It's a PR move to cow CA politicians to be more amenable to C-suites without challenge.
It's theater. Petty, obstinate, twattish theater.
It's theater. Petty, obstinate, twattish theater.
For almost all billionaires, that's a far larger constituency and a much more frequent and efficient selection process compared to elections every x years by the 30% of the population who bother to vote. As soon as they stop performing, the money stops rolling in.
But business has to do more specific nice things for more people, more frequently, or they’ll be gone long before an election cycle. Politicians have a few selection events every few years.
The evolutionary pressure on business is far greater, so they reflect what we truly want much better - good or bad.
Look at some lists of top companies from 20, 30, 50 years ago. Juggernauts in their time, most of them have long been out-evolved.
Same with rich families, inherited money rarely lasts more than a few generations and tends to decline precipitously with each new batch of heirs.
But we have politicians routinely kicking around for decades based on nothing but platitudes and general charm.
Nearly nobody gives a damn about the behaviour, eccentric, insane, evil, or otherwise, of the primary shareholders of a corporation that is involved, directly or indirectly, in producing products that they consume.
I may think that the Sackler family are murderous scumbags, but if I need medication made by Purdue, that's the medication I'll be buying.
No, but they have to produce a product that someone is willing to consume at a price they are willing to pay for it. Meanwhile, politicians fail to reduce homelessness with a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars per homeless person.
"That may seem like a lot of money, but billionaire math can be deceptive. The Sacklers proposed to pay the $4.5 billion out over nine years. Their current fortune is estimated to be at least $11 billion. Conservatively, with interest and investments, this means they can expect a 5 percent annualized rate of return on that fortune. If that’s the case, they’ll be able to pay the fine without even touching their principal. When they’re done paying in 2030, they will probably be richer than they are today."[1]
There are a few cases of powerful politicians serving jail time. I can't think of a single case where a billionaire was put in jail, except for Madoff, because he was stealing from other billionaires. When you've got billions, you have enough to buy politicians every cycle. You are effectively above the law, forever, regardless of how well your initial product line is doing.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/opinion/sackler-family-op...
It doesn't tell you anything that only 1 of them went to jail. Even assuming they are incarcerated at something close to the background rate (an unreasonable assumption) we would expect 0% of them to be in jail; at any given moment. Adjust that for the fact that they have basically no rational reason whatsoever to commit crimes and there is nothing unusual going on.
2) "Wealthy person goes to jail" isn't actually all that newsworthy. Politicians are always going to get more news headlines because, ironically, or politics.
They may have no rational reason to fear prosecution, but they commit crimes all the time. Becoming untouchably wealthy does not remove base desires from anyone, it only shields them from accountability.
"The uber-rich also shield their wealth through elaborate purchases of real estate, yachts, jets and life insurance. Moving money around between bank accounts, estate and inheritance planning, engaging in a web of complex financial engineering, help them from paying their fair share of taxes. Some of the documents suggest the possibility of financial crimes, including money laundering."[1]
If you don't file your taxes correctly and you fail to pay the fines, or you attempt to defraud the government, there's a very good chance you will do time. The same is not true of the billionaire class no matter how much money the steal through tax avoidance schemes.
Once they have enough money, they can lawyer up and get out of just about anything, even the repeated sexual assault of their own family.[2] The only time they are held to account, with a few exceptions, is when the victims are other billionaires or powerful autocratic states.
This is not some new anti-wealth idea. Equal application of the law regardless of wealth, birth, or status is the fundamental American value. Or at least it was.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/10/04/the-pandor...
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/cartercoudriet/2019/06/28/curt-...
You seem to be going to tax minimisation - sure, the billionaires have a massive advantage when they engage with the law relative to you or I - but there is no reason they should go to jail for that. The basic assumption is if you have multiple accountants doing your tax return then the tax return should be legally proper. It got a lot of attention.
Billionaires should to go jail for tax fraud, preferably in proportion to the amount of money they stole. They are not running their itemized deductions by a typical accounting firm. They are seeking out teams of lawyers and accountants with a reputation for hiding money, and paying millions of dollars because they expect them to be good at it.
If a large team of expert lawyers and accountants comes up with a plan of action, the odds of it being illegal are tiny. It isn't a fair process, unbiased or transparent. But it doesn't make much sense to expect that billionaires would be jailed for tax fraud. They've got more money than they can spend, why risk going to jail at all. They might do that, but it isn't a rational thing to do.
Sure it can happen, but there needs to be actual evidence before anyone should assume it is widespread.
Easier than a counterpoint, sure.
> Sure it can happen, but there needs to be actual evidence before anyone should assume it is widespread.
Do[1] you[2] read[3] the[4] news[5]?
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-01/russian-b...
[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-billionaire-behind-the-bigg...
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2021/04/16/ta...
[4] https://slate.com/business/2014/05/richard-branson-tax-fraud...
[5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ywang/2021/08/24/companies-link...
Which means, mostly the millionaires and billionaires. And SuperPACs owned by corporations who have unlimited funds that they can give, because Citizens United showed that $1 = 1 vote.