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Comment by hobs | Hacker News Reader

So fix the social safety net, too big to fail is not something we want to have, especially when it comes to actively harmful companies...

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Jailing the people responsible seems like a way better option than putting potentially tens of thousands of people on welfare.

Managing the long term cost of reforming entire organizations is probably not worth it, better to destroy it AND jail the leaders.

Who not both? Just because it’s normal that low level workers are fired and get nothing doesn’t mean that’s how it has to be. Severance could be generous enough to make this work out.

Part of the punishment could be that the company still has to pay all salaries and hourly wages while it’s shut down.

With what earnings would they do this?

Their cash balance, debt, or equity raise. Or they go bankrupt. That would be part of the risk of doing something that got your company this punishment.

To be clear, I’m not advocating these shutdowns as a good idea, there are a lot of implications that I haven’t thought through.

Who is going to invest cash into a business that has to stop operating for N months, while maintaining everyone on payroll?

Why would anyone invest anything in this scenario? Most companies in the world operate without any investment whatsoever.

As we saw with the covid market crash, a lot of companies (like airlines) don't keep a lot of cash on hand. If they had 0 revenue for several months but still had operating costs, I am assuming they would need a loan

Perhaps one of the many professionals working in distressed debt or special situations? If you're not familiar, there are desks at Goldman, etc called "Special Situations" that focus on relatively niche investment opportunities. Investors just need the price to be right. Would likely be bad for the shareholders, but again, that's part of the punishment.

There could be a price that worked but I don't think there are many businesses that can go offline for several months and come back fine. I'm most familiar with the industry I work in, (O&G), where a day not operating is an incredible loss. Is shutting down the oil refineries and petrochemical complexes what is best for the country? I just struggle to see how this wouldn't just punish normal workers and furthermore just make the economy worse off as a whole

There would be economic damage, no doubt. And maybe to the level where it's politically impossible to enact this kind of thing. And maybe it's a stupid idea :-)

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