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The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

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Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#81

Post by lesuorac »

unethical_ban wrote: post #52
devilbunny wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The owners of corporations are mostly pension funds and the like.

Yet another issue with the modern US iteration of capitalism. The intentional design of the US stock market for people to depend on it for retirement, instead of getting enough wages to save their money risk-free or with government benefits. Pushing 401k and IRA, making it so that's the only viable way (other than having a high-6-digit wage) to live comfortably in retirement, is a detriment to a healthy society.

What version of capitalism wouldn't have the problem of risky investments paying out more than safe ones?

The people with better ROI are just going to outbid the ones with a worse ROI for their retirement spending so if you just invest it into T-Bills you'll do worse than inflation.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#82

Post by lesuorac »

Henchman21 wrote: post #30
declan_roberts wrote: post #21

We really need to bring back corporal punishment, both for petty crimes and white collar crimes. The prison sentences don't make sense for the petty crimes, and the fines don't make sense for the white collar crimes. We need to legalize public caning and the stocks.

Along with this we need the revocation of corporate charters and the liquidation of all assets belonging to the owners of any corp that is dissolved in this manner. The penalty for fucking over the public in general should be a lifetime of poverty.

I didn't check, but I don't think the corporate charter for this companies allows for fraud.

Not sure what the penalty for doing things you weren't incorporated for but seems reasonable for me that the liability doesn't rest with the corporation.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#83

Post by skeeter2020 »

Taronar wrote: post #8

Things like this mainly occur in markets with little competition, killing of small business causes issues like this. Much of our grievances are caused by our high level of market concentration.

I'm not typically a fan of government intervention in markets but Canada's marketing boards do stop this sort of concentration, so while we have higher average prices we do not get massive swings in prices, nor the physical conditions that come directly out of production consolidation that lead to events (or justifications) like avian flu at the same scale.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#84

Post by weaksauce »

john_strinlai wrote: post #38
declan_roberts wrote: post #21

We really need to bring back corporal punishment, both for petty crimes and white collar crimes. The prison sentences don't make sense for the petty crimes, and the fines don't make sense for the white collar crimes. We need to legalize public caning and the stocks.

> the fines don't make sense for the white collar crimes. why do we need to jump to caning instead of increasing the fines to something more than an operating expense? in this case, if the fine was 1000x the profits instead of the other way around, the problem would be solved, right?

In any other crime you get caught doing you do not get the benefits of the ill gotten gains. why should this be any different?

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#85

Post by skeeter2020 »

uejfiweun wrote: post #80
Taronar wrote: post #8

Things like this mainly occur in markets with little competition, killing of small business causes issues like this. Much of our grievances are caused by our high level of market concentration.

We were stuck in the Gilded Age for decades before Roosevelt came along and started big trust-busting efforts. I expect a similar situation to play out here. We're probably in the middle of it in retrospect.

Maybe - or is this closer to the naked theft we saw out of the collapse of the Soviet Union? That's still playing out...

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#86

Post by margalabargala »

gruez wrote: post #58
jklinger410 wrote: post #40

It's so fun how corporations are protected from individual liability but also their money is treated a speech.

>It's so fun how corporations are protected from individual liability They're not. If you hire a hitman through a corporation it doesn't magically become legal.

They are protected from individual liability in a limited fashion. Not blanket

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#87

Post by arjie »

Wow, well I have egg on my face. I have frequently used this as an example of the "oh so the egg guys got greedy and then got saintly" to parody the idea that price is primarily determined by greed. Welp! Now to see if I can eke out some pride by finding out what percentage of the price fluctuations was due to coordination.

> During the 2024 campaign, when Kamala Harris meekly suggested price gouging to tame inflation,...

Haha, she suggested going after price gouging. Though the idea of someone meekly suggesting price gouging is funny.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#88

Post by skeeter2020 »

declan_roberts wrote: post #21

We really need to bring back corporal punishment, both for petty crimes and white collar crimes. The prison sentences don't make sense for the petty crimes, and the fines don't make sense for the white collar crimes. We need to legalize public caning and the stocks.

except that was never used against the powerful and wealthy, just the same poor who pay the price today.

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#89

Post by joe_the_user »

Taronar wrote: post #8

Things like this mainly occur in markets with little competition, killing of small business causes issues like this. Much of our grievances are caused by our high level of market concentration.

Most true small businesses can't exist in markets with a lot of competition. Highly competitive markets have a lot of fluctuation and businesses with little capital fold when there's a downturn.

In fact, most markets naturally go from high competition to monopoly or oligopoly. You can see this in chips, cars, airplanes, steel, ecommerce(Amazon) and beyond. Indeed, many oligopoly situations only fail to be monopolies through either antitrust activity or through nation-states supporting their competitors (chips).

Agriculture in particular tends to be geographically dispersed so it's harder to have absolute monopolies. But some "harking back" claim of "if we only had small business, all the predatory stuff wouldn't happen" really fails to understand the dynamics of markets. Scale in agricultural production is what allows the low prices you get in stores - But $10 cage-free organic eggs are available at my local coop for those who love small businesses (though I prefer the $2 cage free eggs at nearby Grocery Outlet).

Re: The Egg Bandits Made a Thousand Times the Fine They Just Paid for Price Fixing

#90

Post by john_strinlai »

weaksauce wrote: post #84
john_strinlai wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the fines don't make sense for the white collar crimes. why do we need to jump to caning instead of increasing the fines to something more than an operating expense? in this case, if the fine was 1000x the profits instead of the other way around, the problem would be solved, right?

In any other crime you get caught doing you do not get the benefits of the ill gotten gains. why should this be any different?

i am saying the fine should exceed the ill gotten gains. so, they would not get the benefits
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