That's the reason that a) fines should be a percentage of your net worth and b) escalating.
I'm pretty sure if the first 50 million go down the gutter he'll start to notice.
Not an easy process to determine net worth of anyone let alone someone like Vinod. Most likely he does not even know his net worth.
For one, things that you own can vary greatly in value. Now multiply that by hundreds or even thousands of things that are owned by a wealthy person (I don't mean the furniture in the house either).
And it simply does and should not work that way. Because what that means is that someone who is poor and has nothing does not get dinged much because they are poor and have nothing (hence they have 'nothing to lose'). Sure you could adjust the penalties but just the same simply not the way it works.
Even Elon Musk, so big deal $20m fine for someone worth billions (non liquid of course). So what is the correct 'fine'? And what if he was in bankruptcy? Then what is the correct fine?
$100,000 speeding fine anyone? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.stm and that was in 2002!
However, the genuine wealthy will receive most of their income as capital gains and dividends, and will hold most assets through companies.
Income wise, they are often paupers in comparison to their (true) net worth.
Either way, it's not perfect. Hundred dollar speeding tickets are brutal for low income families.
No system is perfect, but seems far less flawed than prescribed fines that sees a millionaire barely notice a £100 parking fine, but someone on minimum wage almost getting wiped out by the same. To me it;s crazy not to reference income, ability to pay or worth when assessing penalty.
Not unusual for business people or anyone to have varied income from year to year but also that does not relate to actual assets or (the original point 'net worth' which is ironically a better measure of what you can pay (assumes liquid of course..)) Also what about someone with an inheritance or trust money?
Once again with the speeding fine it seems oppressive for the same 'crime' to charge someone $100k because they have income or assets and have that money to pay.
Also from what I read the Finnish system is legacy and the way it has always been. There is a big difference in that as people grew up with it vs. in the US where it would be something newly done. Forget even the revolt that would happen. It would also (once again here, because not legacy) lead to inflation as people would all the sudden quite possibly think they are underpaid next to someone else.
Now in the US many pay checks are public but people aren't typically keyed into checking the data source because it's a bit obscure and not a regular stop (key point by the way 'out of sight'). So for example if you work in NYC and you find out a trash man makes $90k per year and you make $60k you are going to feel shortchanged possibly. Once again that info is public (and the amount with overtime can be that btw) but not usually something people are accustomed to thinking about.
Of course it is, and that's by design. The fine is supposed to be punitive, to act as a deterrent. Punishing someone is oppressing them like by definition.
The flat fee system, conversely, is just setting a price sticker on violating the law. It's literally saying, "you can do this if you're rich enough".
The proportional fine system has its issues, but between the two, I think it's a no-brainer.
The tax people already have methods for dealing with all those scenarios for tax purposes, so it's essentially a solved problem.
Once again with the speeding fine it seems oppressive for the same 'crime' to charge someone $100k because they have income or assets and have that money to pay.
At least the way it works in Sweden, many fines are defined essentially in days wages and not in money. So the judge doesn't sentence you to pay $100k, they sentence you to pay 45 days wages[0] and the judge neither knows nor cares what that works out to be in actual money. So as such the fines are exactly the same for everybody.
[0] The actual formula is slightly more complicated that literally your daily wage.
So explain how that makes sense because it doesn't take into account the savings of the individual?
If I have a million in savings and I am retired or how do you determine 'wages' with a self employed person?
I am not saying there aren't ways to answer or address this. But it is not simple and not fair the way stated other than a revenue scheme for the government. If the idea is to create a disincentive that has not been done using daily wages.
(Some people live hand to mouth as well so they are particularly impacted)
Maybe it's not easy, but he definitely has the ability to figure out how much he's worth, even if it means he has to pay a team of accountants.
I think such a system would be workable if it mandated the offender provide a good-faith calculation of their net worth. They'd also be required to show their work, and be subject to harsh penalties if they were found to have deliberately cheated. This is basically how the tax system already works for income.
Does he actually own the property? Should he be personally liable for that fine because he lives in the property? Should the fine be assessed on the property value?
Plenty of questions unanswered, that likely require legislation at various levels in government.
I'm not saying it's not a good idea, but this requires more work than some people are assuming. Khosla will be dead before any proper legislation without viable loopholes gets enacted.
Given that this is clearly a pattern of illegal behavior not remedied by civil lawsuits, the state should use eminent domain and seize his property as necessary create the mandatory access and to prevent further illegal activity blocking access to public lands.
There are countless stories on how they do more harm than good. I have so much disdain for them, I cannot express. Fuck HOAs.
It would be interesting to see how effective it might be...
I worked for a Khosla company a few years ago and it was pretty depressing to know that if we struck gold, I might get a few million dollars to set my family up, but Vinod would get hundreds of millions to trample on people who werent millionaires. There's no winning in that situation.
Can anyone give a reason for why he claims $30 million for the easement (6 acres, privacy)? I've heard he paid something less than $35 million for the whole property (94 acres). Articles say that the village is part of what he purchased; clearly all those beach homes are worth more than $5 million.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/vinod-khosla-b... [1] https://medium.com/@vkhosla/martins-beach-a-matter-of-princi...
Khosla can pay for a PR campaign to say a bunch of nice things about him and how wonderful of a person he actually is while simultaneously having an army of his lawyers go fight his petty battles because how dare a bunch of 'low-income commoners' tell him what he can't do. Just because he owns a VC firm doesn't mean he isn't a douchebag in real life.
In fact, that may be a key indicator that he might be a douchebag. Though to me the more likely indicator is his involvement with real estate, which has been a pretty consistent tell in my experience.
Neither of those articles cast him in a particularly good light, but I cited them because I think it goes to show that he's suffering from his own decisions which he could free himself from by compromising, but his uncompromising trait is getting in the way.
In other words, I think this would be a very complicated PR play for pretty poor PR.
Same probably applies to power of a more political sort. Are dictators dictators because they're dictators or does placing a human in a dictatorial office turn them into one?
In the US it pretty much does.
For the working class it's "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" money.
For the super rich, it's "fuck you, you'll do what I tell you" money.
Chop it down like anything else that essentially is trash on public property.
And closing the private road and parking lot definitely do this.
* He bought the business with full knowledge of what his obligations were under Californian law.
* There is a huge difference between compelling an individual to run a business, and compelling him to not restrict access to the public.
* This lawsuit was not because he stopped maintaining the road, or the bathrooms, but because he closed a road that allowed people access to the beach.
* Government compels people to do all sorts of things, and not closing off public access to a beach after you paid $32 million for a private beach house seems like one of the least onerous.
I'm sure the state would be fine if he just opened access to the beach to everyone for free. No need to operate any business.
This question about being "compel[led] to run unwanted business" is just a smokescreen to obscure a campaign to deny the public its rights.
It does that literally in most cases!
Perhaps that's not a problem per se. If the fines are equal to or greater than the Pigouvian tax you would put on this naughty behavior, then moving from a fine to a hard ban (however that is done) is a net negative move.
The real problem here is extreme inequality.
He should be in jail for repeatedly violating the law.
He absolutely knew, and figured he could bully, buy, litigate and delay his way out of it. I’m betting the whole strategy was written up before the sale was complete.