Even if you like their stuff, find them useful and valuable, it's hard to abstract away the behavior. At some point it is bound to hurt you as well...
“I find all of this so weird because of how it elevates finance. [Various cases] imply that we are not entitled to be protected from pollution as citizens, or as humans. [Another] implies that we are not entitled to be told the truth as citizens. (Which: is true!) Rather, in each case, we are only entitled to be protected from lies as shareholders. The great harm of pollution, or of political dishonesty, is that it might lower the share prices of the companies we own.”
It's amazing how badly customers are willing to be treated but at the same time, you're not obliged to buy a service so I can't really rant too much.
Edit : Found the quote and unironically it's credited as an American Proverb.
> If you owe the bank a hundred thousand dollars, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank a hundred million dollars, you own the bank. — American Proverb.
[0]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-retailers-cite-rising-theft-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_theft
Actually it turns out fraud and white collar crime takes more out of the American economy.
EDIT: I'm going to cast more suspicion on the FBI graph. According to a 2022 report[0], the number of robbery offenses reported in 2018 was 1691 cases. The median loss being about $2k. Doing some caveman-math, that's about $3B lost to robbery in 2018. Unless we went through some insane spike of lawlessness between 2012 and 2018, I don't see how $340m in 2012 jumps to $3B in 2018.
[0]: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu...
Why not compare recovered to recovered, which are pretty close to each other? https://hayesinternational.com/news/annual-retail-theft-surv...
That business appears to steal as much from their workers as criminal theft rings surely is kind of a big deal (based on the matching ACTUAL recovery numbers).
That's 0.01% -- one percent of one percent. That's a background noise level, or simple error rate level, or rounding error level. And because of our conservative assumptions, over those three years GDP is actually maybe 3x higher and the reported wage theft per year maybe 20% of the figure used, so it's more like approx 0.002%.
If wage theft is "just normal business in the US" it's not a very big business!
Should we not care about them as they are such a small part of gdp?
Wage theft is about $20b a year.
Comparing wages with GDP in this context doesn't prove anything.
https://hayesinternational.com/news/annual-retail-theft-surv...
But I don't know about the strict financial analysis. I'm pretty sure it would tell us to have negative care about a serial killer that targets the homeless.
If an employee completes all the work assigned to them and passes performance reviews then what you're describing is a suboptimal use of the employees on the part of the employer.
I don't think this was implied in their statement?
The only way employees can steal is if they steal time, like clocking in then going home. Salary employees are not paid by time, so they cannot steal time. Employers want to have their cake and eat it too - they want to consider salary employees not time based when it comes to OT, but when it comes to day-to-day they DO want them to be considered time-based. Not how it works. Your workers being bad at their job is not theft, it's just incompetence.
It's a knife that cuts both ways. If companies attempting to maximally exploit their employee's time is wage theft, so too is an employee's attempt to get a paycheck without doing work.
Me spending 5 minutes filling up my water is not stealing. Me taking a nice 15 minute walk is also not stealing. Presumably you're going to draw the line somewhere, but the implication of salary jobs is that productivity is not linear.
Me spending an extra hour working on something does not translate into an extra unit of work done. Me taking that 15 minute walk doesn't translate to 1/4th less unit of work, either. In fact, it might translate to 1 extra unit of work done. Look at that, I am now bending time into the negative. Human productivity is complicated, and we're not assembly line workers.
Also, even the concept of "less work" is dubious. The level of work being done varies from person to person, and nobody actually knows what the minimum is. Everybody should be optimizing for the minimum work necessary to get their pay, because that's just obvious. No hourly worker is going to spend even 1 minute working off the clock. But alas, we have no clock, and we're just kind of... estimating... what level of work really needs to be done, and then calculating that in with our own levels of accomplishment we want, and then convenience. I might work a bit extra to find a nice stopping point, or because I really want to conquer a bug.
If a worker decides to work less than whatever their current level of work is, and they don't get fired or even reprimanded, I have to conclude they were previously working above the level of work expected of them. Which means that, overall, not only is this worker not stealing, they've actually been giving.
However, the point still remains! Moving the goalposts--or trying to motte-and-bailey the difference between salaried and hourly--is just intellectually dishonest, and doesn't really counter my argument at all.
If you want to refer to salaried employees specifically, then yes, "less work" means "consistently getting less done than is asked for on the timescale expected of you". But my argument still holds! This is something I've personally witnessed a handful of co-workers do. You're not wrong that it's up to employers to measure, but part of that measurement relies on trust between the employee and employer.
What you're implicitly arguing for is a complete lack of trust, which leads to an entirely different set of workplace problems
This is already the current situation. This is why your computer is monitored and you badge in.
And, on the topic of badging in, the reason we do this is because measuring output is hard, and company's are lazy. Measuring time is easy, so they just use that as a proxy for output.
That's why a good worker being 15 minutes late every day will eventually get fired, but a bad worker sitting around on his phone will not.
Is this is a good way to measure output? Of course not, it's pretty much the most naive and simplistic way you can do it. But it's the most popular method chosen, so, here we are.
Look, getting less work done than is expected of you relies on knowing that expectation, which you don't. Has it occurred to you that those "stealing" might just legitimately think that they ARE doing what's expected of them? I mean, they're doing it... and they're employed... so what's the expectation?
At the end of the day it would be nice to all hold hands and sing kumbaya. But ultimately, we are all trying to do the least stuff we need to do to get results. Companies are putting in the absolute least amount of effort to measuring performance, and employees are putting in the least effort to get their job done. So, it seems fair to me, and I don't think anyone is stealing.
But it's not, and I'm not?
I haven't ever worked under these conditions, and I've worked a handful of jobs over close to 20 years. I'm always confused when people like yourself make these sweeping statements, given I've never once encountered them.
I know I haven't encountered them because I've witnessed coworkers at a few of those jobs do fuck all all day and never get in trouble for it. Their computers clearly weren't being monitored, because they used them to work on personal projects all day.
> That's why a good worker being 15 minutes late every day will eventually get fired, but a bad worker sitting around on his phone will not.
I've had coworkers very infrequently show up to work and just "work from home" while still getting nothing done, so again, my lived experience contradicts your absolute statements? Maybe I'm just not working the same kinds of jobs you are?
> Is this is a good way to measure output? Of course not, it's pretty much the most naive and simplistic way you can do it. But it's the most popular method chosen, so, here we are.
Every place I've worked has measured output in terms of concrete objectives being achieved in "reasonable" timeframes. "Reasonable" is always highly subjective, and I've definitely been the one who hasn't gotten things done within initial estimates because it turned out here there be dragons or some such. I've generally had good managers who understand the work, and are technical enough to understand why it sometimes takes longer than expected.
The coworkers I've seen fired for poor performance were the ones who consistently didn't get things done within their own estimates, and were consistently unable to provide good rationale for why. The ones I've seen who have done fuck all and gotten away with it were the ones especially good at coming up with plausible reasons for the endless delays, and were otherwise on good terms with their managers (or had less technically managers who were easier to hoodwink). Others took the tactic of never taking on solo work, and then always "pairing" on everything (but never actually contributing any real work).
> Look, getting less work done than is expected of you relies on knowing that expectation, which you don't. Has it occurred to you that those "stealing" might just legitimately think that they ARE doing what's expected of them? I mean, they're doing it... and they're employed... so what's the expectation?
Seems to me you are arguing in favor of people doing nothing and getting paid for it? I mean, isn't that what you're saying here?
That's literally stealing, is it not? Sure, they might be getting away with it, but people steal and get away with it all the time, but that doesn't make it right.
You're essentially making the argument that "if you can get away with theft, it's not theft," which really says a lot more about you than it does about me.
> At the end of the day it would be nice to all hold hands and sing kumbaya. But ultimately, we are all trying to do the least stuff we need to do to get results. Companies are putting in the absolute least amount of effort to measuring performance, and employees are putting in the least effort to get their job done. So, it seems fair to me, and I don't think anyone is stealing.
Yeah, no, this has never been the case for any of the places I've worked, and I find it hard to believe I've just "gotten lucky". I think you're just spewing bullshit that isn't actually reflective of reality. It might be true for some companies, but it's absolutely untrue as a general rule, which is what you're putting forth here.
No, that's not at all the argument I'm making. I'm making the argument that being a poor worker is not theft because it cannot be. Because theft requires you stealing something, and salary employees cannot steal time because they are not paid by time.
> I think you're just spewing bullshit that isn't actually reflective of reality
This has been the case everywhere I've been employed and has also been the case with everyone I know.
Look, I don't really care if you think your company is different and I'm certainly not going to try to convince you that your experience isn't real. That's not productive.
All I'm saying is, if we have a problem where workers aren't doing a good job, that's a measuring problem. Your company figured out the measuring problem. Congratulations! Most haven't, which is why they have so many shitty workers. They just need to put in more effort into measurement.
Ultimately the company is the sole entity responsible for setting expectations. If they're letting people get away with less work, then they're signalling "what you're doing is okay and you should keep doing it". I'm not going to fault random workers who have zero leverage or control in anything because their company and managers decided to be lazy and irresponsible.
You want to measure performance? Yeah, that takes effort and knowledge. Putting in an HID reader isn't gonna cut it.
It's not just a "bad management" issue, and trying to blame it entirely on the company is just as bullshit as blaming it entirely on the worker.
The criterion is very clear for the point I'm making. Either you completed the work that was assigned or you didn't.
Telling an employee to clock out and keep working is a labor law violation, that's not just a civil matter. It happens, but often with the agreement of the employee. I.e. "I know you're about to hit overtime, so if you clock out I'll give you cash, otherwise I have to send you home."
And the "agreement" of the employee is utterly meaningless because it's not a negotiation between equals. Coercion is more accurate.
> labor law violation, that's not just a civil matter
So people go to jail over it? It goes on their criminal record and comes up in background checks?
> I'll give you cash
This part sounds like pure fantasy. And the cash would be less than overtime pay (otherwise why even make the offer) so it's still wage theft.
Yes, but on what planet?
Two industries that typically pay significantly less than a living wage and which have a reputation for treating their employees like absolute dirt.
Would you respect your employer if they didn’t respect you?
It’s mutual distain between employee and employer.
There is an asymmetry in this relationship however where employees don't practically have recourse when their employers steal from them.
But at least he's there for a bit
Seriously, if people are framing this in terms of "what's good for industry" vs "what is the right thing to do", the crooks have already won and your national industry has already lost.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgkell/2022/12/05/from-emiss...
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/a2c7ca01-461c-4dc2-8006-ec1d6b61a...
Yeah, they're actually not doing well at all right now.
And the politicians which sanctioned these special diesel tests were not even named. Nor all the other countries who also choose the European Standard (not testing diesel engines) over the US Standard.
As early as the late 90's tuners offered features where doing something with the cruise control buttonss which would switch the engine computer back to stock programming to pass emissions, run on cheaper gas, or fool the dealer if it went in for service. How does everyone think they were able to do stuff like that without any hardware mods?
Oh, and all the car companies were self-reporting their CO2 emissions in the EU for decades. When EU regulators actually got around to testing cars, shockigly, the companies were lying.
It's basically accepted at this point that Telsa lies about their range and efficiency numbers, and recently there's evidence they have been fucking with people's odometers for the purpose of getting them out of warranty quicker.
Ferrari have all sorts of terms and prohibitions on things journalists can't do with their cars - one being track lap time testing. Why? Because they got caught by Top Gear specially modifying their cars for the Top Gear test circuit, as well as using tires that aren't on the production vehicles - and when Top Gear called them out, Ferrari permanently banned them *and have gone so far as to prohibit Ferrari owners from allowing Top Gear staff access to the owner's vehicles for testing, under threat of being blacklisted. Now that they've been caught cheating, they simply won't allow anyone to test their cars versus anyone else's.
The wheel keeps on turning.
They can buy a brand new truck sans engine and drop some terribly polluting piece of crap from several decades ago and bypass all modern emissions regulations.
The SCR/EGR/DPF regime that's been forced upon truck mfrs is at the ragged edge of reliability and maintainability, not to mention its effects on fuel use. So that regulators who've never heard of Pareto optimization can pursue cutting the final 1% of the emissions that a truck from the 1960s would have.
One badly-tuned mid-80s F700 can produce more particulates in a day than a brand-new diesel truck will in its lifetime, but somehow, the priority is not making it easier for the owners of forty-year-old equipment to update to the standard of...2004, but rather to decrease the number of milligrams per tank (at $infinity cost) of soot that a brand-new engine is producing.
Just look at the hole the US has dug for itself when it stopped producing civilian sea-ships, nowadays the cost of producing or even repairing its war-oriented sea-ships is way too high. And not only that, but it doesn't have the people with the knowhow to build those ships anymore, no matter the money thrown at the problem.
Western Europe has certainly lost the capability of making even artillery shells at scale, let alone tank tracks, just look where we're at it now.
> as military technology typically comes first before any civilian application.
Diesel himself wasn't involved in any military thing, as far as I know, so I think you're wrong on that one.
The thing is that without a strong civilian industrial base focused on things adjacent to warfare (like the steel industry when it comes to building ships or artillery shells) any big power is going to come very short-handed in the next big war (assuming the war doesn't get nuclear, which is another discussion). So, if your country can't make diesel engines at scale, for whatever reason, then you can say goodbye to your logistics lines because you need lots and lots of trucks for said logistics as part of a continental war, i.e. forget the tanks.
Must be due to the lack of demand for civilian artillery shells, right?
Otherwise good point.
Speaking from personal experience with a 2023 Chevy Duramax 3500, and a friend with a similar 3/4 ton Powerstroke.
Mercedes don't have an easy filter, but they do have some cars available with diesel engines, e.g. C-Class.
Diesel is now down to 9.5% of new cars sold in Europe (Q1 2025), less than full EVs ([2]).
[1] https://www.bmw.co.uk/en/all-models.html
[2] https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...
It does seem like diesel is trending lower, but it's not gone yet, regardless whether you think that is a good thing or not.
In any case, my point was this:
> it would be impossible to create diesel engines which would comply with enviromental standards
is false. Which it is.
Or multiple car manufacturers are still cheating, I guess we must consider the possibility.
Compare that to e.g. Chevrolet, which tried - and failed - to get a foothold in Europe. The failure was mostly them not understanding the local market.
Also it overlapped a lot with Opel which a much more successful brand in Europe. Basically it was an off-brand/cheap Opel, which wasn't exactly doing that great itself...
It's funny how the Clinton admin forced a golden egg into GM's hands (the EV1) and GM tossed it away in disgust when Bush was elected.
Absolutely not "impossible" FFS, VW was cheating to avoid using a proper adblue system, which would have been perfectly sufficient. They could also have used a particulate filter and burn off scheme like some trucks but that would require significant engineering and probably doesn't work as well with a small diesel engine.
Orrrrrr they could have just done what the "cheat" mapping did: Run less lean. The entire point of cheating was to run very lean to make artificially high fuel efficiency figures. The cheat map for emissions would then run richer to kill off nox emissions.
I genuinely believe they still "cheat" somewhat. My 2018 GTI has a 2L turbo engine. The MK7 GTIs were the first to be EPA emissions rated at 89 octane gas, even though the power figures are still recorded using 91 octane gas. Previous GTI engines were EPA rated with 91 octane gas.
My tinfoil hat theory is that they run EPA tests on 89 octane so that it runs rich and reduces combustion temp, reducing nox emissions. Using higher octane fuel runs much leaner, and demonstrably produces better miles per gallon. They purposely chose to advertise a lower miles per gallon figure because, IMO, they couldn't pass emissions with the leaner burning 91 octane. Notably, low RPM (and emissions testing RPM) performance is utter garbage with 89 octane fuel, and the car becomes very stall happy, when at 91 octane it is very difficult to stall.
US emissions standards don’t allow some things that euro6+ does, and visa versa.
There is an effort to make them overlap to make it easier to meet both standards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#U...
The emission limits being for ULEV vehicles, I don't think I have seen a ULEV truck - indeed California classifies most under the LEV banner.
None of this is to change the point around nitrous oxide emissions - the environment doesn't care whether it came from a VW TDI or a F350, just the amount.
But it is also far far easier to implement such low emission standards in the US because we just don't really use diesel like that.
And when you get to the heavy duty pickups (F250, F350, etc.), then most of that goes out of the window.
VW has international sales, and OP's implication might've been that Germany has a national interest in VW being competitive.
Well yes, I of course meant the entire EU+UK market. Regardless besides US and a handful of other countries VW is hardly competing that much with any American car companies anywhere (besides Tesla).
American car makers are still struggling a lot more in relative market share terms (GM+Ford+Tesla barely had over 33% in 2024 in the US). While VW alone had 26% in EU/UK/EFTA (just German companies have 39% of the entire market there)
In particular, terroristic violence almost always incites spiteful reaction against the perpetrators and anyone associated with them.
We're talking about sociopaths, not people like you and me.
How much of a percentage that is on that level, we can guess.
People like Carnegie built 1500 public libraries because he knew the game. He knew that his position as part of the ultra-wealthy made him a target, and he had to toe a line. He need to maximize exploitation but not too much, so as to not cause a stir. He did a pretty good job. Some people didn't do such a good job - we don't hear about them because they and their families were murdered.
Rich people today are much safer, mostly due to people being better people and technology.
In this case not only were the managers personally held liable, the company itself also had to pay vast amounts of compensation to customers. Not only in Germany or the EU, but also to US customers.
Yes but not all of them. The top one is still evading justice.
Wirecard CEO has been arrested since 2020, will probably sit for another 10 years.
Sending A Letter To The PM | Yes Minister | BBC Comedy Greats
It differs in that mens rea is the legal concept of a culpable state of mind, and negligence is one example. More fully, a crime is generally defined by a prohibited act (actua reus) and a wrongful state of mind (mens rea), though there are strict liability crimes with no mens rea required.
For, say, murder (in common law, specific statutory schemes may diverge from this somewhat), the actus reus is homicide, and the mens rea is “malice aforethought”.
While “malice aforethought” is sui generis and seen only in murder, the common kinds of mens rea used in defining crimes, in descending order of the severity with which they are usually treated, are intent, recklessness, and negligence. (The same mental states are relevant in tort liability, though strict liability in tort is more common, and the civil and criminal definitions of negligence, particularly, are somewhat different.)
The question this is this one person (or small group) operating against their instructions, or is it the CEO encouraging people to cheat? That can be a hard question, but we want CEOs to think if I do "enough" (whatever that is) to ensure we obey the law I'm okay and thus I want to ensure enough is done. There are always crooks in the world, we want to ensure they are not encourged. If the CEO is always at fault their thought is likely to go to how can I ensure that tracks are covered so they nobody can be convicted.
Whether he knew or nit is a matter for courst, but in any case he is responsible too. Punish crooks harsh and visibly, reward honesty and good engineering massively and also visibly and company as a whole will act accordingly. We dont talk about a single guy hacking some firmware build, but a well known company culture.
Or the politicians who wrote into law to able to use such a cheating device?
That would be 5 CEO's plus at least 2 german politicians, plus 20 more politicians in all other countries which selected this cheating EU standard.
Bosh's software is tunable to silly extents to avoid expensive vehicle testing as testing is tied to binaries due to bad processes.
You can more or less make a different program by changing 'parameters'.
I really think it might be unfortunate if this would extend into a crusade versus general computing.
Companies and the concept of limited liability exists to make innovation possible. No one will start a startup knowing they will have their house confiscated and go to prison if it fails. And, because majority of money businessmen make is the stock worth, company being insolvent and thus it's stock losing all value is in itself a punishment heavy enough for the founders.
What does that have to do with anything? We're not discussing a case of VW making bad business decisions and losing money.
If you start a company and break the law and harm people, you should have your house confiscated and/or go to prison. If you can't take this responsibility, just don't start the startup, that's perfect.
You are creating confusion about the subject being discussed in order to defend criminals.
"You see, I didn't steal your money, the company I ran stole your money, but that's actually on you because you didn't read the fine print I put in the contract you signed. And don't worry, justice was served, the company got punished and is now insolvent. Now watch this drive *swings golf club*"
This is a great example. Why is this emissions fakery illegal? Ultimately it’s because pollution kills people. Are these people going to prison for killing people? Not exactly. They’re going to prison for killing too many people. If they had stayed within the limits, they’d still be killing people, just not as many, and it would be 100% legal.
Stab a person in the lungs, go to jail. Kill people by putting toxins into their lungs, well, just stay under this limit.
Walk out the door with a $10 item you didn’t pay for, crime. Fail to pay your worker $1,000 that they earned, that’s a civil matter. Worst case you’ll have to pay a penalty.
Polluting is not a "rich person" crime. It's very much something normal/poor people do a lot, too. It's common for individuals to burn leaves. It's less common, but also an active problem, for them to burn piles of trash (including plastic, tires, etc.)
As an individual, I'm allowed to do a certain amount of pollution (some because it's legal, some because it's unenforced), and will get fined if I do too much, same as the corporation.
Large polluters don’t have that excuse. I recall that diesel hate alone resulted in dozens or hundreds of excess deaths. How many people do compliant cars kill? How many does a coal power plant kill? And all 100% legal.
Edward, Lord Thurlow c.1850
This isn’t how it works.
A corporation can do pretty much anything. Steal, lie, poison communities, give people HIV. Anything.
No, it isn’t. Limited liability does not shield executives from criminal prosecution. If an LLC defrauds another party, the perpetrators are both criminally and civilly liable; this is true in every common law country you can think of. Limited liability corporations enjoy a limitation of civil liability (i.e. the shareholders cannot be held liable for more than the company is worth). This limitation is not exhaustive in the case of fraud or criminal negligence. In practice it is of course possible that people “get away with” both, but that is a failing of law enforcement, not limited liability itself.
The latter could be even more disasterous long term. Nobody wants to go out to dinner with cannibals or show up at the stores for fear of being eaten. Likewise being known as an expropriating country, you may as well go ahead and embargo yourself.
Therefore it's Lower Saxony that owns some parts of Volkswagen.
Audi never owned Volkswagen. Volkswagen has owned Audi since 1964. What is true is that there has been an attempt of Porsche AG (the sports car company, not the capital holding) to take over VW in the late 2000s, but got switcheroo'd and instead taken over by VW.
While Audi does build some engines for VW (especially in the higher-tier sector, which arguably is more of an Audi thing to begin with), VW itself produces engines itself (to name a few, the TSI-, TDI- and TGI-series of engines).
Now, does VW build good cars? It's a hit and miss. I personally drive a New Beetle, and will probably continue to drive it for years, the thing is build like a tank and reliable to a fault. Then you have models that are ... not something I would like to drive.
You've been incorrectly informed.
As reported back in 2018[0], 36 individuals had already received a cumulative jail sentence of 96 years, with still more cases ongoing when this report was written.
[0]: https://www.visir.is/g/20181632401d/36-manns-i-samtals-96-ar...
窃(Steal)国(country)者(people)侯(gets to be the king)
Yes, it is a Chinese idiom.
A. Gellius, "Noctes Atticae", XI, 18, 18.
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Gellius/1...
Similar to Paul Getty's quote, "If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem."
But in this case, it cuts much deeper and darker.
The others are about getting away with something by just making the crime big enough that it's evaluated and handled in a totally different arena.
The bank can still destroy the rest of your life, so you didn't get away with anything (setting aside bankrupcy and how you can actually usually start over, and that may or may not be all that terrible for you).
The banking one is just saying that the bank can not get 100 million from you no matter what they do, because it simply doesn't exist. In that case, everyone still agrees you still owe it and they are entitled to it. You didn't gain anything by going big enough. And it's not really true that it's the banks problem instead of yours. The bank has a problem, but you still also have a problem.
If you owe the bank enough money, you have the power in the relationship in most cases.
If you have any assets, the bank can take them from you.
The thing about renegotiating a loan is you don't have enough assets, but if the bank takes what you do have, you will never be able to repay the loan. I.e. the bank stands to recover more if you are successful than if you are bankrupt.
If you have any assets in the less than a billion dollars range, if you have assets over a billion dollars (which if you have enough of a loan in today's money to match the 100 million quote, you probably have over a billion in assets) then the bank knows its looking at a real fight. Nobody likes a real fight.
People like fights they're guaranteed to win quickly.
Do you think the US would extradit top level FAANG people if they indirectly harmed some foreign country? No way!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Drumm
It took 10 yrs to convict them mind you, and as I understand it they’re all out now.
So, how do you punish everyone fairly? By fining the company for a large amount of money. Shareholders lose their value, employees don't get their raise, and execs won't get their bonus, there is a good chance they get fired too. Companies are for profit, it is even more true for public companies, for which profit is their duty to their shareholders. So hit where it hurts, that is profits.
As for jailing CEOs, what will it bring? Don't forget that a CEO is just an employee, hired by the directors to maximize profits for the shareholders. If the entire company is corrupt, everyone will be more than happy to hire scapegoat CEOs if it can serve their interests. Jailing them will solve nothing, it may even be counter productive as those who are most likely to get that job are people who are ready to risk prison to win big, a crime lord profile.
There are still reasons to jail the CEO, but only if he personally deceived the rest of the company and shareholders, but that is effectively the same as stealing from the company.
If that means a "company" becomes smaller, with more isolated crews run by their own leadership, good.
By punishing those who decided to commit the crime? Indirectly benefiting from somebody's else illegal actions is not a crime (you might be required to pay it back but that's it..).
Generally executives are the ones who benefit the most of these case and then leave the rest of of the company and the shareholders on the hook while they move on or retire.
> and execs won't get their bonus,
What if they already have their bonuses? Generally it might take years for any investigation to conclude, often executives who benefited from it couldn't care less what happens to the company they don't work at anymore anyway.
My evidence for my view is basically pointing at all countries with strong rule of law and institutions having less corrupt systems. In so many countries bribery is just considered "the way things are done". Add robust systems for punishments to those with the most authority instead of blaming some abstract entity and watch as all of a sudden the whole system creaks towards accountability. Hasn't this happened reliably in basically every country that enacted and reliably enforced democratic laws?
So I'm glad finally seeing some repercussions for corporate crime.
We would do well to overhaul the banking system by categorically eliminating usury and much speculative nonsense. It is incredible the amount of rationalization that goes into propping up these morally indefensible practices. Criminalizing them will go a long way to eliminate many legitimized patterns of economic exploitation.
Seems like a pattern honestly.