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The 737 MAX, stock trading senators, and bribe taking justices are all the same thing for the same reason. Power is doing something and then saying "what are y

The 737 MAX, stock trading senators, and bribe taking justices are all the same thing for the same reason. Power is doing something and then saying "what are you going to do about it?" The supreme court takes bribes and says "what are you going to do about it?" They clearly have the power to take bribes. Nobody appears to be able to do anything about it. Congresspeople trade stocks of companies they regulate in a gross conflict of interest, then defend their ability to be corrupt as a right. "What are you going to do about it?" Congress clearly has the power to be openly corrupt without consequences. The 2008 crisis was wall street telling the government that they have many answers to that question. "Too big to fail" was born to capture the idea that there is an entity so powerful there are no reasonable answers to them asking "what are you going to do about it?" Boeing is too big to fail. Boeing knows that there is no one with the will or fortitude to do anything about putting profit over safety. Investigations to make it look like you're doing something, sure. Canning a few low level employees that you can pin blame on, no problem. Sacrifice a contractor? That's what they're there for. But to hold a CEO or shareholders responsible for gross mismanagement in any kind of meaningful way, threatening all other American oligarchs and hordes of people rich enough to say "what are you going to do about it?" without answer? Admiral Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy, is the past's best answer to Boeing. He deeply understood the forces at play. He had this to say to congress: Political and economic power is increasingly being concentrated among a few large corporations and their officers - power they can apply against society, government and individuals. Through their control of vast resources, these large corporations have become, in effect, another branch of government. They often exercise the power of government, but without the checks and balances inherent in our democratic system. Americans need to start thinking about how to answer someone clearly more powerful saying "what are you going to do about it?" Because every time we say "nothing" those people get that much more powerful.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
The premise of "too big to fail" is that a thing is depended on by too many other things, innocent people, to allow it to suddenly become rubble. It's an insurance company and its policyholders did nothing wrong. It's a bank and its depositors did nothing wrong. It's Boeing and they're the sole supplier of some critical things. The "easiest" way to fix this is to bail them out, because then the company itself can carry on fulfilling its obligations and you don't need all the people relying on them to individually apply to get bailed out or otherwise have to rearrange their affairs when the institution is instantly vaporized. But that, as they say, is a moral hazard. What you really want to do is to destroy them in slow motion. Step one, the existing owners get nothing, they chose their executives poorly and suffer the consequences. Step two, those executives are out too, and the company gets new leadership and a bailout with the condition that the company will soon cease to exist and be sold off for parts, but first it's going carry on operating for a bit to satisfy its obligations to innocent third parties.
- piva00 3y ago
  Instead of bailing them out while keeping it private do the right thing: public money bailed them out, so it's a public company now, nationalise, save the innocents from harm, and sell its parts to recoup the bailout after it's been properly managed through the crisis. Leaving it to private investors to ride on the public saving a company is just another slap on the face. Yes, I know that the bailouts from 2008 have recouped the public money invested but it's a moral hazard to allow private investors to use this mechanism. Over time private investors will just find loopholes on how to leverage public bailouts for their own gain, they have a massive incentive for gaming it.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
    This isn't how class systems work in the US. The moral hazard is the point. The tails I win, heads you lose policies for these giant companies and their owners is not an accident. It is deliberate and crafted. What you are suggesting is no less than to change the entire social hierarchy of the country.
    - jmholla 3y ago
      Isn't that what this thread is about? The GP started talking about how this social hierarchy is ruining the country.
- roenxi 3y ago
  Sounds good but it is still vulnerable - one part of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse that was interesting to me was the money deposited in the bank was appeared to be money controlled by the same people who owned the bank. IE, I suspect the decision makers behind the bank cared much more about bailing out the depositors of the bank - who were effectively complicit because they weren't shopping around - than the nominal shareholders of the bank. There were apparently specific requirements that startups used SVB if they received funding from certain VCs which suggests something was happening.
- hayst4ck 3y ago
  > What you really want... This is pure fantasy. What you have described is sets of people not doing what is in their best (short term selfish) interest. It is not in a politicians best interest to hold Boeing accountable because then Boeing can withdrawal funding and fund their opposition, or more importantly economically harm constituents. It is not in Boeing exec's interests because by the time Boeing experiences the long term consequences of short term thinking the people responsible will have already made bank, diversified, or invested in competitors. Some other company that wants to cash out their future will probably hire them. Problems only get solved when those most harmed are the enact-ers of the solution. So if you're thinking about "what you really want to do", then you have to start with how you personally can add your feather onto the scales of justice rather than using hope as a strategy by fantasizing about some powerful responsible government.
sanex 3y ago
[flagged]
- 93po 3y ago
  I’d settle for rank choice voting
javajosh 3y ago
Good post, and the pat response is "vote them out". The problem with this is that the neither party really thinks this kind of corruption is a problem, and the individual pols that do can't get elected on that issue alone. That is, there's a critical "bundling" problem with modern politics: you have to accept a bundle of 100 positions, and "integrity issues" are usually pretty low. Even worse, a cynical body politic begins to perceive "integrity" as a liability, that someone with conscience and self-restraint is actually LESS capable of "winning" within a corrupt system. You've now allowed your short-term need to win to further degrade the system, which of course becomes a positive feedback loop. (This bundling problem affects all kinds of products. When you're shopping, you pay attention to price, and everything else is secondary. In a perfect market, you'd price in the forced arbitration clause, or you'd price in the social cost of anti-competitive business practices of the vendor. But it just doesn't happen because the cognitive load is too high.) I really miss the days when we at least paid lip-service to the idea that character and integrity mattered most in our pols. Even that system was gamed, its still better than overtly, cynically abandoning society's most laudable values.
- metabagel 3y ago
  > The problem with this is that the neither party really thinks this kind of corruption is a problem You’re half right.
  - javajosh 3y ago
    Sadly no. Bernie Sanders explicitly put Citizens United at the top of his legislative priority list. Clinton used her pull with the DNC to undermine his nomination, and the rest is history. This was a triumph of the corrupt status quo over a high integrity pol, and it happened within the DNC.
    - hayst4ck 3y ago
      Citizens united was literally a judicial coup against constitutional rule. We went from flawed democracy to literal plutocracy the day citizens united was ruled on. Politicians must fund raise before their primaries and we see many fundraising efforts throughout their tenure too. To get elected a candidate must: Fundraise -> win a primary -> win a general election. Therefore fundraising is structurally an election and money is structurally votes. Since money gets to vote on candidates before people do, we end up with a "democracy" that responds to money and not votes, which is pretty blatantly obvious. It's also why many people feel that both parties are basically the same. It's not that they're the same, it's just people with money get to filter candidates first and therefore both parties are the same in that they have to appease their funders first and can't threaten corporations or rich people because then their funding goes down and their opponents goes up. Biden is just another example of this (as was Hillary). Biden 2024 is made possible because the democratic party doesn't have to answer to their voters. The democratic party has a symbiotic relationship with republicans where neither has to rule effectively or hold themselves to any standards which allows both to profiteer and trade stocks while the country slowly becomes oligarchic/fascist.
selimthegrim 3y ago
Rickover was no saint himself, see the articles linked here -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38383206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38383206 - in the discussion about sama citing him.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

The premise of "too big to fail" is that a thing is depended on by too many other things, innocent people, to allow it to suddenly become rubble. It's an insurance company and its policyholders did nothing wrong. It's a bank and its depositors did nothing wrong. It's Boeing and they're the sole supplier of some critical things. The "easiest" way to fix this is to bail them out, because then the company itself can carry on fulfilling its obligations and you don't need all the people relying on them to individually apply to get bailed out or otherwise have to rearrange their affairs when the institution is instantly vaporized. But that, as they say, is a moral hazard. What you really want to do is to destroy them in slow motion. Step one, the existing owners get nothing, they chose their executives poorly and suffer the consequences. Step two, those executives are out too, and the company gets new leadership and a bailout with the condition that the company will soon cease to exist and be sold off for parts, but first it's going carry on operating for a bit to satisfy its obligations to innocent third parties.

piva00 3y ago
Instead of bailing them out while keeping it private do the right thing: public money bailed them out, so it's a public company now, nationalise, save the innocents from harm, and sell its parts to recoup the bailout after it's been properly managed through the crisis. Leaving it to private investors to ride on the public saving a company is just another slap on the face. Yes, I know that the bailouts from 2008 have recouped the public money invested but it's a moral hazard to allow private investors to use this mechanism. Over time private investors will just find loopholes on how to leverage public bailouts for their own gain, they have a massive incentive for gaming it.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y ago
  This isn't how class systems work in the US. The moral hazard is the point. The tails I win, heads you lose policies for these giant companies and their owners is not an accident. It is deliberate and crafted. What you are suggesting is no less than to change the entire social hierarchy of the country.
  - jmholla 3y ago
    Isn't that what this thread is about? The GP started talking about how this social hierarchy is ruining the country.
roenxi 3y ago
Sounds good but it is still vulnerable - one part of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse that was interesting to me was the money deposited in the bank was appeared to be money controlled by the same people who owned the bank. IE, I suspect the decision makers behind the bank cared much more about bailing out the depositors of the bank - who were effectively complicit because they weren't shopping around - than the nominal shareholders of the bank. There were apparently specific requirements that startups used SVB if they received funding from certain VCs which suggests something was happening.
hayst4ck 3y ago
> What you really want... This is pure fantasy. What you have described is sets of people not doing what is in their best (short term selfish) interest. It is not in a politicians best interest to hold Boeing accountable because then Boeing can withdrawal funding and fund their opposition, or more importantly economically harm constituents. It is not in Boeing exec's interests because by the time Boeing experiences the long term consequences of short term thinking the people responsible will have already made bank, diversified, or invested in competitors. Some other company that wants to cash out their future will probably hire them. Problems only get solved when those most harmed are the enact-ers of the solution. So if you're thinking about "what you really want to do", then you have to start with how you personally can add your feather onto the scales of justice rather than using hope as a strategy by fantasizing about some powerful responsible government.

sanex 3y ago

[flagged]

93po 3y ago
I’d settle for rank choice voting

javajosh 3y ago

Good post, and the pat response is "vote them out". The problem with this is that the neither party really thinks this kind of corruption is a problem, and the individual pols that do can't get elected on that issue alone. That is, there's a critical "bundling" problem with modern politics: you have to accept a bundle of 100 positions, and "integrity issues" are usually pretty low. Even worse, a cynical body politic begins to perceive "integrity" as a liability, that someone with conscience and self-restraint is actually LESS capable of "winning" within a corrupt system. You've now allowed your short-term need to win to further degrade the system, which of course becomes a positive feedback loop. (This bundling problem affects all kinds of products. When you're shopping, you pay attention to price, and everything else is secondary. In a perfect market, you'd price in the forced arbitration clause, or you'd price in the social cost of anti-competitive business practices of the vendor. But it just doesn't happen because the cognitive load is too high.) I really miss the days when we at least paid lip-service to the idea that character and integrity mattered most in our pols. Even that system was gamed, its still better than overtly, cynically abandoning society's most laudable values.

metabagel 3y ago
> The problem with this is that the neither party really thinks this kind of corruption is a problem You’re half right.
- javajosh 3y ago
  Sadly no. Bernie Sanders explicitly put Citizens United at the top of his legislative priority list. Clinton used her pull with the DNC to undermine his nomination, and the rest is history. This was a triumph of the corrupt status quo over a high integrity pol, and it happened within the DNC.
  - hayst4ck 3y ago
    Citizens united was literally a judicial coup against constitutional rule. We went from flawed democracy to literal plutocracy the day citizens united was ruled on. Politicians must fund raise before their primaries and we see many fundraising efforts throughout their tenure too. To get elected a candidate must: Fundraise -> win a primary -> win a general election. Therefore fundraising is structurally an election and money is structurally votes. Since money gets to vote on candidates before people do, we end up with a "democracy" that responds to money and not votes, which is pretty blatantly obvious. It's also why many people feel that both parties are basically the same. It's not that they're the same, it's just people with money get to filter candidates first and therefore both parties are the same in that they have to appease their funders first and can't threaten corporations or rich people because then their funding goes down and their opponents goes up. Biden is just another example of this (as was Hillary). Biden 2024 is made possible because the democratic party doesn't have to answer to their voters. The democratic party has a symbiotic relationship with republicans where neither has to rule effectively or hold themselves to any standards which allows both to profiteer and trade stocks while the country slowly becomes oligarchic/fascist.

selimthegrim 3y ago

Rickover was no saint himself, see the articles linked here -https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38383206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38383206 - in the discussion about sama citing him.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]