Hacker News Reader

Comment by cwal37 | Hacker News Reader

A lot of people here asking "Why is the fine so low, how does this happen!" I recommend reading "The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives"[0] which is obviously a bit broader than just fines, but does touch on the history and current state of things with respect to corporate malfeasance.

One thing that I did not know (too young to be paying close enough attention at the time), but was interesting to me was the backlash from Arthur Andersen collapsing and the resulting loss of jobs as part of the whole Enron scandal. This was at least somewhat blamed on government overreach in going after Enron, even if that wasn't exactly the case, and helped to set the table for quite a slide in standards over time.

[0]https://www.npr.org/2017/07/30/535799735/corporate-bungling-...

View on HN

"Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;

To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!"

- Isaiah 10:1-2

Seems to me we got an awful lot of that going on these days.

The problem is that politicians who want to legislate based on their religious values are extremely picky about which tennets of their faith they want to codify into law.

Luke 3:10-11

“‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked. John answered, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’”

There's a distinct absence of many people willing to either legislate that into law or practice it themselves. Not that I'm advocating for codifying such things into law: this is merely an observation, and an expression of my frustration with those who want to impose their values on others, but only when it's convenient for them.

I wouldn't argue the original point was about religious legislating. It's more about a fundamental principle of a just society is that it doesn't allow the rich and powerful to oppress others because they have money.

Turning this into some sort of weird partisan issue seems that you are more interested in scoring points for your side than any real effort to discover truth.

A weirder and harder to find recommendation: "Essays in the economics of crime and punishment". While quite old, gives a good overview of the thinking behind how governments establish systems of fines, jail time and how their thresholds are figured out to calculate restitution to society.

Find in a nearby library here: https://www.worldcat.org/title/essays-in-the-economics-of-cr...

Lack of punishments in form of incarceration being the norm is what makes this happen repeatedly.

So the fed doesn't want to be to harsh and risk destabilizing the economy? Then by doing this, encourages companies to engage in shitty behavior. Which could then destabilize the economy when they implode.

Capitalism™: Shut up, it tastes good!?

[Yeah I'm being reductive, just annoyed to watch all this and feel helpless that nothing changes]

Right, but when large "needed" industries fail and destabilize things, they just get bailed out. In the end, it all works out for the investor class.

The investor class is anyone with a 401k

I swear the broad adoption of 401k programs is one of the biggest crimes against the working class.

So much risk for the owner of the money and tons of upside for all the supply chain servicing them.

The idea of people investing their retirement seems like a good one, but yes I'm afraid it winds up just being a scam. The worst part appears to be that the monetary authorities now can't allow recessions, because that would destroy people's ability to retire. So, you get a bloated economy where creative destruction isn't allowed to occur.

What risk? The 401k is for retirement planning, you're looking at 20+ years horizon, the risk on a global index fund is inexistant at that time scale

Most people with a 401k derive a small portion of their income from it.

If >60% of your income comes from your day job, you're not part of the investor class, you're part of the working class.

Why do you think this?

You're not technically wrong, but I think a reasonable reading of my comment could see the implication that I was speaking of the individuals who are actively investing and derive their primary income from it.

If some schmuck pulling 50K a year with a passive 1% contribution to his 401K thinks he's the same as Warren Buffet or the guys at Bain, I can't stop him.

Nothing capitalistic about this. Super complex taxes are a problem created by the Government.

Get rid of the income tax and switch to a simple sales tax and most returns would be eliminated

Most people don't have super complex taxes, there's no reason the IRS can't just send them an itemized bill every April, that you can either attest to the correctness of, and pay, or contest by doing a full filing.

Progressive income taxes aren't what make tax filing a pain.

It should be quarterly and a bill, not a refund.

I think some countries use a different tradeoff than the US for their income tax. Instead of spending a ton of government and taxpayer time and effort to accurately assess what each taxpayer owes, the government simply generates an estimate based on what it knows about each taxpayer and uses that. They accept the reduced accuracy but it is offset by the reduced effort in determining everyone's bills. That is to say, you don't need to move away from an income tax to address the problem.

On the contrary, regulatory capture and similar issues are a necessary consequence of capitalist accumulation.

The opposite of a free market is having a government decide winners and losers. A reason why many like low regulations. Reduces governments ability to screw things up.

I believe in China in these cases the government would take over the company and charge the executives. Maybe we should take the same approach.

Maybe, maybe not. All depends on how many friends you have in the party, and whether the current leading faction sees you as a threat or not

More often than not, the investors take some losses (foreign investors are usually wiped out), and the company is reconstituted with the same executives holding similar positions (and equity in the new company). This is done because large companies are usually politically well-connected, and the various levels of government in China prefer stability over rule-of-law.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com