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It's not a crime if we do it with an app

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Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#251

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ryandrake wrote: post #236
scarface_74 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So should every one who owns stock in a company - including mutual funds go to jail?

Maybe? It should at least be debatable, not taboo, to consider. One's investment into a criminal enterprise could arguably be contributing to or encouraging that crime. Having this nearly-impenetrable corporate veil that shields decision-makers, footsoldiers, and funders (both institutional and retail investors) from consequences of their actions seems like the extreme end of a spectrum that should be explored. But w…

> It should at least be debatable, not taboo, to consider

It's not taboo, it's stupid and unworkable. You're proposing sending half of America to jail if any Fortune 500 commits a crime. That's a get-out-of-jail-free card, not meaningful deterrence.

Massive. Fines. Everyone keeps trying to be creative about penalising corporations without levying massive fines. Just levy the fines. You don't need to lay anyone off, you're just wiping the shareholders (and management) of their wealth and transferring ownership to creditors.

The "corporate death penalty" was the greatest invention of the corporate lobbyist. It successfully derails conversations about massive fines, which are workable and scary, into ones about charter revocations and whatnot, which is not.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#253

Post by klipt »

miohtama wrote: post #177
eesmith wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate that ever since I was a teen in the 80's I've been encouraged by government policy to put my retirement into pension funds which invest in the stock market, thus justifying all manner of immoral and unethical business practices in the name of protecting pensioner savings. I am complicit in a rigged system with no escape.

It's possible to save pension by investing without pension funds. However the trick is that most pension funds are underfunded and run like a Ponzi, thus constantly need larger and larger group of young people to fund them. If and when this system collapses is going to hurt the government and that's why the encounrage to keep the Ponzi going.

The whole concept of "retirement" where old people are allowed to relax and be supported by young people, compared to the old days when people just worked until they died, requires enough surplus productivity from young people to look after old people as well as themselves.

If the population pyramid inverts and there are too few young people, the whole concept of "retirement" becomes unsustainable, unless AI advances enough to make up the lost productivity.

Pensions are just a way of formalizing the obligation to old people, but they are not themselves the root source of the problem.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#255

Post by bdangubic »

otterley wrote: post #233
bdangubic wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrast that to how individuals get the hammer put down on them by the justice system if they so much as fart in the wrong room. The thing is though - in America people are corporations except of course no one will teach you that. Open an single-person LLC and boom - you are now corporation. Have a rental, move it under LLC, own a car, LLC… now you are corporation (with limited to no liability) :)

That’s not quite true. It’s just the first step. Your business then has to observe and perform all the required customs and ceremonies (board meetings, etc.) in order to be respected by the law. Otherwise a court can “pierce the corporate veil” and find individuals liable for their actions.

I am speaking from personal experience… all those customs and ceremonies are formalities you pay a company few bucks a month to handle for you…

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#256

Post by tomaskafka »

pseudalopex wrote: post #52
hermannj314 wrote: post #32

This is the way our world works. If you steal a potato, you will be arrested immediately and the case will be resolved in a few weeks or months. If you illegally fix the price of potatoes and steal billions from the market, you will be allowed to operate for years in the open while a lengthy civil procedure eventually may ask you to give 1 or 2% of what you stole back in fines. Don't blame the potato theives or potat…

> Don't blame the potato theives or potato cartels, blame the politicians that built the system to work this way. Blame both.

Oh, and don't forget the voters, who mostly don't care, thus enabling the cartels that extract value from them to grow unchecked.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#258

Post by lb1lf »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

More like "It's not a crime if a corporation does it." The US treats corporations with kid gloves. They get away with so much, and in those rare cases where a regulatory body does anything , it's often just a strongly worded letter, a warning, a threat to one day send a strongly worded letter, or, in really rare, extreme cases, a company official gets called in to say a few words in front of Congress. Nobody goes to…

'Corporations have neither bodies to be punished or souls to be condemned. Hence they do as they please.'

-Edward, Lord Thurlow.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#259

Post by derektank »

dartos wrote: post #175
gruez wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Contrast that to how individuals get the hammer put down on them by the justice system if they so much as fart in the wrong room. The lesson from the last 50 years should be: If you want to commit a crime and get away with it, do it as a corporation. That's because most crimes "individuals" do are straightforwardly illegal and easy to prosecute, whereas the "crime if a corporation does it" are not. It's not any diff…

> That's because most crimes "individuals" do are straightforwardly illegal and easy to prosecute, whereas the "crime if a corporation does it" are not Maybe that’s something that should be adjusted by a legislative body. Crimes are only “easy” or “difficult” to prosecute because of the laws as they’re written.

>Crimes are only “easy” or “difficult” to prosecute because of the laws as they’re written.

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that you can make crimes very easy to prosecute, no in the sense that doing so usually makes unobjectionable or even good behavior illegal in the process. Take insider trading for example. It would be very easy to simply make selling the stock of a company you work for, or are in any other way party to, outright illegal. But this would be bad for a lot of reasons; it would make it harder for businesses to compensate employees, it would encourage employees of successful companies to leave early taking important business knowledge with them, etc. Some behavior is simply harder to make illegal because it's harder to identify by its nature, which subsequently makes it harder to enforce laws against it.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#260

Post by kklisura »

miohtama wrote: post #180
whatevaa wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most profits are distributed by capital (like share price) increases rather than dividends.

Share buybacks and dividends exist and are used in the approx same ratio, so it's probably incorrect to say most profits. Also buybacks do not change the pool of dividend receivers.

Data from 2023, by Aswath Damodaran, says that 40.87% of companies are doing buybacks and that buybacks are 64.28% of all cash returned [1][2]. US is leading in this segment here wrt to rest of the countries.

[1] https://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2023/03/data-update-7-f...

[2] https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg...

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