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Comment by taway789aaa6 | Hacker News Reader

> Boeing decided they wanted to focus on maximizing profits

> The shareholders/board decided to gut the company so they can get richer with stock buybacks

Are you not saying the exact same thing, just being more explicit about the implicit "short-term" profits?

The shareholders/board (e.g. Boeing...the decision makers) decided to gut the company so they can get richer (e.g. maximize [short-term] profits, since the profits accrue to the shareholders/board) with stock buybacks.

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I separate Boeing the business entity from the private capital that receives the cash.

The former is under the control of the latter.

I'm not arguing that parasites don't have control over their host [1], I'm arguing that they're separate entities.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31980266/

They're separate, but one owns and controls the other. I'm not seeing how pointing out that they're separate (a point on which I don't believe anyone here was confused in the first place) adds anything material to this exchange. "Boeing decided something", in a business strategy context, is just shorthand for "the people who control Boeing decided something", because Boeing doesn't ever decide anything. It can't.

> because Boeing doesn't ever decide anything. It can't.

Something tells me the board & shareholders will disagree if any criminal investigations are open on these failures. When companies break the law the shareholders never claim its impossible decisions were made without them. [1] [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_cross-selling_scan...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

that's ridiculous. it's like saying i separate myself the employee from the private individual receiving the salary. the two are the same. Just because the catholic church can get away with separating the same entity into multiple parts doesn't mean anyone can or should

So if a company goes bankrupt you believe the board & shareholders are now on the hook for that debt?

We would probably live in a better world, if it did.

Perhaps but there would probably be a lot less people starting companies if that was the case. LLCs were created for a reason and are effectively what this commenter [1] described.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39108118

Doesn't that describe many forms of incorporation, not just LLCs?

Yes but LLCs are usually easier/less paperwork if you're starting a new company or doing what the linked commenter described.

I can connect to the sentiment of that, but it's a ridiculous thought in practice. The board, which can come and go, is not a personal guarantor. They have a fiduciary duty, of course, but they're not individually bringing in the billions of dollars of public investment in the public company they serve. And so why should they be personally liable for its debt? And even if they should, how could they be?

If a company goes bankrupt and it owes creditors, say, $10 billion, but together the board members have, say, $5 million in their accounts, creditors are still short $9.99+ billion. What value is there in that, apart from the moralizing?

> We would probably live in a better world, if it did.

The separation of 'natural' person [1] from legal persons[2] dates back to the Middle Ages and perhaps even Ancient Rome.[3]

It is how town/city charters were structured (the town is a legal person made of its inhabitants), as well as Medieval guilds (modern unions), universities,[4] etc.

Breaking down the legal separation could effect all of these legal entities.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_person

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person

[3] https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aah_journal/vol10/iss1/5/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University#Medieval_Europe

No, it's like saying you the employee are a separate entity from the company you work for. To say that Boeing is increasing profits suggests that they are raising prices, doing more business, and/or cutting costs. The article linked by the person you're replying to posits that airlines are actively weakening their own financial positions to increase leverage for shareholders, which is a different thing.

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