Live data from Hacker News

Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

wsj.com

161–170 of 205 posts

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#161

Since: 1) He had essentially zero chance of being acquitted, and 2) He was the victim of Nissan executives who didn't like having a gaijin be their boss: In his shoes, I would feel morally justified in escaping. Financial crimes deserve a financial penalty. If you disagree with that, suppose Britney Griner somehow escaped from Russian "justice"? How would you feel then? Edit. Everyone talking about hypothetical burgl…

> Financial crimes deserve a financial penalty. Financial crimes, aka crimes rich people commit, to be richer, deserve much more harsh treatment that we give them today. You can go to jail for years for shoplifting (aka crimes poor people commit) few thousand dollars worth of goods. People should be much more often sentenced to go to jail for life for committing millions of dollars worth of financial crimes.

Register theft also occurs so does stealing from the common tipjar. It's not always 10s of millions, often it's thousand per year that people siphon off. It's till financial crimes.

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s possible that the operatives knew something about Japanese customs and etiquette and the $10,000 tip was intended to distract the employees at the airport. If they are worried about navigating a delicate social situation - rejecting the money without offense / loss of face - then they aren’t thinking about the boxes or the flimsy cover story. The article said that this scenario - rejecting tips from uninformed f…

I think this was very likely the case. It has the feel of a magic trick —- intentionally drawing your attention to one particular point so you don’t see what they don’t want you to.

Could be. However, the risk is that if I were already the slightest bit suspicious, even subconsciously, I would go full red alert when that envelope of cash came out.

I'd (like to think I'd) bow discreetly, slip the envelope into my pocket, and excuse myself. Then I'd be on the phone to security before my office door swung closed.

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#164

Since: 1) He had essentially zero chance of being acquitted, and 2) He was the victim of Nissan executives who didn't like having a gaijin be their boss: In his shoes, I would feel morally justified in escaping. Financial crimes deserve a financial penalty. If you disagree with that, suppose Britney Griner somehow escaped from Russian "justice"? How would you feel then? Edit. Everyone talking about hypothetical burgl…

> please explain what, exactly, Ghosn was accused of stealing, and from whom? Should every company executive be free to steal millions of dollars from their companies [1][2]? Be free to "renovate homes for Ghosn in Rio de Janeiro, Beirut, Paris and Amsterdam" on pensioners' dimes? Get a free pass from investigation by multiple countries [3] because they ran a PR campaign while they were pillaging? Anyone informed def…

So you just admitted that all the hypotheticals about victims in poverty and $10 thefts are nonsense. He took millions from Nissan and Renault, neither of whom are exactly widows and orphans.

And they were all quite happy to go along with it, for a long, long time. Did he hold a gun to their heads and make them hire him? And couldn't their Boards just fire him?

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Financial crimes deserve a financial penalty. Financial crimes, aka crimes rich people commit, to be richer, deserve much more harsh treatment that we give them today. You can go to jail for years for shoplifting (aka crimes poor people commit) few thousand dollars worth of goods. People should be much more often sentenced to go to jail for life for committing millions of dollars worth of financial crimes.

Financial crimes are not violent and therefore should be punished lightly.

[deleted]

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#166
post #150
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it is okay when we exchange captivity for money? So if we converted the money he stole into an hourly rate we could stick him into prison until the sun burns out and call it a job?

If someone else assigns you a job, it’s called slavery.

He clearly took payment in advance for it and knew spending time would be part of it if he was caught. So he basically signed up for it himself.

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#167
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Financial crimes deserve a financial penalty. Nah. Financial crimes cause real harm. And financial penalties frequently aren't sufficient disincentive. Imagine that I have no assets but am a good talker. So I go out an launch an "investment fund" that is just a Ponzi scheme. Let's suppose I take in $50m, pocket $10m, and spend the rest on "investment returns" and appearing to run a real business. I live high on the…

Being raped, assaulted or having a family member murdered is worse than losing money. Money can be repaid. You can't be unraped.

Well if you're going to go to the extreme, how about treason?

Let's say you sell military secrets to an enemy that results in nuclear destruction of your country and deaths of millions of people. The act of exchanging that secret for money was nothing more than moving some bits around on the internet, certainly non violent itself. Would you retain this strange protection from responsibility for consequences of your action in this case as well?

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> please explain what, exactly, Ghosn was accused of stealing, and from whom? Should every company executive be free to steal millions of dollars from their companies [1][2]? Be free to "renovate homes for Ghosn in Rio de Janeiro, Beirut, Paris and Amsterdam" on pensioners' dimes? Get a free pass from investigation by multiple countries [3] because they ran a PR campaign while they were pillaging? Anyone informed def…

So you just admitted that all the hypotheticals about victims in poverty and $10 thefts are nonsense. He took millions from Nissan and Renault, neither of whom are exactly widows and orphans. And they were all quite happy to go along with it, for a long, long time. Did he hold a gun to their heads and make them hire him? And couldn't their Boards just fire him?

> hypotheticals about victims in poverty and $10 thefts are nonsense

Hypotheticals, sure. I’m not familiar with his every crime. Just the big ones.

> Did he hold a gun to their heads and make them hire him? And couldn't their Boards just fire him?

It sounds like the answer to the above questions, for you, is yes. Fraud. Embezzlement. All okay, because the ultimate victims, the shareholders, either didn’t push back better or were further defrauded by a possibly corrupt, possibly incompetent Board. We can’t know either way because the guy up and offed to Beirut, where he sits a fugitive of multiple international arrest warrants.

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can someone ELI5 what exactly he apparently did wrong? Basically Enron except he stole the money [1]. (Also, less of it.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Ghosn#Initial_arrest

I'm not familiar with Enron, but he just simply stole money into his personal accounts?

> he just simply stole money into his personal accounts?

Yup! (I mean, it went to subsidiaries for pay his family and his own entities. Or was laundered to pay for a party at Versailles. Fairly standard stuff.)

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you just admitted that all the hypotheticals about victims in poverty and $10 thefts are nonsense. He took millions from Nissan and Renault, neither of whom are exactly widows and orphans. And they were all quite happy to go along with it, for a long, long time. Did he hold a gun to their heads and make them hire him? And couldn't their Boards just fire him?

> hypotheticals about victims in poverty and $10 thefts are nonsense Hypotheticals, sure. I’m not familiar with his every crime. Just the big ones. > Did he hold a gun to their heads and make them hire him? And couldn't their Boards just fire him? It sounds like the answer to the above questions, for you, is yes. Fraud. Embezzlement. All okay, because the ultimate victims, the shareholders, either didn’t push back be…

> a possibly corrupt, possibly incompetent Board

So there we are. The people in charge of controlling him, the people whose job it is to supervise him, didn't.

Post reply on HN