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Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

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Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#211

Post by maxxxxx »

DominikR wrote: post #194
rbanffy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is the CEO. He should have known 5000 employees were engaging in fraudulent operations.

Wells Fargo has 265.000 employees. A CEO certainly has to make sure that there's internal oversight according to regulations and industry standards but it's not his job to personally go spying on people (try doing that on 265.000 employees) or implement the Wells Fargo Gestapo. If it cannot be proven that he knew about it or encouraged this behaviour then he cannot be held legally accountable. It's like demanding the…

Who can then be held responsible when a big company commits criminal acts? Maybe they should arrest all people who opened those fraudulent accounts. All of them. Maybe that will be a deterrent.

But in general a CEO should have a duty to ask questions why a certain division seems to be doing well. Maybe it has to do with earnings targets that are simply unachievable? I see that in my own company. The top guys are setting shorter and shorter deadlines and in my view the quality of engineering suffers. Top management doesn't technically know when people are cutting corners but they could easily have listened to people that the demands are too high.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#214

Post by GVIrish »

rayiner wrote: post #124
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> opening fraudulent accounts couldn't have accrued any benefit for the bank Actually, in the hearing Senator Warren tried to connect the fraudulent accounts to the stock price, which would have been a direct benefit for the bank: > You squeezed your employees to the breaking point so they would cheat customers and you could drive up the value of your stock and put hundreds of millions of dollars in your own pocket.…

Senator Warren is really good at generating sound bites for people who have no idea about how companies work but are abstractly mad at them. The idea that WF would engage in systematic fraud to goose revenue by about $2.4 million is absurd (or add a bunch of accounts generating only that much in revenue--as if Wall Street analysts won't compute revenue per account).

Wells Fargo was touting its new account metrics to investors in addition to the typical revenue numbers. The idea being that if Wells Fargo is gaining that many new customers and new accounts, it would lead to a lot more revenue in the future.

Wells Fargo pushed its employees so hard to open accounts because there was a benefit to doing so.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#215

Post by GVIrish »

rbanffy wrote: post #141
squid_ca wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an okay opinion, but I'd like to see CEOs criminally charged and go to jail if it's proven that they knew or should have known what was going on.

He is the CEO. He should have known 5000 employees were engaging in fraudulent operations.

Well the head of the Community Banking division should definitely have known. But she's being allowed to retire with her full financial package.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#216

Post by dorfsmay »

empthought wrote: post #190
dorfsmay wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So should pornography be illegal in your opinion? How are drug trial not a form of "rape"? They are not sexual, but you are exposing your body to potential damage in exchange for money. I really don't see how that's different than prostitution, in fact I'll argue that it is worse (we can make prostition less risky, we cannot eliminate risk from drug trial). Some people absolutely have been getting married to be able…

> So should pornography be illegal in your opinion? I think that very much like dangerous drugs and cigarette smoking, attacking the demand side of this issue will be more effective than outright prohibition. > How are drug trial not a form of "rape"? They are not sexual... ... that's how they're not a form of "rape," then. > Some people absolutely have been getting married to be able to get out of poverty, and in my…

> that's a terrible situation as well, but it has nothing to do with how reprehensible it is to purchase sex from a prostitute.

If you take "morality" out of the picture, there is no difference, one is selling a one time sexual act for a negotiated amount, the other is selling a lifetime of sex + work for food and shelter. Both are economical deals. The difference is purely the spin one's willing to put on them, in other word, opinions, we obviously disagree, no point arguing further.

> if a man didn't think that their own personal and sexual gratification was more important than a woman's bodily autonomy

What you describe is rape, where there is no consent. If two adults agree to have sex, society should not be concerned on why, and not interfere.

Different people have different level of hormones and sexual needs. Saying things like "people should be less sexual" is not going to solve any problem.

> The danger to people participating in drug trials is far, far less than the danger to people participating in prostitution.

Because society has made prostitution illegal and is not giving the same level of protection to prostitutes as to other citizens. Prostitution should be regulated and made safe.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#217

Post by GVIrish »

tn13 wrote: post #47
1024core wrote: post #21

Why is it that in such cases, the government reaches for the CEO right away; but when Wells Fargo employees open millions of fraudulent accounts, it's not the CEO's fault? If I were to commit identity theft (which is basically what the WF employees did), then I would be facing jail time; why hasn't anyone in WF been charged with criminal fraud yet? Why not the CEO?

> Why is it that in such cases, the government reaches for the CEO right away; War on sex is new War on Drugs. By going after the CEO they are setting a precedent. They want to make sure no investor would invest into something that challenges government authority. Wells Fargo CEO will not be touched for the same reason why big banks get bailouts, Hillary clinton is not in jail and Obama is still a president despite k…

> Hillary clinton is not in jail

Ugh not this again. Hillary is not in jail because her actions did not rise to the level of criminal prosecution. Look at General Petraeus. He willfully gave highly classified material to his mistress. He got a plea deal and didn't serve any time. So how is it that Clinton who did not intentionally divulge classified material nor put an authorized server on the classified network, now deserves to be punished more harshly than Petraeus? That doesn't make any sense.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#218

Post by croon »

empthought wrote: post #207
croon wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The purchase of sex inherently demeans and degrades another human being because it places one's own sexual gratification over another person's bodily autonomy. I'm a contractor, and I get to choose my clients. If I don't want to work with someone, I don't. Why would it be "inherently" demeaning in sex work, if they got to choose their clients and there were better protection and regulation? Why is it an implementat…

HN comments really don't do justice to the answer to this question, please consider http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0009/000913/091355mb.pdf TL;DR no prostitute can "choose" a john that isn't going to sexually exploit her (and thus violate her human rights) because that's the nature of purchasing sex. A direct quote TL;DR Does the 'right to prostitute' exist?' Clearly prostitution cannot exist as a right because it…

You're arguing on the premise that someone can dictate someone elses values on human rights. Which I would argue is a worse violation.

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#219

Post by DominikR »

maxxxxx wrote: post #211
DominikR wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wells Fargo has 265.000 employees. A CEO certainly has to make sure that there's internal oversight according to regulations and industry standards but it's not his job to personally go spying on people (try doing that on 265.000 employees) or implement the Wells Fargo Gestapo. If it cannot be proven that he knew about it or encouraged this behaviour then he cannot be held legally accountable. It's like demanding the…

Who can then be held responsible when a big company commits criminal acts? Maybe they should arrest all people who opened those fraudulent accounts. All of them. Maybe that will be a deterrent. But in general a CEO should have a duty to ask questions why a certain division seems to be doing well. Maybe it has to do with earnings targets that are simply unachievable? I see that in my own company. The top guys are sett…

> Who can then be held responsible when a big company commits criminal acts?

My opinion: Anyone who took part in it either knowing it is illegal or even if the person should have known it is illegal considering his/her position.

Same goes for persons that didn't necessarily know about it but acted negligent or ignored standard procedures that are in place to prevent such a thing.

> But in general a CEO should have a duty to ask questions why a certain division seems to be doing well

Could be negligence, I don't know the specifics here. If it was then he has to be held accountable. But his head might roll in the end regardlessly as people always need a scapegoat, no matter if it's his fault or not. Yet when the government takes action it should not do so just to punish a scapegoat, they should punish because the person broke a law. (if the shareholders fire him even though it's not his fault I couldn't care less, it's their investment and they do not have to act rationally if they want to)

Re: Backpage Raided, CEO Arrested on Sex-Trafficking Charges

#220

Post by empthought »

croon wrote: post #218
empthought wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN comments really don't do justice to the answer to this question, please consider http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0009/000913/091355mb.pdf TL;DR no prostitute can "choose" a john that isn't going to sexually exploit her (and thus violate her human rights) because that's the nature of purchasing sex. A direct quote TL;DR Does the 'right to prostitute' exist?' Clearly prostitution cannot exist as a right because it…

You're arguing on the premise that someone can dictate someone elses values on human rights. Which I would argue is a worse violation.

OK, in that case we had no right to prosecute the Holocaust, and saying that we did is a worse violation than the Holocaust...
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