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Not even certain what to say. Yes this is a low value comment but I'm speechless. The argument "We potentially screwed up so much that there would be so many p

Not even certain what to say. Yes this is a low value comment but I'm speechless. The argument "We potentially screwed up so much that there would be so many people suing us that it would cause legal chaos. So as a result we should be granted full waivers of liability to avoid the lawsuits." Is so brazen as to be absurd. But the fact it was a successful argument and won is what's astounding. Unchecked corporate power is a phenomenal national liability.

MattGaiser 5y ago
I suspect it won as the other option is having the entire thing destroyed and there being nothing left to settle over. Sure, you can embroil the company in 1000 lawsuits, but the end result will be lawyers getting all the money.
- caslon 5y ago
  That's ideal, isn't it? No one gets a reward, but the criminals lose what they have. Instead, the criminals are basically getting rewarded.
  - Natsu 5y ago
    Well, they appear to be going bankrupt already unless I'm missing something and turning over all these assets to the bankruptcy court? At least that's what the article seemed to indicate, it wasn't overly clear on the details.
    - wmf 5y ago
      This settlement allows the Sackler family to keep some assets (billions?); many people have proposed that they deserve to lose everything.
    - magicalist 5y ago
      > Well, they appear to be going bankrupt already unless I'm missing something and turning over all these assets to the bankruptcy court? At least that's what the article seemed to indicate, it wasn't overly clear on the details. No, none of the people getting immunity are filing for bankruptcy, which is one of the absolutely ridiculous parts of this settlement. Why should a bankruptcy settlement even apply to them if that's the case?
      - nuclearnice3 5y ago
        Amazing twist. Bankruptcy with all the legal protection and none of the losing all your money.
        Natsu 5y ago
        Admittedly I can't be sure of how much of their wealth is or isn't tied up in the bankruptcy--though I think the same is also true of everyone else here--but if they're anything like most others who own large companies, it represents a significant fraction of their net worth and it's about to be worthless. Bankruptcy court is pretty much always like this, though. I remember the same kinds of things coming up during, e.g., SCO.
        ironSkillet 5y ago
        From a Bloomberg article I read, approximately $200 million will come from a family foundation, $3 billion will come from a forced sale of some international companies they own, and the remainder of the settlement from their vast array of trusts and other investments worth...approximately $8-9 billion dollars. So while the settlement is a large amount, it amounts to no practical impact for the family, which is why so many people think it's unjust. They will still have a huge amount of dynastic wealth and will not need to make any changes to their extravagant lifestyles whatsoever. Boohoo, the dynastic wealth will only enable the next 6 generations of Sacklers to be entitled pieces of shit instead of the next 8.
    - mikeyouse 5y ago
      From what I understand, this bankruptcy preceding was for the company the family owned (Purdue Pharma) and they contributed some of the billions in previously captured profits from their family wealth to get to an agreement, but the balance of their family wealth remains beyond the reach of the courts.
      - clairity 5y ago
        this is the umpteenth example of why we need to shred the corporate veil. it doesn’t actually fuel innovation as it purports to do, but rather promotes a slippery slope of bad behavior by owners and executives (at the expense of customers, employees, and society at large). like many bad regulations, it’s a distortion of the risk profile for a given endeavor, which leads directly to negatively externalized, but rarely unintended, consequences. all the sackler billions should be clawed back and commensurately redistributed to literally everyone else.
        UncleMeat 5y ago
        Yup. The good has to come with the bad. I can understand the motivation for things like limited liability, but if that is to exist then the individuals should not be able to extract billions from the corporation. We see this consistently. The rich and powerful justify something that benefits them by pointing out the downsides and then when the downsides rear their heads, the rich and powerful find a way to ignore them.
      - rootusrootus 5y ago
        > they contributed some of the billions in previously captured profits from their family wealth to get to an agreement Not even that. They agreed to give 4.3 billion dollars over the next 9 years. Given how much net worth they have, over that 9 years they will earn that much, or more, in interest. They're just giving up the next 9 years of growth, they'll still be multi-billionaires.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    No, as then there is nothing for the settlement and remediation of the harm done.
    - caslon 5y ago
      Why bother? I have multiple immediate family members that were affected and who aren't capable of coming back from it; I don't think they should get a reward if it means the Sacklers aren't pushed down with them. Doubly so given very few people will be getting anything, anyway.
      - BrianOnHN 5y ago
        Sorry about your loss. There is no acceptable punishment for a crime of this scale that doesn't adequately deter future criminals. Billions in rewards isn't just inadequate, it's disrespectful to every victim and their families.
        2Xheadpalm 5y ago
        No acceptable punishment, maybe not, however, fear can go a long way! Actual fear of _really_ losing all their family wealth, basically everything but the shirt on their back with a lifetime of hard labor to follow is probably a scarier proposition to these kind of scum then death is. On that note, hanging some of them from the rafters may also help deter this kind of parasitic behavior going forward.
        kuraudo 5y ago
        Why are we only talking about relieving them of their wealth? Why is capital punishment off the table?
        rhizome 5y ago
        >There is no acceptable punishment for a crime of this scale that doesn't adequately deter future criminals. Well this is just a self-justifying statement. "Acceptable," "adequately," so many ways to weasel out of assigning any consequences. Let's just discuss how adequate a hypothetical punishment will be in the future that we both definitely know facts about. >Billions in rewards isn't just inadequate, it's disrespectful to every victim and their families. Disrespectful to remedy the loss of one or more breadwinners? Disrespectful to prevent descendants from firing up the corporate grill again? I don't know what ethical standard you're using, but it seems to elevate suffering and misfortune. Disgorgement and prison, the facts bear this out. That they were able to buy their way out of this is more evidence that the nation strives to protect criminals who have money and are white.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  These people are still worth billions. You shouldn't get to walk away with billions when you should be rotting in prison for the rest of your life.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    Except the only way to get their billions is also to destroy the settlement.
    - lupire 5y ago
      So?
    - wavefunction 5y ago
      That seems like putting the cart before the horse. Or at least, logically of course the settlement which protects their billions would need to be destroyed.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      The US govt doesn't need their billions for the settlement, it's pocket change for the feds. Justice is worth far, far more than a few billion.
- moron4hire 5y ago
  This sounds an awful lot like a "something is better than nothing" fallacy. With the settlement, there is practically zero benefit to anyone who was harmed. Without such a settlement, there is zero benefit to anyone harmed. "Practically zero" being greater than "zero" is worth not punishing literal evil?
- mcphage 5y ago
  > the other option is having the entire thing destroyed and there being nothing left to settle over. Another option that I’m fond of: send them to jail for a very long time.
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
This is now a proven, well-worn playbook: put yourself at the center of a massive enterprise, and if/when it all goes to shit, basically demand a ransom: "If you don't let me go quietly, my scorched earth policy will ensure there is no carcass to pick over." It is the playbook that CEOs with golden parachutes use as their companies go under, it is the playbook that Adam Neumann used when exiting WeWork, and it is even used by jailed business owners for leniency ("If I'm in jail, I'll have to shut my company and all of my poor employees will lose their jobs") At some point, though, I do worry that metaphorical pitchforks become real ones. There are literally hundreds of thousands of family members of those who died due to Sacklers' greed, and they get to read that the Sacklers will remain one of the wealthiest families in the world.
- tantalor 5y ago
  Go big or go home.
  - TAForObvReasons 5y ago
    You're being downvoted but this is actually well-understood and phrased in many different ways, including: > If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem. - J Paul Getty
    - jareklupinski 5y ago
      > If you owe the bank $100 billion, that's the government's problem. - Me
- cwkoss 5y ago
  Is there any legal mechanism the public can use to try to kick pro-corporate judges out of power?
  - spaetzleesser 5y ago
    It starts with the DOJ. They are afraid of going after big corporations because the corporations have more resources than the DOJ so it’s hard to win. In addition a lot of DOJ leaders don’t want to harm their chances at getting a cushy job at one of these corporations.
jacobr1 5y ago
It is a harder question than that. I think we do want limited liability as legal notion. For any company, not just this example, culpability should stop at the Board, and then any employee of company that willfully commits wrongdoing. The owners should have 100% of their equity at stake, but claimants against actions taken by the company shouldn't pierce the liability curtain of the owners. Now in this case, at least 8 members of the family did have directorship influence, not just ownership. I doubt the settlement is just, though I'm not sure some other kind of lawsuit would have been able to retrieve the 4.3 Billion the family is giving up in the settlement. But I'm also fairly certain we don't just want dismantle the notional of limited liability in general
- larkost 5y ago
  The argument against this is that when the Sackler family realized that this was all going to go south they started sucking all of the profit out of Perdu Pharma (over 10 Billion dollars shortly before it declared bankruptcy). So is it Ok to suck out money and leave the responsibility behind? Is that what limited liability is there for? I am all for limited liability protecting you from ordinary business failure (allowing people to take some risks). But this goes far beyond that.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >The argument against this is that when the Sackler family realized that this was all going to go south they started sucking all of the profit out of Perdu Pharma (over 10 Billion dollars shortly before it declared bankruptcy). Source for this happening? If so it'd fall under fraudulent conveyance. I suspect what actually happened was that they slowly withdrew the money years before bankruptcy or even the lawsuits, which makes it hard to go after them.
    - nemothekid 5y ago
      https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1329736/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1329736/downl... >Around the same time, from approximately 2008 to 2018, at the Named Sacklers’ request, billions of dollars were transferred out of Purdue as cash distributions of profits and transfers of assets into Sackler family holding companies and trusts. Certain of these distributions and transfers were made with the intent to hinder future creditors and/or were otherwise voidable as fraudulent transfers. Edit: Just going through this document makes me wonder how people can carry water for these demons >The same day, David Sackler replied-all by email: [W]hat do you think is going on in all of these courtrooms right now? We’re rich? For how long? Until which suits get through to the family? >In or about April 2008, Richard Sackler wrote a memorandum to Kathe Sackler, Ilene Sackler, David Sackler, Jonathan Sackler, and Mortimer D. A. Sackler in which he discussed limiting the Sackler family’s risk in the ownership of Purdue: “[T]he most certain way for the owners to diversify their risk is to distribute more free cash flow so they can purchase diversifying assets.” These aren't people acting in ignorance, this is family essentially running a legalized drug cartel and has today just protected all their assets. I'm sure the negative externalities of these individuals will cause damage for decades to come in America's heartland.
paganel 5y ago
> Unchecked corporate power is a phenomenal national liability. I'm sure there are other dynamics at play but Xi has probably started seeing the same thing in China, hence the recent crackdown on said corporate power.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  I'm no fan of the CCP, but these policies I agree with. The US is happy to relegate itself to a Russia-like plutocracy as China eats our lunch.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  I never thought I would say this, but Xi is doing things I would if I had his power. I'm just talking about slapping down billionaires, cracking down on gambling, making education equal to all kids, etc. None of it is worth the loss of free speech.
  - kuraudo 5y ago
    I disagree; free speech is already showing its degradation in the west: it's only a matter of time before we're left with nothing.
phone8675309 5y ago
There is a simple solution to this - fire up the guillotines. There are more of us than there are of their security guards.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  This will hold until good automated security systems.
  - YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 5y ago
    Robocop ED-209
    - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
      Robocop 2, high on Oxys.
  - finiteseries 5y ago
    Removes the need for numbers and collateral damage in one easy step. Bonus points if they can target individuals, even the au pair gets to survive these days!
  - kuraudo 5y ago
    More of a reason to get started now.
gruez 5y ago
>The argument "We potentially screwed up so much that there would be so many people suing us that it would cause legal chaos. So as a result we should be granted full waivers of liability to avoid the lawsuits." Is so brazen as to be absurd. But that's not what's happening? At least from my reading of the article, they settled with the state, that's it. The judge wasn't like "you're off the hook because the lawsuits were too complicated". >The complex bankruptcy plan, confirmed by Drain at a hearing in White Plains, N.Y., was negotiated in a series of intense closed-door mediation sessions over the past two years. >The deal grants "releases" from liability for harm caused by OxyContin and other opioids to the Sacklers, hundreds of their associates, as well as their remaining empire of companies and trusts.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  The lines you quote do not seem to actually say anything to support your claims or contradict those of the person you responded to?
  - gruez 5y ago
    It supports the claim that it was a settlement, rather than the judge letting them off the hook unilaterally. As part of any settlement, each side agrees not to engage in further litigation on the same matter, otherwise there's no point in settling. I also omitted the next sentence which states what they gave in exchange for the settlement. >In return, they have agreed to pay roughly $4.3 billion, while also forfeiting ownership of Purdue Pharma.
    - mtalantikite 5y ago
      Didn't they move a lot of their assets abroad? [1] I mean sure, $4.3 billion is a lot of money, but personally I feel like they should all be left with zero and a few of them should be in prison for a long time. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-sackler-family-money/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-sackler-family-money...
    - smallerfish 5y ago
still_grokking 5y ago
It's just the next level of "to big to fail". We're accelerating into a new feudal age. The aristocracy becomes, or is already, unimpeachable.
cinquemb 5y ago
I will think it will continue to go unchecked until there is financial incentive for such individuals to face repercussions from other individuals since corporates have largely co-opted the state. Probably will take the form of looming $20 billion in open interest expiring worthless on options on whether $x pharma exec will be alive by $y date, that trades on a decentralized options exchange that uses a decentralized prediction market amm liquidity pool as a underlying price feed.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
8eye 5y ago
yeah, did you see how a bunch of former employees at the fed are urging another bail out repeat for some of these big corporations? i am all for people being rewarded for their effort, but a lot of these companies seem to be redirecting tax payers money into their own bank accounts. to me, that is corruption.
scruple 5y ago
> "We potentially screwed up so much that there would be so many people suing us that it would cause legal chaos. So as a result we should be granted full waivers of liability to avoid the lawsuits." It worked for the banks in 2008, why wouldn't it work for them?

MattGaiser 5y ago

I suspect it won as the other option is having the entire thing destroyed and there being nothing left to settle over. Sure, you can embroil the company in 1000 lawsuits, but the end result will be lawyers getting all the money.

caslon 5y ago
That's ideal, isn't it? No one gets a reward, but the criminals lose what they have. Instead, the criminals are basically getting rewarded.
- Natsu 5y ago
  Well, they appear to be going bankrupt already unless I'm missing something and turning over all these assets to the bankruptcy court? At least that's what the article seemed to indicate, it wasn't overly clear on the details.
  - wmf 5y ago
    This settlement allows the Sackler family to keep some assets (billions?); many people have proposed that they deserve to lose everything.
  - magicalist 5y ago
    > Well, they appear to be going bankrupt already unless I'm missing something and turning over all these assets to the bankruptcy court? At least that's what the article seemed to indicate, it wasn't overly clear on the details. No, none of the people getting immunity are filing for bankruptcy, which is one of the absolutely ridiculous parts of this settlement. Why should a bankruptcy settlement even apply to them if that's the case?
    - nuclearnice3 5y ago
      Amazing twist. Bankruptcy with all the legal protection and none of the losing all your money.
      - Natsu 5y ago
        Admittedly I can't be sure of how much of their wealth is or isn't tied up in the bankruptcy--though I think the same is also true of everyone else here--but if they're anything like most others who own large companies, it represents a significant fraction of their net worth and it's about to be worthless. Bankruptcy court is pretty much always like this, though. I remember the same kinds of things coming up during, e.g., SCO.
        ironSkillet 5y ago
        From a Bloomberg article I read, approximately $200 million will come from a family foundation, $3 billion will come from a forced sale of some international companies they own, and the remainder of the settlement from their vast array of trusts and other investments worth...approximately $8-9 billion dollars. So while the settlement is a large amount, it amounts to no practical impact for the family, which is why so many people think it's unjust. They will still have a huge amount of dynastic wealth and will not need to make any changes to their extravagant lifestyles whatsoever. Boohoo, the dynastic wealth will only enable the next 6 generations of Sacklers to be entitled pieces of shit instead of the next 8.
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    From what I understand, this bankruptcy preceding was for the company the family owned (Purdue Pharma) and they contributed some of the billions in previously captured profits from their family wealth to get to an agreement, but the balance of their family wealth remains beyond the reach of the courts.
    - clairity 5y ago
      this is the umpteenth example of why we need to shred the corporate veil. it doesn’t actually fuel innovation as it purports to do, but rather promotes a slippery slope of bad behavior by owners and executives (at the expense of customers, employees, and society at large). like many bad regulations, it’s a distortion of the risk profile for a given endeavor, which leads directly to negatively externalized, but rarely unintended, consequences. all the sackler billions should be clawed back and commensurately redistributed to literally everyone else.
      - UncleMeat 5y ago
        Yup. The good has to come with the bad. I can understand the motivation for things like limited liability, but if that is to exist then the individuals should not be able to extract billions from the corporation. We see this consistently. The rich and powerful justify something that benefits them by pointing out the downsides and then when the downsides rear their heads, the rich and powerful find a way to ignore them.
    - rootusrootus 5y ago
      > they contributed some of the billions in previously captured profits from their family wealth to get to an agreement Not even that. They agreed to give 4.3 billion dollars over the next 9 years. Given how much net worth they have, over that 9 years they will earn that much, or more, in interest. They're just giving up the next 9 years of growth, they'll still be multi-billionaires.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  No, as then there is nothing for the settlement and remediation of the harm done.
  - caslon 5y ago
    Why bother? I have multiple immediate family members that were affected and who aren't capable of coming back from it; I don't think they should get a reward if it means the Sacklers aren't pushed down with them. Doubly so given very few people will be getting anything, anyway.
    - BrianOnHN 5y ago
      Sorry about your loss. There is no acceptable punishment for a crime of this scale that doesn't adequately deter future criminals. Billions in rewards isn't just inadequate, it's disrespectful to every victim and their families.
      - 2Xheadpalm 5y ago
        No acceptable punishment, maybe not, however, fear can go a long way! Actual fear of _really_ losing all their family wealth, basically everything but the shirt on their back with a lifetime of hard labor to follow is probably a scarier proposition to these kind of scum then death is. On that note, hanging some of them from the rafters may also help deter this kind of parasitic behavior going forward.
        kuraudo 5y ago
        Why are we only talking about relieving them of their wealth? Why is capital punishment off the table?
      - rhizome 5y ago
        >There is no acceptable punishment for a crime of this scale that doesn't adequately deter future criminals. Well this is just a self-justifying statement. "Acceptable," "adequately," so many ways to weasel out of assigning any consequences. Let's just discuss how adequate a hypothetical punishment will be in the future that we both definitely know facts about. >Billions in rewards isn't just inadequate, it's disrespectful to every victim and their families. Disrespectful to remedy the loss of one or more breadwinners? Disrespectful to prevent descendants from firing up the corporate grill again? I don't know what ethical standard you're using, but it seems to elevate suffering and misfortune. Disgorgement and prison, the facts bear this out. That they were able to buy their way out of this is more evidence that the nation strives to protect criminals who have money and are white.
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
These people are still worth billions. You shouldn't get to walk away with billions when you should be rotting in prison for the rest of your life.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Except the only way to get their billions is also to destroy the settlement.
  - lupire 5y ago
    So?
  - wavefunction 5y ago
    That seems like putting the cart before the horse. Or at least, logically of course the settlement which protects their billions would need to be destroyed.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    The US govt doesn't need their billions for the settlement, it's pocket change for the feds. Justice is worth far, far more than a few billion.
moron4hire 5y ago
This sounds an awful lot like a "something is better than nothing" fallacy. With the settlement, there is practically zero benefit to anyone who was harmed. Without such a settlement, there is zero benefit to anyone harmed. "Practically zero" being greater than "zero" is worth not punishing literal evil?
mcphage 5y ago
> the other option is having the entire thing destroyed and there being nothing left to settle over. Another option that I’m fond of: send them to jail for a very long time.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

This is now a proven, well-worn playbook: put yourself at the center of a massive enterprise, and if/when it all goes to shit, basically demand a ransom: "If you don't let me go quietly, my scorched earth policy will ensure there is no carcass to pick over." It is the playbook that CEOs with golden parachutes use as their companies go under, it is the playbook that Adam Neumann used when exiting WeWork, and it is even used by jailed business owners for leniency ("If I'm in jail, I'll have to shut my company and all of my poor employees will lose their jobs") At some point, though, I do worry that metaphorical pitchforks become real ones. There are literally hundreds of thousands of family members of those who died due to Sacklers' greed, and they get to read that the Sacklers will remain one of the wealthiest families in the world.

tantalor 5y ago
Go big or go home.
- TAForObvReasons 5y ago
  You're being downvoted but this is actually well-understood and phrased in many different ways, including: > If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem. - J Paul Getty
  - jareklupinski 5y ago
    > If you owe the bank $100 billion, that's the government's problem. - Me
cwkoss 5y ago
Is there any legal mechanism the public can use to try to kick pro-corporate judges out of power?
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  It starts with the DOJ. They are afraid of going after big corporations because the corporations have more resources than the DOJ so it’s hard to win. In addition a lot of DOJ leaders don’t want to harm their chances at getting a cushy job at one of these corporations.

jacobr1 5y ago

It is a harder question than that. I think we do want limited liability as legal notion. For any company, not just this example, culpability should stop at the Board, and then any employee of company that willfully commits wrongdoing. The owners should have 100% of their equity at stake, but claimants against actions taken by the company shouldn't pierce the liability curtain of the owners. Now in this case, at least 8 members of the family did have directorship influence, not just ownership. I doubt the settlement is just, though I'm not sure some other kind of lawsuit would have been able to retrieve the 4.3 Billion the family is giving up in the settlement. But I'm also fairly certain we don't just want dismantle the notional of limited liability in general

larkost 5y ago
The argument against this is that when the Sackler family realized that this was all going to go south they started sucking all of the profit out of Perdu Pharma (over 10 Billion dollars shortly before it declared bankruptcy). So is it Ok to suck out money and leave the responsibility behind? Is that what limited liability is there for? I am all for limited liability protecting you from ordinary business failure (allowing people to take some risks). But this goes far beyond that.
- gruez 5y ago
  >The argument against this is that when the Sackler family realized that this was all going to go south they started sucking all of the profit out of Perdu Pharma (over 10 Billion dollars shortly before it declared bankruptcy). Source for this happening? If so it'd fall under fraudulent conveyance. I suspect what actually happened was that they slowly withdrew the money years before bankruptcy or even the lawsuits, which makes it hard to go after them.
  - nemothekid 5y ago
    https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1329736/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1329736/downl... >Around the same time, from approximately 2008 to 2018, at the Named Sacklers’ request, billions of dollars were transferred out of Purdue as cash distributions of profits and transfers of assets into Sackler family holding companies and trusts. Certain of these distributions and transfers were made with the intent to hinder future creditors and/or were otherwise voidable as fraudulent transfers. Edit: Just going through this document makes me wonder how people can carry water for these demons >The same day, David Sackler replied-all by email: [W]hat do you think is going on in all of these courtrooms right now? We’re rich? For how long? Until which suits get through to the family? >In or about April 2008, Richard Sackler wrote a memorandum to Kathe Sackler, Ilene Sackler, David Sackler, Jonathan Sackler, and Mortimer D. A. Sackler in which he discussed limiting the Sackler family’s risk in the ownership of Purdue: “[T]he most certain way for the owners to diversify their risk is to distribute more free cash flow so they can purchase diversifying assets.” These aren't people acting in ignorance, this is family essentially running a legalized drug cartel and has today just protected all their assets. I'm sure the negative externalities of these individuals will cause damage for decades to come in America's heartland.

paganel 5y ago

> Unchecked corporate power is a phenomenal national liability. I'm sure there are other dynamics at play but Xi has probably started seeing the same thing in China, hence the recent crackdown on said corporate power.

heavyset_go 5y ago
I'm no fan of the CCP, but these policies I agree with. The US is happy to relegate itself to a Russia-like plutocracy as China eats our lunch.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
I never thought I would say this, but Xi is doing things I would if I had his power. I'm just talking about slapping down billionaires, cracking down on gambling, making education equal to all kids, etc. None of it is worth the loss of free speech.
- kuraudo 5y ago
  I disagree; free speech is already showing its degradation in the west: it's only a matter of time before we're left with nothing.

phone8675309 5y ago

There is a simple solution to this - fire up the guillotines. There are more of us than there are of their security guards.

ALittleLight 5y ago
This will hold until good automated security systems.
- YLYvYkHeB2NRNT 5y ago
  Robocop ED-209
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    Robocop 2, high on Oxys.
- finiteseries 5y ago
  Removes the need for numbers and collateral damage in one easy step. Bonus points if they can target individuals, even the au pair gets to survive these days!
- kuraudo 5y ago
  More of a reason to get started now.

gruez 5y ago

>The argument "We potentially screwed up so much that there would be so many people suing us that it would cause legal chaos. So as a result we should be granted full waivers of liability to avoid the lawsuits." Is so brazen as to be absurd. But that's not what's happening? At least from my reading of the article, they settled with the state, that's it. The judge wasn't like "you're off the hook because the lawsuits were too complicated". >The complex bankruptcy plan, confirmed by Drain at a hearing in White Plains, N.Y., was negotiated in a series of intense closed-door mediation sessions over the past two years. >The deal grants "releases" from liability for harm caused by OxyContin and other opioids to the Sacklers, hundreds of their associates, as well as their remaining empire of companies and trusts.

user-the-name 5y ago
The lines you quote do not seem to actually say anything to support your claims or contradict those of the person you responded to?
- gruez 5y ago
  It supports the claim that it was a settlement, rather than the judge letting them off the hook unilaterally. As part of any settlement, each side agrees not to engage in further litigation on the same matter, otherwise there's no point in settling. I also omitted the next sentence which states what they gave in exchange for the settlement. >In return, they have agreed to pay roughly $4.3 billion, while also forfeiting ownership of Purdue Pharma.
  - mtalantikite 5y ago
    Didn't they move a lot of their assets abroad? [1] I mean sure, $4.3 billion is a lot of money, but personally I feel like they should all be left with zero and a few of them should be in prison for a long time. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-sackler-family-money/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-sackler-family-money...
  - smallerfish 5y ago

still_grokking 5y ago

It's just the next level of "to big to fail". We're accelerating into a new feudal age. The aristocracy becomes, or is already, unimpeachable.

cinquemb 5y ago

I will think it will continue to go unchecked until there is financial incentive for such individuals to face repercussions from other individuals since corporates have largely co-opted the state. Probably will take the form of looming $20 billion in open interest expiring worthless on options on whether $x pharma exec will be alive by $y date, that trades on a decentralized options exchange that uses a decentralized prediction market amm liquidity pool as a underlying price feed.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

8eye 5y ago

yeah, did you see how a bunch of former employees at the fed are urging another bail out repeat for some of these big corporations? i am all for people being rewarded for their effort, but a lot of these companies seem to be redirecting tax payers money into their own bank accounts. to me, that is corruption.

scruple 5y ago

> "We potentially screwed up so much that there would be so many people suing us that it would cause legal chaos. So as a result we should be granted full waivers of liability to avoid the lawsuits." It worked for the banks in 2008, why wouldn't it work for them?