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Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Where’s our “100x FAFO laws”? Prohibited by 8th Amendment's ban on excessive fines.
1. where's the case law that makes it apply to corporations? 2. how is 100x the crime excessive, but $150,000 per pirated song isn't? That's a lot more than 100x the cost of a song.
Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U.S. 86 (1909)
Is this more or less than they made from breaking said law. I know regulatory capture is a thing but it seems like there should be some minimum “Crimes committed for financial gain that are punished with a fine must have a minimum fine of 100x the amount of money they made from the crime” The 90’s saw a constant stream of journalists and politicians praising 3 strikes laws. Where’s our “100x FAFO laws”?
Is there a term similar to “regulatory capture” but where the government becomes dependent on fines? I suppose that if workers lost out on benefits of approximately the fine amount, the fine becomes a regressive tax since it goes towards general revenue rather than to whom was harmed.
But I can think of one case where fines create a perverse incentive: really small towns run speed traps that fund their law enforcement. I think most cops have a non trivial amount of their budget based on fines. It’s debatable if this is bad. I feel like it’s morally wrong to set a speed limit to something no one follows so anyone can be cited for breaking the law at any time, but at least (most) judges seem to acknowledge that something like “1 mph over” is a BS ticket.
I’ve seen some knee jerk problems from other regulatory attempts like having healthcare required for full time workers so companies cut everyone’s hours to 39 a week. But to me this isn’t a sign that the regulations are the problem. To me it speaks to how companies will do anything they can that they can get away with and it’s a sign that the regulatory bodies need to be better able to adapt and respond to malicious compliance.
I feel like the CFPB is a bright spot.
Is this more or less than they made from breaking said law. I know regulatory capture is a thing but it seems like there should be some minimum “Crimes committed for financial gain that are punished with a fine must have a minimum fine of 100x the amount of money they made from the crime” The 90’s saw a constant stream of journalists and politicians praising 3 strikes laws. Where’s our “100x FAFO laws”?
> Where’s our “100x FAFO laws”? Prohibited by 8th Amendment's ban on excessive fines.
Fines have to serve as a deterrent to be a useful punishment, and if corporations aren't being deterred then clearly the fines aren't high enough yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. where's the case law that makes it apply to corporations? 2. how is 100x the crime excessive, but $150,000 per pirated song isn't? That's a lot more than 100x the cost of a song.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Amendment_to_the_Unit... Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U.S. 86 (1909)
Seems like it would be acceptable to fine Amazon 100x more then
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a term similar to “regulatory capture” but where the government becomes dependent on fines? I suppose that if workers lost out on benefits of approximately the fine amount, the fine becomes a regressive tax since it goes towards general revenue rather than to whom was harmed.
I think you’re being downvoted because the premise of your question would imply that trickle down economics works, it does not. But I can think of one case where fines create a perverse incentive: really small towns run speed traps that fund their law enforcement. I think most cops have a non trivial amount of their budget based on fines. It’s debatable if this is bad. I feel like it’s morally wrong to set a speed li…
I think I've seen instances where automated traffic camera fines just go into a city's street/road safety improvement fund, which seems like a good way of handling things.
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California collected $26M in taxes every hour in 2023. Neither of the parties here lack monetary resources.
Those tax dollars go back to California and country. Amazon does everything in its power to not pay taxes or help society. It really shows little Amazon is taxed at, if at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Where’s our “100x FAFO laws”? Prohibited by 8th Amendment's ban on excessive fines.
In case anyone doesn’t want to look up said amendment, here is its text in full: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.“
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Mostly labor law, and when violated at a systemic degree by the largest corporations against those who do not make enough money to have influence against the free market. (Gig workers and anyone not making at least 3x minimum wage - that's a good place to start.) I'd actually prefer that people go to jail over it. I would like executives and middle management to be afraid of violating labor law. If you have 3 employe…
This violation wasn't systemic.
Abuses of this nature are reported on social media by workers at Amazon warehouses everywhere.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Where’s our “100x FAFO laws”? Prohibited by 8th Amendment's ban on excessive fines.
1. where's the case law that makes it apply to corporations? 2. how is 100x the crime excessive, but $150,000 per pirated song isn't? That's a lot more than 100x the cost of a song.
The issue here is that Amazon had productivity quotas for its workers that were kept secret from the workers. It's the keeping a secret part that is illegal. On the one hand, this seems reasonable, but the fact that the law only applies to warehouse workers (the "Warehouse Quota Law") and was passed in 2022 makes me suspicious that this isn't a good faith worker protection law but rather specifically targeted at Amaz…
Competent lawmakers consider enforceability. Enforcing a law like this requires either the creation and funding of an enforcement agency, or additional funding to an existing agency to enforce it. If your law applies to all industries, that funding is massive and gets struck down--either the law simply isn't passed, or the law is passed but is a totally ineffective political gesture. There are rare exceptions, where there's political will to actually put together that funding (for example: ObamaCare), but then you run into the complexity of how such a law interplays with the various industries and parties impacted, and getting the enforcement of such a law right takes decades of tweaking and handling edge cases, which may never actually work.
Long story short, I'd much rather see small laws that target small, well-understood problems and fix them, than see unenforceable feel-good political gestures or some politician's magnum opus for his legacy that tries to do something too complicated for anyone to understand.