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Comment by jordanb | Hacker News Reader

The upside is that executives are cowards (also there's no way in hell I'm going to prison for my employer and most people I know feel the same) so even one high profile successful prosecution will have enormous deterrance effect.

There is this despondent feeling among most people that the law no longer applies to the powerful and we watch the behave with ever more brazenness. The saving grace is the amount of pushback needed to put them back in line is very small. Once they see any consequences for their actions they will fall in line.

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Generally I agree but I think the pushback needs to be a bit larger than you suggest.

Over the last 25 years, we’ve become more tolerant to larger leeway for those of certain societal status. A relatively large whiplash must happen to course correct the general behavior, in my opinion.

> "A relatively large whiplash must happen to course correct the general behavior, in my opinion."

Indeed. Someone (or a couple few well-known someones) in positions of real "power" need to do some real prison time in a real prison for their massive lawbreaking and abuses of power before they'll take the situation somewhat seriously.

A LOT imo.

If you make it clear that even a little slip up of fraud will be at least 1 year in prison and huge fines, I think it would work wonders.

Tough on crime policies don't really work for petty crime, because people are desperate. But rich people have so much to lose that they wouldn't risk it.

> But rich people have so much to lose that they wouldn't risk it.

Ponzi schemes are still a regular thing despite Madoff being sentenced to 150 years behind bars. They're just relabeled as "cryptocurrencies" these days.

> we’ve become more tolerant

We've become more powerless, you mean. The government has become more tolerant.

> There is this despondent feeling among most people that the law no longer applies to the powerful

It's less of a feeling and more of a repeatedly demonstrated reality. It shouldn't be that way, but most of the time it is. I'd love for that to change, but I can't fault people for not expecting it to happen any time soon.

> Once they see any consequences for their actions they will fall in line.

I would wager that idea crossed the mind of Luigi Mangione.

It will take more than a slap on the hand from the court to change anything.

I think cowards is the wrong word - more like opportunists. Like you said, almost no one wants to go to jail for "shareholder value" or a 10% bonus.

The coward part was to stress his later point that they'll all fall in line like a herd of animals.

> almost no one wants to go to jail for "shareholder value" or a 10% bonus.

Almost no-one gets that choice.

The choose a risk of going to jail for a more likely bonus.

But they don’t, because there is no risk. If there was, many wouldn’t take it

Many =/= all.

> most people that the law no longer applies to the powerful

gee, I wonder why! you now have POTUS openly defying the direct orders from the highest court. That's so much further past some corp executive committing a crime that hasn't even gone to trial yet.

> Once they see any consequences for their actions they will fall in line.

We're seeing this with just how fast and ruthless many executives were after Trump won the election, actually. The behavior of some of these people is best described as "swearing fealty": donations to Trump's circle, dismantling of anything remotely smelling as "DEI" instead of standing up for what was sold as "core values" over the last years, compliance instead of resistance (just recently Bezos in the Amazon tariff pricing issue, or the "resignation" of 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens so that the Trump admin doesn't impede a corporate merger).

We've been asking ourselves "wtf are the Russian oligarchs doing" after Putin invaded Ukraine, and now we're seeing just the same compliance from our own oligarchs.

>We've been asking ourselves "wtf are the Russian oligarchs doing"

No, we have not. There is no oligarchs in Russia, money has no political subjectivity in Russia, and they are owned by those whom Putin put in charge for this.

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