I dunno, I’m not necessarily a conservative but corporations have been legally considered individual entities since the beginning of US corporate law, so nothing new there. I do believe criminal penalties are way out of wack though. Falsifying a public document in Minnesota can get you 7 years even though no one was harmed. I guess it just depends on the actual damage that was done and how many died in the process. But I’ve never been a big fan of locking people up as “punishment” when other options exist. I do believe in locking people up to “protect the public” though, always. So the question is how would the public be served by spending $40K a year locking VW execs up? Are they worse than drug pushers that we are releasing?
Let’s see . . .
a guy robs a liquor store and gets several years in prison
a white collar criminal enriches himself to the tune of several million dollars, and quite possibly NOTHING happens
Never mind that his actions have caused financial devastation to lots of people
What’s wrong with this picture?
1 Like
In the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Mikado there is a song called “Make the punishment fit the crime” In 19th Century imperial Japan that often meant decapitation.
Some year ago in a Detroit suburb,there was a metal plating shop which dumped its waste right into the sewers, something not only illegal but potentially lethal, as we are now finding out in Flint Michigan.
The owner was convicted and put in jail. I think that was the right thing to do. During that time another guy who recycled car batteries severely contaminated the air and soil, and a nearby school had to be shut down till the place was cleaned up. He was fined, declared bankruptcy and promptly stated up again in an other jurisdiction 500 miles away!.
I dunno, I'm not necessarily a conservative but corporations have been legally considered individual entities since the beginning of US corporate law, so nothing new there.
Ah yea…it’s very new. Corporations aren’t mentioned in the constitution…thus leaving it to the courts to determine what rights they have or don’t have. They were never granted the same rights as citizens…but they were brought much closer in 2014.
So if as you say they are people (which I think is a perversion of our constitution)…then you should be in 100% agreement that when they commit a crime ( say murder…they should be treated in the courts the same as individuals). Which obviously is NOT the case. How do you MURDER 28 people through neglect and get the MAX of ONE YEAR in prison. To make this car related… if you neglect to get your brakes fixed and drive your car and when you can’t stop and kill someone…you can go to prison for 20 years. Obviously there’s a huge disconnect between rights of individuals and rights of corporations.
You’re talking about whether or not a corporation can make political contributions like an individual. That’s a little different. A corporation is a limited liability entity which means that share holders have liability limited to their shares. Criminal charges are a whole different matter. To prosecute board members or executives or employees, you have to have some criminal charge to make. Don’t get mad at me, I didn’t make the laws but you’ll have a hard time making a murder charge stick for safety violations or for not fixing your brakes which results in death. And you’d better believe that these folks are wide open as far as liability is concerned. They are heavily insured against errors and omissions and are sued all the time. But criminal charges are a whole different matter. Put a computer together and it blows up because the wrong part was used and kills someone. Is that murder? Likely not, otherwise people would be afraid to do much of anything.
You're talking about whether or not a corporation can make political contributions like an individual.
No I’m not. Never made any remark regarding that one way or the other.
A corporation is a limited liability entity which means that share holders have liability limited to their shares.
I own stock in several corporations…NEVER EVER have I been asked what direction the company should take on it’s political contributions. Those decisions are made by an extremely small number of people in the company. And lets not forget about private corporations (which is the vast majority).
. Don't get mad at me, I didn't make the laws but you'll have a hard time making a murder charge stick for safety violations or for not fixing your brakes which results in death.
Absolutely not. In fact I know of at least two separate cases where it did happen. And I know of another case where the driver drove to work on three wheels…and crashed while on route killing 2 people…It’s called negligent homicide. Look it up. What’s hard to prove is the person driving the car with faulty brakes actually knew they were faulty but drove anyways.
And you'd better believe that these folks are wide open as far as liability is concerned.
Only if you have any assets to loose. You don’t own any property or have any savings or any stock you are considered by the courts to be judgement proof.
Put a computer together and it blows up because the wrong part was used and kills someone. Is that murder?
Of course not…never said anything like that would be murder. HOWEVER put a computer together knowing that there’s a high probably it might blow up during normal operation and you didn’t do anything to prevent it…damn right that’s negligent homicide.
There have been cases in the past where corporations have been charged with negligent homicide…but they are extremely rare. All too rare. Start bring more changes and executives start heading to prison…and we may see corporations start behaving as better citizens.
OK, we’re just splitting hairs and mixing terms. There’s murder 1, 2, and 3, and there’s homicide, negligent homicide, manslaughter, etc. They all result in someone being killed but not charged as murder. Just because you own stock, they aren’t going to ask you if they can make a political contribution or not. They aren’t going to ask you when they restock materials either. That’s what they have boards and execs for.
Exactly. Thanks for proving my point. Those decisions are not made by rhe collective will of the stock holders…but by a few selected few and their political viewswhich in many cases differ from the collection.