6 ms·

How can we get a politician to vote for a corporate death penalty when faced with tens, or hundreds, of thousands of now jobless constituents after its first se

How can we get a politician to vote for a corporate death penalty when faced with tens, or hundreds, of thousands of now jobless constituents after its first sentencing is upheld?

tareqak 7y ago
Pay out several months of severance to each innocent employee.
- anticensor 7y ago
  First nationalise the legal entity so that the board cannot block the actions. Maybe pay a fair share of paid-for capital to employees, proportional to their pays they earned for the last full payment period, as a severance (this might result in lower-than-minimum severance, but better than nothing that you would get in a regular bankruptcy). However, shareholders which would get more dividends than this payout should only be allowed to be paid up to a week of minimum wage in this severance payout, to avoid exit bonuses. Assets should be auctioned off in a quick increment auction, to pay for debts to outsiders, and IP rights to be available to public domain immediately before severance payout starts. If any surplus money remains in the final account, it should be transferred to the legislative to be used for anti-corruption investigations. The legal entity can be vanished after all these finishes.
  - mrguyorama 7y ago
    Why should shareholders get a dime? They backed a shitty company, they should also feel that pain. If they don't want to get hurt like that, they should utilize their rights to keep dangerous and toxic people out of executive level positions
    - anticensor 7y ago
      Shareholders may also have wage-related earnings due to managerial/executive roles. Not all people are stock investors. A week of minimum wage is way less than their initial investment in average.
lukifer 7y ago
This is a problem in general with "creative destruction" vs. "too big to fail": we generally want unsound businesses of 50 employees to fail, but at 50k employees, it's such a blow to the local (or national/global) economy that politicians and citizens are incentivized to prop them up artificially. (Allegedly, one reason Obama didn't take on private insurance directly is the potentially huge unemployment problem.) Anyway, I can imagine a scenario for "corporate death penalty" similar to Chapter 11, where the company keeps its doors open, while restructuring and perhaps selling shares at public auction.

How can we get a politician to vote for a corporate death penalty when faced with tens, or hundreds, of thousands of now jobless constituents after its first sentencing is upheld?

tareqak 7y ago

Pay out several months of severance to each innocent employee.

anticensor 7y ago
First nationalise the legal entity so that the board cannot block the actions. Maybe pay a fair share of paid-for capital to employees, proportional to their pays they earned for the last full payment period, as a severance (this might result in lower-than-minimum severance, but better than nothing that you would get in a regular bankruptcy). However, shareholders which would get more dividends than this payout should only be allowed to be paid up to a week of minimum wage in this severance payout, to avoid exit bonuses. Assets should be auctioned off in a quick increment auction, to pay for debts to outsiders, and IP rights to be available to public domain immediately before severance payout starts. If any surplus money remains in the final account, it should be transferred to the legislative to be used for anti-corruption investigations. The legal entity can be vanished after all these finishes.
- mrguyorama 7y ago
  Why should shareholders get a dime? They backed a shitty company, they should also feel that pain. If they don't want to get hurt like that, they should utilize their rights to keep dangerous and toxic people out of executive level positions
  - anticensor 7y ago
    Shareholders may also have wage-related earnings due to managerial/executive roles. Not all people are stock investors. A week of minimum wage is way less than their initial investment in average.

lukifer 7y ago

This is a problem in general with "creative destruction" vs. "too big to fail": we generally want unsound businesses of 50 employees to fail, but at 50k employees, it's such a blow to the local (or national/global) economy that politicians and citizens are incentivized to prop them up artificially. (Allegedly, one reason Obama didn't take on private insurance directly is the potentially huge unemployment problem.) Anyway, I can imagine a scenario for "corporate death penalty" similar to Chapter 11, where the company keeps its doors open, while restructuring and perhaps selling shares at public auction.