4 ms·

That’s like saying that $5,000 is a big fine. If you make $50,000 a year or less before tax, $5,000 is hefty. If you make $20,000 a year or less before tax, and

That’s like saying that $5,000 is a big fine. If you make $50,000 a year or less before tax, $5,000 is hefty. If you make $20,000 a year or less before tax, and have no savings, it will probably bankrupt you. iIf you don’t have any significant income, you will probably never pay it off. But if you make $200,000 a year, it’s depriving you of a new carbon-fibre gravel race bike this season. Annoying, but you can handle it. “Big” is relative to your financial situation. For Facebook, it’s a parking ticket. For a startup, it would destroy them.

Jyaif 8y ago
Facebook earned $2.43 billion during the first quarter of 2019. You say "If you make $50,000 a year or less before tax, $5,000 is hefty". Well in this case it's like a $25,000 fine. Is this still a "parking ticket"?
- solatic 8y ago
  It is if Facebook can issue debt to stretch the fine payment into several years or longer. If you make $50k a year, get a $25k fine, and stretch it out into 50 $500 payments, then it's about fifty parking tickets. Which is hard, but doable. And when you're a PM, or somewhere else nice and well far removed from the corporate bank accounts which are paying the fine, then you don't even notice. Actually, you notice something positive since your compensation took a nice bump when your stock options became worth more as a result of investors responding positively to the news. The amount of money needs to be commensurate with a level at which shareholders feel like they're taking a hit. It's not about the size of the fine, it's about how the fine makes investors feel.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
    Where do you live that parking tickets are $500?
tptacek 8y ago
This analysis doesn't make any sense, because it's not connected to the offense. I can laugh off a speeding ticket, but that same ticket could throw the monthly finances of a low-income person into disarray. But we don't scale the fine with offender income; we scale it with how fast we're driving. It seems to me that what's important is that the fine is big relative to the offense. If Facebook generated $5B from the behavior they're being fined for, it's not a big fine. If they generated $100MM from it, it's a huge fine.
- jfk13 8y ago
  > But we don't scale the fine with offender income Perhaps we should. I believe some countries do.
  - germinalphrase 8y ago
    The Swiss do it. They charged a wealthy repeat offender 300k for going 85mph in a 35mph zone.
- idlewords 8y ago
  In Finland, speeding tickets are pegged to income. A Nokia director was fined over 100,000 euro for speeding. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.stm
- yifanl 8y ago
  If fines don't scale with the offender, then you get a scenario where you stop being punished if your income is sufficiently large.
soup10 8y ago
Overyhped stock market cap aside, their annual revenue(not profit mind you) in 2018 was 50B, a fine of 10% of yearly revenue is a huge hit for any company, another 0 would of put them out of business.

Jyaif 8y ago

Facebook earned $2.43 billion during the first quarter of 2019. You say "If you make $50,000 a year or less before tax, $5,000 is hefty". Well in this case it's like a $25,000 fine. Is this still a "parking ticket"?

solatic 8y ago
It is if Facebook can issue debt to stretch the fine payment into several years or longer. If you make $50k a year, get a $25k fine, and stretch it out into 50 $500 payments, then it's about fifty parking tickets. Which is hard, but doable. And when you're a PM, or somewhere else nice and well far removed from the corporate bank accounts which are paying the fine, then you don't even notice. Actually, you notice something positive since your compensation took a nice bump when your stock options became worth more as a result of investors responding positively to the news. The amount of money needs to be commensurate with a level at which shareholders feel like they're taking a hit. It's not about the size of the fine, it's about how the fine makes investors feel.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
  Where do you live that parking tickets are $500?

tptacek 8y ago

This analysis doesn't make any sense, because it's not connected to the offense. I can laugh off a speeding ticket, but that same ticket could throw the monthly finances of a low-income person into disarray. But we don't scale the fine with offender income; we scale it with how fast we're driving. It seems to me that what's important is that the fine is big relative to the offense. If Facebook generated $5B from the behavior they're being fined for, it's not a big fine. If they generated $100MM from it, it's a huge fine.

jfk13 8y ago
> But we don't scale the fine with offender income Perhaps we should. I believe some countries do.
- germinalphrase 8y ago
  The Swiss do it. They charged a wealthy repeat offender 300k for going 85mph in a 35mph zone.
idlewords 8y ago
In Finland, speeding tickets are pegged to income. A Nokia director was fined over 100,000 euro for speeding. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.stm
yifanl 8y ago
If fines don't scale with the offender, then you get a scenario where you stop being punished if your income is sufficiently large.

soup10 8y ago

Overyhped stock market cap aside, their annual revenue(not profit mind you) in 2018 was 50B, a fine of 10% of yearly revenue is a huge hit for any company, another 0 would of put them out of business.