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"Paying money to violate the law" is a fundamentally broken method of law enforcement. Do away with them. Justice should not be a line item in a spreadsheet. M

"Paying money to violate the law" is a fundamentally broken method of law enforcement. Do away with them. Justice should not be a line item in a spreadsheet. Maybe it's only twenty minutes in the county jail but every single infraction should fall personally on the individual who made the decision. Start hauling board members into court in orange jumpsuits and see how quickly these "unavoidable" fuckups stop happening.

zanny 6y ago
At the same time retribution should not be the goal of justice, it should be rehabilitation. I'm totally against incarcerating anyone not posing imminent threat to life for a multitude of reasons but my most selfish is that locking people up is incredibly expensive and I'd rather not spend my tax dollar on it if its not actually protecting me from anything. US corporate charter exists to exonerate decision makers from personal liability for crimes committed by the company. That absolution of responsibility is in my opinion the primary motivator for having incorporation at all - its a shield explicitly designed to protect you from culpability. At that a fair judgment would then be something along the lines of - all acting leadership of PG&E or any other corporation using their immunity to be negligent and cause harm must disbar their ownership or face incarceration for being a threat to life. Because they are when they behave like this, at scales that the most deranged mass murderer could only hope to approach.
- mkingston 6y ago
  The cost of this fire was $85b. If this sort of event could be avoided or mitigated by disincentivising the behaviour that caused it (by putting the occasional exec in prison for negligence) I guess it's likely prison would be quite a bit cheaper overall. You do go on to agree that there should be disincentives for antisocial behaviour, so I think mostly we agree. Only that perhaps I would consider incarceration a reasonably cost-effective disincentive for such behaviour.
colejohnson66 6y ago
How do we decide who is “personally responsible”? Wells Fargo’s tellers were the ones personally responsible for the fraud, but that was due to unreasonable targets set by management.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  That's where an org chart comes in. You find the people directly responsible, and walk up the chart until you reach the point you can't prove a person could be reasonably aware of what their sub^n-ordinates were doing. All people you collected up to that point should then be put in front of a judge. That's just a restating of an idea that superiors are responsible for the actions of their subordinates. I think it's called "vicarious liability", though IANAL.
sgustard 6y ago
The most useful outcome to society would be for every 100-year-old piece of PG&E infrastructure to be replaced, at whatever cost to the company is necessary.
tick_tock_tick 6y ago
Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom are the top of the chain for PG&E. The The California Public Utilities Commission which is appointed by the Governor controls PG&E.
- anonAndOn 6y ago
  CPUC sets the regulations. PG&E finds the easiest way to maximize profits under those regulations. Sometimes those profits are maximized by by just dumping the hexavalent chromium rust inhibitor into the ground.[0] Other times by delaying maintenance on 100 year old towers.[1] Even executive personal profits can be maximized by diverting safety operations funds for executive bonuses. [2] Privatization of public utilities for the win! [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_groundwater_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_groundwater_contaminat... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)#Infrastructure_oversight_inspection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)#Infrastructur... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion

zanny 6y ago

At the same time retribution should not be the goal of justice, it should be rehabilitation. I'm totally against incarcerating anyone not posing imminent threat to life for a multitude of reasons but my most selfish is that locking people up is incredibly expensive and I'd rather not spend my tax dollar on it if its not actually protecting me from anything. US corporate charter exists to exonerate decision makers from personal liability for crimes committed by the company. That absolution of responsibility is in my opinion the primary motivator for having incorporation at all - its a shield explicitly designed to protect you from culpability. At that a fair judgment would then be something along the lines of - all acting leadership of PG&E or any other corporation using their immunity to be negligent and cause harm must disbar their ownership or face incarceration for being a threat to life. Because they are when they behave like this, at scales that the most deranged mass murderer could only hope to approach.

mkingston 6y ago
The cost of this fire was $85b. If this sort of event could be avoided or mitigated by disincentivising the behaviour that caused it (by putting the occasional exec in prison for negligence) I guess it's likely prison would be quite a bit cheaper overall. You do go on to agree that there should be disincentives for antisocial behaviour, so I think mostly we agree. Only that perhaps I would consider incarceration a reasonably cost-effective disincentive for such behaviour.

colejohnson66 6y ago

How do we decide who is “personally responsible”? Wells Fargo’s tellers were the ones personally responsible for the fraud, but that was due to unreasonable targets set by management.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
That's where an org chart comes in. You find the people directly responsible, and walk up the chart until you reach the point you can't prove a person could be reasonably aware of what their sub^n-ordinates were doing. All people you collected up to that point should then be put in front of a judge. That's just a restating of an idea that superiors are responsible for the actions of their subordinates. I think it's called "vicarious liability", though IANAL.

sgustard 6y ago

The most useful outcome to society would be for every 100-year-old piece of PG&E infrastructure to be replaced, at whatever cost to the company is necessary.

tick_tock_tick 6y ago

Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom are the top of the chain for PG&E. The The California Public Utilities Commission which is appointed by the Governor controls PG&E.

anonAndOn 6y ago
CPUC sets the regulations. PG&E finds the easiest way to maximize profits under those regulations. Sometimes those profits are maximized by by just dumping the hexavalent chromium rust inhibitor into the ground.[0] Other times by delaying maintenance on 100 year old towers.[1] Even executive personal profits can be maximized by diverting safety operations funds for executive bonuses. [2] Privatization of public utilities for the win! [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_groundwater_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_groundwater_contaminat... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)#Infrastructure_oversight_inspection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)#Infrastructur... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion