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Comment by Daishiman | Hacker News Reader

It must be so nice being a corporation and saying "oops, our bad, we'll get right on it" instead of going straight to prison if I were to personally defraud a state of so much money.

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There’s no fraud involved. Booking was legally allowed to keep the money.

This is just PR damage control. Apparently someone calculated the loss would be more than the 65M so instead of reducing the exec payout they just pay back the money.

If they didn’t need the money in the first place why was it given to them?

Perhaps at the time they asked for the money, it wasn't clear whether they were going to need it?

Also, the government could have dictated any vague good-faith terms under the sun like "if you don't need the money, you must return it" and etc.

But the government didn't do that.

They fired people after they got the money so they kept losses lower that way.

This is why they should be given something like a DDTL so they have to display a need for money but have assurance that the lending facility is available

They might have been about to use it as a zero interest loan?

Why do you keep your own tax deductions? Do you think people only kept their stimulus check if they were hard-up for cash?

The tax system isn't about paying what you feel you should owe. The government bailed out an entire industry and tried to pay out (somewhat) evenly over it. Why should some of the companies be obligated to forgo that cash just because they handled the pandemic better than their competitors?

I didn't ask why they took it. I asked why it was given to them.

I think this is partly explained by "we need to move quickly to help", versus taking time to design and implement some sort of means testing.

I will note that PPP loans in the US are loans, and are only forgiven if you can link the funds to employees' salaries. The percentage of the loan that can be used for owners' salaries is also capped.

It was given to them to keep on their employees for the duration of the aid. The aid covered up to 90% of salaries, the percentage dependent on the revenue drop during that period.

Why do they get 400 million a year in other government subsides despite being wildly profitable?

Seems like the CFO and executives are worth every cent they are paid.

That’s an almost sociopathic way of looking at society. Government is the organization that we, the people, have created to accomplish our common goals. If you think that government is just a big fat cow that needs to be fleeced, and that people who are doing just that are worthy of praise, then I consider you with the same esteem as someone who steals from their neighbors.

Both stealing from neighbors and taking advantage of the govt are very common acts and it's naive to think otherwise

I never said it’s uncommon, I just said I completely and utterly detest the people who do this kind of thing.

I think that the problem lies with the the voters and politicians who set up programs with explicit purpose of giving cash to mega corporations that don't need it. It isn't reasonable to put out a sign that says "free cows" and then blame the those who apply for and receive the cow.

The solution is to stop giving handouts to corporations with billions in profit, not rely on them to refuse the free money.

It is government that steals income tax from my neighbors and from me.

Because they fulfilled the criteria required to receive the money.

It was given to them because the travel branch was hard hit due to COVID and the government handed out this money to avoid lay-offs. In no way was it intended for bonus payments, the fact that that wasn't forbidden doesn't mean it was permitted.

In a free society, the default is that anything not forbidden is permitted.

This money came with some very explicit strings attached about what it was intended for, that you weren't allowed to go buy yachts with it was not made explicit but even so it should be f'ing obvious.

https://business.gov.nl/subsidy/corona-crisis-temporary-emer...

Oh wow, it even explicitly says it’s not to be used for bonuses.

That was added after this scandal first unearthed.

I am tired of governments deciding to not pursue justice because it would be more expensive, because of the negative impact on the investment climate and the litigation costs. Justice isn't meant to be profitable. Let's bite the fucking bullet and jail the people responsible for this kind of behavior

There is no fraud here at all. No rules were broken.

It would be negligent on the booking.com executives behalf if they did not take this money when it was available. If there's an issue, it's in the relief program itself.

If they retained their employees and didn't take bonuses as promised, I might agree. But they didn't. They made empty promises, took the money, sacked their employees, and divvied the loot. This isn't even good for shareholders. It's pure narcissistic greed

Since the proper behavior here (sociopathically maximize private profit from socialized care) is so easy to know, the execs should be outsourced or automated.

Why waste those bonuses on them?

ha-ha!

Also, let them write good documentation up to spec so that the next guy can pick up where they left. Surely some long ago shelved away business logic framework gathering dust some place would be a good place to start.

My joke was that we should write an application called a Manager so that (like with calculators and computers) we can tell future generations the story how a Manager use to be a person.

And while we are at it we might as well build a robot to represent the company. A hundred million customers could talk with the boss simultaneously and it could take proper action instantly.

Plenty of companies did not take government money even though it was available out of solidarity with those companies that did need that money. Booking.com taking that money when they could but didn't need it led to (1) less money available for other companies and (2) a higher deficit.

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