Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 611 posts

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#181

Post by zarzavat »

swarnie wrote: post #150
zarzavat wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. The first crash was negligent design of a technical system. The second crash was murder. The regulators are also culpable since the design of the system was in the public domain before the second crash and they did nothing about it.

> The second crash was murder. No civilised justice system in the world is getting to murder from these facts. Manslaughter via negligence if you're feeling really lucky

Depends on if it could be shown that the decision to not ground was motivated by a desire for profit or not.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#182

Post by underseacables »

constantcrying wrote: post #36
supernova87a wrote: post #25

Our governmental methods of punishment for corporations strike me as lacking. This seems similar to Wells Fargo, where ok, the company was fined, sued, made to pay restitution (somewhat) to victims. But underlying it all, the culture and incentives at the company that produced the situation didn't get fundamentally changed. Which often perpetuates across specific leaders, boards, and is a part of what a company is --…

The problem is that finding the people responsible can be extremely hard, so you have to go against the corporation itself. Punishing a corporation is easy, but the government hates doing it for obvious reasons. It means ruining something which is useful to you and punishing tens of thousands of completely innocent people, with inevitable layoffs. What Boeing really needs is a complete change in management culture, a…

The CEO. America does not put CEOs in prison anymore. Yes, the occasional CEO will go to jail for fraud, but when people actually die, like this, the CEO and the executive suite goes unpunished. When the justice system starts putting CEOs in jail, is when we will see their behavior change. Until then, all of this with Boeing is nothing more than lawyers and legal fees.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#183

Post by underseacables »

justinclift wrote: post #31

Seems an extremely soft ball approach: • Under the deal, Boeing agreed to pay a $243.6 million fine and for an third-party monitor to be installed to monitor the company’s compliance. ~$240M seems pretty low for an industry where billions are commonly thrown about. • The deal spares Boeing from a trial just as the planemaker is trying to turn a corner in its safety and manufacturing crises. Sparing them from a trial…

For the wealthy, it's always just pay a fine. The financial crisis is a great example. Wealthy CEOs rarely go to jail.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#184

Post by ionwake »

constantcrying wrote: post #75
davedx wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that finding the people responsible can be extremely hard > What Boeing really needs is a complete change in management culture Who is ultimately responsible for management at a company though? The CEO and the other C-level people. This isn't really the daunting difficult problem you make it out to be: the buck stops at the C-suite. Who else could possibly be ultimately responsible??

You can not punish someone for a crime they didn't commit and had no knowledge of. That is ridiculous and a perversion of justice.

They did commit it by accepting their role, their responsibility for their team, the higher salary for the higher responsibility and the dereliction of their duties.

You are the one person on the planet (I hope) who believes a leader is not responsible for those under his leadership.

Before you take offence understand this is just a difference of opinion of what a leader is, nothing against you personally.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#185

Post by robertlagrant »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #178
robertlagrant wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry - we moved what power?

The power of having a bank account, of moving funds around, of signing contracts, etc. Before that, companies had to have everything attached to a human, not the company. So the human was responsible. You are so used to it that you think it's normal, but it's not. It's a concept we have created: that companies can act in their own name, like they are actually something concrete. But when we did that, we failed to giv…

> The power of having a bank account, of moving funds around, of signing contracts, etc.

I don't think companies can sign contracts. What is the power of having a bank account and moving funds around? It's still people deciding to do this, and doing it, just under a group name. What power?

> Something that doesn't exist, a concept, enjoy many things a concrete human can do, but won't pay nearly the same consequences

People are still doing it. You seem to have totally mis-framed this. If you say "people can get away with doing things inside a company" you'd have a point, perhaps, but you're talking as though companies are sentient.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#186

Post by ryandrake »

thoronton wrote: post #147
constantcrying wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not illegal to be a bad CEO. CEOs, surprisingly are protected by the law as well.

If you are such a bad CEO that over 200 People die because of your bad management, then that should definitely be illegal. For what do they get the millions if not for taking responsibility?

LOL To these guys, “taking responsibility” means simply making a sad face and issuing a press release saying “we’re sorry.”[1]. Not actually taking responsibility and going to prison.

1: https://youtu.be/15HTd4Um1m4

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#187

Post by ryandrake »

davedx wrote: post #60
lordnacho wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't the government mandate a board replacement? The board can figure out for themselves who is responsible, I would guess the finger would typically point at the CEO.

Boards are often toothless though, just look at Tesla's. Replace the C-suite. This is done frequently in M&A's and other corporate strategies in extremis. Fire the guys at the top and replace them with people with good track records.

You can rotate people in and out of the C-suite, but incentives and culture aren’t going to change. These people are largely figureheads that get paid a lot of money because they are Ivy Leaguers whose friends on company boards who set their salaries are all Ivy Leaguers, too.

It’s not like Boeing is going to get a new CEO and then suddenly middle management is going to start prioritizing safety, engineering rigor, and risk management over profit.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#188

Post by Havoc »

justinclift wrote: post #31

Seems an extremely soft ball approach: • Under the deal, Boeing agreed to pay a $243.6 million fine and for an third-party monitor to be installed to monitor the company’s compliance. ~$240M seems pretty low for an industry where billions are commonly thrown about. • The deal spares Boeing from a trial just as the planemaker is trying to turn a corner in its safety and manufacturing crises. Sparing them from a trial…

> Sparing them from a trial means no further discovery/uncovering of other illegal shit

It’ll be uncovered. Just via they “fk it we’ll do it live” in air method

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#189

Post by ryandrake »

constantcrying wrote: post #86
amelius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying that in a case like Boeing's the CEO was completely unaware of the shitshow at their company and couldn't have taken appropriate actions?

A dysfunctional company with bad management is not a crime. Putting a CEO in jail because he is bad, not because any crime had been committed, is an even worse idea. The specific case here about criminally negligent software design errors almost certainly never came up to the CEO. If there is evidence otherwise and the CEO was aware of the problem and decided that the risks were acceptable then he obviously should go…

> The specific case here about criminally negligent software design errors almost certainly never came up to the CEO.

It’s the CEO’s job to make sure these things “come up” to him. If he didn’t know about an engineering problem that got people killed then he is negligent and still should go to prison.

I don’t get all this simping for CEOs. CEOs don’t need us to defend them on HN. Trust me, they are doing fine without passioned arguments in support of them.

Re: Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge stemming from 737 MAX crashes

#190

Post by sva_ »

iSnow wrote: post #42
thangalin wrote: post #16

"Whatever the reasons (market pressures, rushing processes, inadequate certifications, fear of being fired, or poor project management), Leveson’s insights are being ignored. For example, after the first fatal Boeing 737 Max flight, why was the entire fleet not grounded indefinitely? Or not grounded after an Indonesian safety committee report uncovered multiple failures? Or not grounded when an off-duty pilot helped…

Racism. If the first fatal flight had happened to an US or European airline somewhere over US or European territory, the fleet would have been grounded for an investigation.

It was grounded temporarily in the US?
Post reply on HN