4 ms·

Lying on your resume should get you fired. Lying on SEC filings should get you imprisoned.

jrockway 15y ago
Lying on SEC filings should get you imprisoned. This costs me a lot of money, and I don't want to give free money to people just because they are dishonest. Ban the guy from being the CEO or a board member of a publicly traded company for 10 years. Inexpensive and an appropriate punishment for the crime. Let's reserve prison for people that absolutely cannot integrate with normal society.
- tomkarlo 15y ago
  All you'll be doing then is turning him into a high-priced industry consultant or public speaker. Not that prison always prevents that (See: Michael Milken) but it at least puts the brakes on it for a few years.
  - egor83 15y ago
    More than that, I believe. That would also create a good incentive to avoid lies for the rest of executives.
    - pavel_lishin 15y ago
      Haven't there been studies proving that a prison sentence is a poor deterrent? I mean, on the face of it, the fact that there are still prisons full of criminals sort of points in that general direction. (At the very least, it shows that people do a poor job of comparing risk of prison vs. reward of wrongdoing.)
      - egor83 15y ago
        I was referring to "ban the guy from being the CEO for 10 years", not prison sentence. As for prison effectiveness - that's a huge question that I'm just not qualified enough to discuss. I think US is a bit too zealous in this regard, but I'm really not ready to advise here.
  - newbie12 15y ago
    Milken is an interesting case. He literally created the market for high yield ("junk") bonds, and a lot of the charges the feds threw at him were because creating a new market meant breaking stupid regulations about yields and such.
    - tomkarlo 15y ago
      Regardless of whether they're stupid or not, they're still regulations. Unless he was breaking the laws as a form of civil disobedience, he was still basically a guy breaking the rules to make more money.
    - loganfrederick 15y ago
      I'm not anti-Milken by any means, but based on Connie Bruck's "The Predator's Ball", Drexel Burnham Lambert was scurting a lot of regulations when it came to appropriately labeling the types of deals and securities in which they were engaging. Milken might not have been running any blatant frauds or insider trading rings, but he was at the very least misrepresenting DBL's activities and or avoiding proper filings altogether.
- cube13 15y ago
  Just fine the equivalent of their combined earnings(salary, bonus, and any stock options) for the years that they lied on SEC forms. The people don't have to spend money in taxes imprisoning them, and it provides enough deterrence to just not do it.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- MartinCron 15y ago
  Let's reserve prison for people that absolutely cannot integrate with normal society Are you really making the case that no white-collar criminals should go to prison? I guess I can see where you're coming from, but I personally think that we need more financial fraudsters behind bars. You know, the whole "rule of law" and "deterrence" business.
  - blackhole 15y ago
    This is probably more about our overcrowded jail system sucking up huge amounts of taxpayer money. The point is likely supposed to be that its one more person in jail, which is bad, but because that person happens to be a CEO, suddenly its about how he shouldn't go to jail because he's a CEO. It's a matter of unfortunate implications.
    - MartinCron 15y ago
      If we decriminalize recreational drugs and release all of people imprisoned for non-violent drug charges, we'll have more than enough space for crooked executives. Just a friendly suggestion.
  - bigiain 15y ago
    As someone looking in to USA society from outside - it certainly seems that at least investigating non-incarceration methods for dealing with most of your "prison population" would be worthwhile. There's a gigantic industry entirely funded by taxpayers - there's no doubt at least some of the "military industrial complex $1000 hammer" type behavior going on. That industry is legally required to "increase shareholder value", rather than minimize the cost-to-the-taxpayer.
    - MartinCron 15y ago
      The prison system shouldn't be about either "increasing shareholder value" or "minimizing cost-to-taxpayer". It should be about rehabilitation, justice, and public safety. Part of the problem is that it's really hard to win an election against someone who has positioned themselves as "harder on crime" than yourself. As a result, we have legislators pushing for tougher and tougher prison sentences, mandatory sentencing, etc. I don't know how other countries deal with this pressure, but I would be eager to see the United States do better.
- tomkarlo 15y ago
  "Let's reserve prison for people that absolutely cannot integrate with normal society." To do that, we'd have to find an effective alternative to prison. Financial / professional penalties are clearly not enough - if the penalty for getting caught in a crime that makes you millions of dollars is just paying some penalties, why not take that gamble? From a purely rational standpoint, it would be the logical thing to do - if you win, you make millions, if you get caught you just cough up the money.

Lying on SEC filings should get you imprisoned. This costs me a lot of money, and I don't want to give free money to people just because they are dishonest. Ban the guy from being the CEO or a board member of a publicly traded company for 10 years. Inexpensive and an appropriate punishment for the crime. Let's reserve prison for people that absolutely cannot integrate with normal society.

tomkarlo 15y ago
All you'll be doing then is turning him into a high-priced industry consultant or public speaker. Not that prison always prevents that (See: Michael Milken) but it at least puts the brakes on it for a few years.
- egor83 15y ago
  More than that, I believe. That would also create a good incentive to avoid lies for the rest of executives.
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    Haven't there been studies proving that a prison sentence is a poor deterrent? I mean, on the face of it, the fact that there are still prisons full of criminals sort of points in that general direction. (At the very least, it shows that people do a poor job of comparing risk of prison vs. reward of wrongdoing.)
    - egor83 15y ago
      I was referring to "ban the guy from being the CEO for 10 years", not prison sentence. As for prison effectiveness - that's a huge question that I'm just not qualified enough to discuss. I think US is a bit too zealous in this regard, but I'm really not ready to advise here.
- newbie12 15y ago
  Milken is an interesting case. He literally created the market for high yield ("junk") bonds, and a lot of the charges the feds threw at him were because creating a new market meant breaking stupid regulations about yields and such.
  - tomkarlo 15y ago
    Regardless of whether they're stupid or not, they're still regulations. Unless he was breaking the laws as a form of civil disobedience, he was still basically a guy breaking the rules to make more money.
  - loganfrederick 15y ago
    I'm not anti-Milken by any means, but based on Connie Bruck's "The Predator's Ball", Drexel Burnham Lambert was scurting a lot of regulations when it came to appropriately labeling the types of deals and securities in which they were engaging. Milken might not have been running any blatant frauds or insider trading rings, but he was at the very least misrepresenting DBL's activities and or avoiding proper filings altogether.
cube13 15y ago
Just fine the equivalent of their combined earnings(salary, bonus, and any stock options) for the years that they lied on SEC forms. The people don't have to spend money in taxes imprisoning them, and it provides enough deterrence to just not do it.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
MartinCron 15y ago
Let's reserve prison for people that absolutely cannot integrate with normal society Are you really making the case that no white-collar criminals should go to prison? I guess I can see where you're coming from, but I personally think that we need more financial fraudsters behind bars. You know, the whole "rule of law" and "deterrence" business.
- blackhole 15y ago
  This is probably more about our overcrowded jail system sucking up huge amounts of taxpayer money. The point is likely supposed to be that its one more person in jail, which is bad, but because that person happens to be a CEO, suddenly its about how he shouldn't go to jail because he's a CEO. It's a matter of unfortunate implications.
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    If we decriminalize recreational drugs and release all of people imprisoned for non-violent drug charges, we'll have more than enough space for crooked executives. Just a friendly suggestion.
- bigiain 15y ago
  As someone looking in to USA society from outside - it certainly seems that at least investigating non-incarceration methods for dealing with most of your "prison population" would be worthwhile. There's a gigantic industry entirely funded by taxpayers - there's no doubt at least some of the "military industrial complex $1000 hammer" type behavior going on. That industry is legally required to "increase shareholder value", rather than minimize the cost-to-the-taxpayer.
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    The prison system shouldn't be about either "increasing shareholder value" or "minimizing cost-to-taxpayer". It should be about rehabilitation, justice, and public safety. Part of the problem is that it's really hard to win an election against someone who has positioned themselves as "harder on crime" than yourself. As a result, we have legislators pushing for tougher and tougher prison sentences, mandatory sentencing, etc. I don't know how other countries deal with this pressure, but I would be eager to see the United States do better.
tomkarlo 15y ago
"Let's reserve prison for people that absolutely cannot integrate with normal society." To do that, we'd have to find an effective alternative to prison. Financial / professional penalties are clearly not enough - if the penalty for getting caught in a crime that makes you millions of dollars is just paying some penalties, why not take that gamble? From a purely rational standpoint, it would be the logical thing to do - if you win, you make millions, if you get caught you just cough up the money.