DOJ investigation yields fresh evidence against Google, Apple in lawsuit

I think the point here is to stop the behavior and give out just enough punishment to keep them from doing it again, but not excessive so as to damage the business. In this case, the problem is the companies were colluding to deprive people of jobs and to lower salaries. The desired outcome is to ensure a fair hiring and salary negotiation process. A settlement achieves that with minimal cost to the government and minimum collateral damage to the tens of thousands of people who had nothing to do with it.

Businesses and individuals are completely different and there should be different standards for dealing out punishments.

That said, the case you mentioned seems absurd and unfair. The best answer I can give is that the government-- when it comes to the justice system-- is not a single entity. Justice is not dealt out uniformly. There are many, many different people with different views prosecuting cases. Some are more lenient than others, within the legislated guidelines. Different regions have different prevailing standards for justice. Even in the same town you have ball breaker judges and ones with a reputation for letting people off easy. If the law provides guidelines you can be sure that people will be spread out all across the spectrum of what is allowed. Getting 12 years for selling pot sucks. I'd be pretty pissed if I were in her shoes. If I were a judge I wouldn't think of giving out that kind of sentence. I would go so far as to say I think the judge who did is wrong, even if he did give a sentence allowed by law. But I'm also not the kind of dumbass who would sell pot. If you do stupid, obviously illegal things you put yourself at the mercy of a person who might just throw your ass in a hole for the next decade.

Anyway, if the minimum wage is set by the government at a level above the value of someone's labor, you (the company) are going to:

Do without (movie ushers in the US).

Automate.

Move the work offshore.

Hire as few as you can for as little as you can when you can't do without, which these retail jobs might be an example of.

I'm not at the moment discussing the merits of a minimum wage, just pointing out that is has well established consequences.

I keep banging on this drum, but it bears repeating: Silicon Valley/the Bay area is unique in the world, and compared to other would be competitors, in the US at least, is unique when it comes to public policy on non-competes.