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It's quite strange to me that business leaders love talking about how they are being rewarded for taking risks when it's used to justify disproportionate execut
by advael 2y ago
It's quite strange to me that business leaders love talking about how they are being rewarded for taking risks when it's used to justify disproportionate executive pay and stock buybacks for investors, but in all discussions of economic and even criminal regulation surrounding businesses, a business being made to accept some liability for putting others at risk is considered too risky for business. At present, large swaths of the business world are heavily subsidized by the government, can write off operating losses on their taxes, are often funded by hedge funds and investors who don't seem to mind them being deeply unprofitable for many years, and hold things like the IP rights produced by any worker they've employed as a treasure trove of potential value to sell off for the benefit of the owners should the business fail. On top of that, we must also believe that it's good and right that it is nearly impossible to prosecute any actual decision-maker within a company for criminal conduct done or harm caused by that company, or else business is just too risky and the economy might collapse?
To me this doesn't even warrant consideration, it's ridiculous on its face and perverts the notion of rule of law
- jiggawatts 2y agoThe Sacklers made enough money to have some left over for bri.. political contributions. They’re permanently immune to personal consequences now.
- cscurmudgeon 2y ago> nearly impossible to prosecute any actual decision-maker Not really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skilling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skilling https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/minnesota-executives-sentenced-prison-orchestrating-multimillion-dollar-fraud-schemes https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/minnesota-executives-sent... https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-biotech-executive-sentenced-7-years-jail-covid-test-fraud-2024-04-12/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-biotech-executive-sentenced...
- advael 2y agoYes, nearly impossible as I said before. The "nearly" qualifier acknowledges that this does sometimes nonetheless happen
- advael 2y agoAlso notable is that in the cases you've presented, the harm was not to the lives of poor addicts, but to the fortunes of rich investors, which seems a lot more like the kind of thing the courts will hear out