Benjamin Franklin (with a hint of Einstein) :p
No, this is a meme that needs to die. Please link examples where profits from a specific activity did not outsize the profit from that activity.
People get confused when some international massive company made a profit overall after some big fine and think the illegal thing was therefore profitable. This is never the case and the fines drastically exceed the profit from the specific activity (every country levying fines structures them explicitly this way).
BP absolutely did not make a profit on the deep water horizon.
>all fossil fuel using companies are participating in this exercise in real-time today
Red herring in a discussion about fraud. This is purely because governments don’t charge for CO2 (quite bafflingly).
>Corporate fraud never leads to meaningful punishment of the executives
Enron, Madoff, Theranos, Worldcom, Tyco, Qwest, Rite Aid… the list goes on.
Can't you think of time and again examples of this? For instance, all fossil fuel using companies are participating in this exercise in real-time today; they certainly are not paying anything for the massive pollution damage they are creating. Corporate fraud never leads to meaningful punishment of the executives and they often make a profit even after "punishment".