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Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

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Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there another rebuttal to Rayiner you might have that would be persuasive to someone who is not sympathetic to ancap philosophy?

The idea that rights are the sole domain of individuals and that groups (whether constituted as states or otherwise) have powers, but not rights (powers which are legitimate only so far as they extend from and do not contradict individual rights), is fundamental to classical liberalism, not a belief unique to those “sympathetic to ancap philosophy”.

No, you said "Communities have the legitimate power to do what you describe so long as no individual rights are violated." That is not in fact a principle of classical liberalism, which favors individual rights but is not controlled by them. American conservatism draws from classical liberalism, for instance.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#212
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s shocking nobody is going to jail in relation to a fraud guilty plea. They are though. From the justice.gov article: "Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI’s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius also instructed employees to violate other testing standards, such as increasing the speed of the testing ma…

I wonder how a testing supervisor could be motivated to falsify the tests?

this is a good question everybody seems to ignore?

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#213
post #93

SpaceX also had failed a mission due to a 3rd party strut failing the spec. > The strut that we believe failed was designed and material certified to handle 10,000 lbs of force, but failed at 2,000 lbs, a five-fold difference. https://www.spacex.com/news/2015/07/20/crs-7-investigation-u...

That is a more charitable explanation than the one from NASA's independent review team. They categorized the problem as a design flaw since SpaceX didn't take into account the part manufacturer's recommended safety margin and other limitations

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#214
post #99
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s shocking nobody is going to jail in relation to a fraud guilty plea. They are though. From the justice.gov article: "Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI’s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius also instructed employees to violate other testing standards, such as increasing the speed of the testing ma…

>because it isn't a human. This is especially interesting in the context of corporate personhood[1]. You can't send a corporation to jail, but you can disband it entirely, or prevent it from operating. A lot of the practical solutions try to leave badly behaving company operating, though, since if we shut them down there is a lot of collateral damage in the form of lost productivity in the economy and lost jobs. IANA…

Well the traditional options for dealing with a criminal corporation are disbanding the corporation, nationalizing it, or fining it.

Fines don't work as well as would be desired, as sometimes it can still be profitable, except for crazy large fines which are basically equivalent to forcibly disbanding the company.

In any case, all three of these tend to hurt the wrong people. They tend to either hurt the shareholders who did nothing wrong (and despite economic theory, have only limited ability to know what really happens inside the company or influence it), or hurts the regular old employees, many of whom will get laid off if massive fines occur, or if the business is forced to closed, and sells off its business units to competitors.

The people with the ability to prevent corporate crimes are most often upper management or the executives. Given how these people are generally compensated, and the demands of the shareholders for maximum profits, most of the incentives don't tilt in favor of them making waves to prevent any corporate crimes they notice are in progress.

In my opinion the correct solution is to recognize that being an executive or upper management in a corporation is a position of public trust, and thus a privilege not a right. Thus when a company commits a significant crime, the upper manager/executives responsible for it should be forced out by the government.

Specifically the courts should have the power to force out a specific executive, upper manager, or board member (as applicable) if: 1. the person was in a position where they knew about the crime (and thus implicit) or ought to have known about the crime (and thus are too incompetent to hold a position of public trust or are practicing willful ignorance) and 2. either had the authority to prevent the crime, or failed to bring the matter to their boss (or the executive with the authority to take actions to prevent the crime, etc).

Furthermore, when this happens the court should have the authority to alter the executives employment contract to nullify any "golden parachute" compensation packages or structures that would make getting forcibly kicked out profitable for the individual in question.

Basically this means that it is in executives and upper management's personal interest to prevent the company from committing corporate crime, since getting forced out would otherwise be possible.

Obviously this should only apply to significant crimes, or repetitive small crimes that the company does not address. It would be absurd to try to apply this to a minor OSHA violation. But on the other hand if the company is constantly being hit with these, and is not making commercially reasonable attempts to fix the underlying systemic problems, then this should be applicable.

And obviously this should become a regular part of corporate criminal settlements, as long as that the named individual be provided an opportunity to demonstrate that they were doing everything they were authorized to attempt to prevent the crime, or to demonstrate the existence of a conspiracy to prevent them from knowing about the crime in question which they would otherwise be expected to have known about, etc.

Note: In practice for condition 1, the government would normally be expected to show that the person ought to have known, given their position and job responsibilities, but the actual knowledge condition is there in case the government finds correspondence where the individual describes the crime, and dismisses it, such as where they decide the fines are just "the cost of doing business".

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#215
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like if we were scaling this to a corporation then all shareholders would potentially have a right to be present for the trial? There might (terribly) be some sane precedent set prior to the 13th amendment regarding the rights of slave owners to be present at trial for their slaves - I'm 100% anti-slavery but it is the last instance I'm aware of that might yield light on what rights legal persons who partially…

This would be an interesting law school exam question :) Is there a de minimus ownership that triggers a shareholders right to be present? Were slave owners permitted to mount a defense on behalf of their accused slaves? Post your question on r/legaladviceofftopic I bet you'll get some very interesting answers...

And this discussion demonstrates the absurdity of corporations = people. If you prick it, does it bleed? If you tickle it, does it laugh? If you poison it, does it die?

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's referring to Toyota. They are globally recalling Toyota Corollas for failing torque converters. https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/toyota-2019-corolla-hatch... Clearly Toyota didn't know it was happening in their supply chain, but now they do.

That article is for CVT's, which don't use shiftable gears. Google-fu leads to this forum post from 2009, which references Acura directly: https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1473068&cid=30...

Not to jump to any conclusions, but judging by the common user name, it seems possible that that's the same poster as the GGGP.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that rights are the sole domain of individuals and that groups (whether constituted as states or otherwise) have powers, but not rights (powers which are legitimate only so far as they extend from and do not contradict individual rights), is fundamental to classical liberalism, not a belief unique to those “sympathetic to ancap philosophy”.

No, you said "Communities have the legitimate power to do what you describe so long as no individual rights are violated." That is not in fact a principle of classical liberalism, which favors individual rights but is not controlled by them. American conservatism draws from classical liberalism, for instance.

> No, you said "Communities have the legitimate power to do what you describe so long as no individual rights are violated." That is not in fact a principle of classical liberalism, which favors individual rights but is not controlled by them.

You missed a “not”, and yes it is a core principle of classical liberalism; indeed, classical liberals tended to see powers of government as legitimate exactly to the extent they served individual rights, as they perceived those rights. Locke, for instance saw the realization of the rights to life, liberty, and estate (which he collectively labeled as “property”, thought that term often is used equivalently to how Locke used the “estate”) as both the motivation for entering into government by the people and the function whose service defined the legitimate role of government.

> American conservatism draws from classical liberalism, for instance.

Both Americans conservatism and American liberalism draw from classical liberalism, without being entirely within it, but I'm not sure what your point is in raising that about American conservatives, since explicitly echoing Locke’s position on the legitimate role of government (with perhaps a narrower understanding of property and thus individual rights than Locke stated) is a central refrain of American conservatives, especially those most likely to explicitly cite continuity with classical liberalism.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#218
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rationale for not pursuing the company for the full $700 million dollars lost escapes me Satellites are usually insured. (Not sure about NASA protocol, though.) If that’s the case, the insurer will sue. Shareholder lawsuits will also, naturally, follow, as will suits from all the other customers. Agree, though, that it’s shocking nobody is going to jail in relation to a fraud guilty plea.

> it’s shocking nobody is going to jail in relation to a fraud guilty plea. They are though. From the justice.gov article: "Dennis Balius, the SPI testing lab supervisor, led a scheme to alter tests within SPI’s computerized systems and provide false certifications with the altered results to customers. Balius also instructed employees to violate other testing standards, such as increasing the speed of the testing ma…

On top of all that, if it was human it wouldn't have the ability to file for any meaningful type of bankruptcy here in the States. Corporations have it made.

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#219
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be an interesting law school exam question :) Is there a de minimus ownership that triggers a shareholders right to be present? Were slave owners permitted to mount a defense on behalf of their accused slaves? Post your question on r/legaladviceofftopic I bet you'll get some very interesting answers...

And this discussion demonstrates the absurdity of corporations = people. If you prick it, does it bleed? If you tickle it, does it laugh? If you poison it, does it die?

So, this point bugs me. I am dead set against the decision to allow corporations to participate in our political system but nobody has ever said "So, mom, dad... this is Purdue Pharma - you can call him Fred for short - we're uh, we're getting married!". Corporations aren't people, they aren't human beings and they aren't homo-sapiens what they are is, quite accurately, legal "persons" when it comes to how a lot of US laws are worded.

There are things that you do and a corporation do that a river can't do, and to describe this set of things laws use the term "person" this makes sense but the name is terrible. In the US, for instance, you can't sue a mountain if you fall and hurt yourself - you can sue a mining company that left equipment there, or maybe the national parks service for having unsafe trails or maybe even your friend Fred (i.e. Purdue Pharma) for pushing you off the edge of the cliff (maybe, more accurately, for failing to inform you of a dizziness side effect in a medication they sold you that caused you to fall) but you can't sue the mountain itself and, likewise, there is no way a mountain could be punished that we can comprehend - again, maybe if this mountain is owned by someone then, as a result of this suit, you are awarded partial mining rights or ownership of the mountain - but that is a compensation granted at the loss of some other entity, maybe a mining company, or the property owner or even the US government.

Either way, corporations and human beings have some legal commonalities that aren't shared with mountains.

elliekelly as you're actually a lawyer, can you express this better or clarify it?

Re: Nasa Says Metals Fraud Caused $700M Satellite Failure

#220
post #11

The linked DOJ report has far more detail [0]. On the penalties themselves: According to court documents, SPI has agreed to plead guilty to one count of mail fraud, and SEI has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in connection with a criminal information filed today charging the company with mail fraud. As part of the plea agreement, SPI has agreed to pay $34.1 million in combined restitution to NASA,…

The deferred prosecution agreement essentially means that as long as the SEI adheres to the financial terms of the plea agreement the government will eventually drop the charges [0]. That's an amazing deal in its generosity and I'm sure that the financial penalties levied are outweighed by the financial gain realized over the years of their fraudulent activity. The rationale for not pursuing the company for the full…

It makes little sense to go after the company if the penalty costs will bankrupt it. I bet that's the rationale. Had they felt they could have gotten more then they would have gone for more.

The next steps, they might have done it already, for the government is to go after the people that did the fraud and punish them. Depending on how certain the government feels about how strong the case is they will get jail time, fines and be ban from ever dealing with the government- one or all three.

I know what you mean sometimes punishment feels light versus the crime. But I know that it's a system the works better than one based the other way so we take the good with the bad.

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