behavior, you would be incentivized to make sure the board is actually discouraging bad behavior. Without this threat, we have the situation we have today: Companies never get significantly punished for anything, "because jobs," and corruption is rampant.
- tormeh 9y ago
  Shareholders don't have much insight or influence on the day-to-day in a business, so I don't think this would work very well.
  - aluhut 9y ago
    I don't think they would have to if anyone involved would face this ultimate payment for their misbehavior. However, I think that it would lead to even better mechanisms to hide the corruption and turn the lobby machine on. It's easy to lobby when a company has to be closed down and many uninvolved people lose their jobs. Which politician would like to face this anger? Maybe it's better to start the change from the other side. Make people understand and feel what it means if they are being cheated of their tax money.
- achamayou 9y ago
  I don't think you understand the kind of access fund managers have to the companies they invest in. Surely you do realise that they are not poring over the source code written at the companies they invest in (or their contractors and subcontractors), nor read every email or every entry in every expense account. Shareholders of VW have already taken a massive hit when the stock tanked. Destroying the company would achieve nothing at all. The efficient and fair course of action is to prosecute the executives who made or authorised illegal decisions while minimising impact on those not involved. Shareholders are not a substitute for a court of law, and rash group punishment has never worked out well.
saimiam 9y ago
Hacker News isn’t the place to get into polemics so I’ll drop the subject. All I’ll say is I hate the optics of TBTF and companies like VW, Airbus, and the like getting a free ride because they are “Western”. The fundamental human right is not freedom, self-determination, or happiness, it’s the right to fairness and the current world order, imho, is unfair. It will continue to be unfair until the rules are applied equally regardless of which cohort loses jobs or which fat cat banker dies in a ditch.

ryandrake 9y ago

Destroying companies hurts shareholders, who ultimately allow/encourage/demand their companies' bad behavior. If you're a fund manager, and the value of your Xyz Corp stock were at risk of going to $0 due to its execs' bad behavior, you would be incentivized to make sure the board is actually discouraging bad behavior. Without this threat, we have the situation we have today: Companies never get significantly punished for anything, "because jobs," and corruption is rampant.

tormeh 9y ago
Shareholders don't have much insight or influence on the day-to-day in a business, so I don't think this would work very well.
- aluhut 9y ago
  I don't think they would have to if anyone involved would face this ultimate payment for their misbehavior. However, I think that it would lead to even better mechanisms to hide the corruption and turn the lobby machine on. It's easy to lobby when a company has to be closed down and many uninvolved people lose their jobs. Which politician would like to face this anger? Maybe it's better to start the change from the other side. Make people understand and feel what it means if they are being cheated of their tax money.
achamayou 9y ago
I don't think you understand the kind of access fund managers have to the companies they invest in. Surely you do realise that they are not poring over the source code written at the companies they invest in (or their contractors and subcontractors), nor read every email or every entry in every expense account. Shareholders of VW have already taken a massive hit when the stock tanked. Destroying the company would achieve nothing at all. The efficient and fair course of action is to prosecute the executives who made or authorised illegal decisions while minimising impact on those not involved. Shareholders are not a substitute for a court of law, and rash group punishment has never worked out well.

saimiam 9y ago

Hacker News isn’t the place to get into polemics so I’ll drop the subject. All I’ll say is I hate the optics of TBTF and companies like VW, Airbus, and the like getting a free ride because they are “Western”. The fundamental human right is not freedom, self-determination, or happiness, it’s the right to fairness and the current world order, imho, is unfair. It will continue to be unfair until the rules are applied equally regardless of which cohort loses jobs or which fat cat banker dies in a ditch.