Comment by sgnelson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sgnelson | Hacker News Reader

I thought this was going to be an article on how there are many American businesses that are breaking laws left and right, buying congressmen and regulators, etc. Yet these businesses seem to continuously get away with these crimes (robo-signing to literally steal people's homes away anyone?), with nothing but a minor slap on the hand (even BofA's massive $17 billion fine is nothing compared to their profits over a few years)

I was disappointed. Oh poor American businesses, woe to them in this period of constantly increasing profits and overpaid executives who make money on the backs of the workers and their stagnant wages. How so unfair. Maybe these businesses should move to a better business climate, like Somalia or Russia. I'm sure it'd be impossible for anyone else to create a similar to (I don't know, just spouting nonsense here) business.

Reading the examples, I had a hard time determining that the article was not being sarcastic. (Oil spills, violation of trade embargo on genocidal regimes, lying to investors, etc.)

The point isn't that the outcome was wrong, but that it should have been achieved in court, not in settlement.

What, you think every business in the US is General Electric?

It's exactly the opposite. GE can deal with the burden that comes with an overbearing State.

There are 23 million businesses in the US, 95% of which are very small businesses run by individuals. They suffer from the burden of too many laws and regulations as well - and a lot more so than the giant corporations.

Isn't that an example of what the article is about?

BigCo does something (presumably) illegal --> BigCo gets investigated by regulators --> BigCo settles out-of-court without admitting anything.

If everything's illegal and traditionally paid off out-of-court, things that are actually harmful/wrong don't get treated any worse than things that are more questionable.

That's what it's about, but their proposed remedy is mostly reducing the number of laws and reducing the number of criminal investigations against companies. You or I might see these out-of-court settlements as a symptom of a problem with companies that can get away with (sometimes literal) murder, whereas they seem to see them as a symptom of a system that punishes companies unjustly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com