DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy • Hacker News Board

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#31

Post by ineedasername » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 12:43 AM UTC

KorematsuFred wrote: post #14

RachelF wrote: post #3

So anyone at Boeing going to jail for killing 346 people?

Constant news around this bothered me deeply. Someone admits they committed fraud and 346 people died but pays a small sum to get out of the mess without jail time for anyone ? A lot of people say this is bad and these corporations are too powerful and we need someone like Bernie sanders to teach them a lesson. A closer scrutiny reveals exactly the opposite. It is the government that is too powerful, government tries…

You're basically saying the fact that the government can investigate a thing is proof that the government is too powerful.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that an investigation was opened with the specific purpose of jailing an executive: I don't see any indication that was the case, and just about anyone in or outside of government could have predicted before the investigation that no executive would go to jail over this.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#32

Post by blendergeek » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 12:47 AM UTC

deepsun wrote: post #25

m1sta_ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines like this typically punish shareholders and lower level employees (via restructuring in response to a need to find budget for the fine).

Boeing belongs to the USA, so US citizens will take the punishment then. Am I right?

Boeing is a publicly traded company based in the USA. That is different from being owned by the USA. Amtrak (which provided passenger rail service in the USA) is owned by the US Federal Government. Boeing on the other hand is owned by a multitude of individuals like you and me and probably a good number hedgefunds.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#33

Post by floxy » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 12:49 AM UTC

csours wrote: post #13

RachelF wrote: post #3

So anyone at Boeing going to jail for killing 346 people?

Who do you think should? An engineer who worked on the system? A manager? What law was broken? If you were in their position, how would you know you were breaking the law? Diffuse responsibility is a real problem. 'Teaching to the test' is a real problem. Normalizing risk is a real problem. Blaming individuals is very satisfying, and it's very easy to do with hindsight, but if you want large complex systems to work b…

From the article:

>Boeing admitted that two of its 737 Max flight technical pilots “deceived” the FAA about the capabilities of a flight-control system on the planes, software that was later implicated in the two crashes, the Justice Department said.

...what exactly does that mean when "deceived" is in quotation marks? Seems like deceiving regulators would be a straightforward crime. Unless "deceived" means something other than the usual definition.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#34

Post by blendergeek » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 12:54 AM UTC

haltingproblem wrote: post #15

There is a notion that Boeing is/was a company with an insanely great engineering culture and their engineers lived in an idyllic culture of building great and safe products. This great culture was all lost as a result of the merger with McDonnell Douglas [1], [2], [3]. This argument is frequently put forth by ex-Boeing engineers. This is an apologia for Boeing's behavior which killed 346 people and endangered the li…

You fully and entirely misunderstand the argument. The argument is that after the McDonnel Douglas merger, the "idyllic culture of building great and safe products" was pillaged and destroyed by greedy corporate overlords. At this point (so goes the argument) all the "good engineers" who would have most certainly spoken up were laid off and were replaced with dime-a-dozen engineers who were overworked, underpaid, and didn't know what they were doing.

In essence, the great engineering culture at Boeing was dead at the time of the 737 MAX debacle and the death of Boeing's previously near perfect engineering culture was directly responsible for the failure of the 737 MAX.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#35

Post by samatman » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:03 AM UTC

floxy wrote: post #33

csours wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you think should? An engineer who worked on the system? A manager? What law was broken? If you were in their position, how would you know you were breaking the law? Diffuse responsibility is a real problem. 'Teaching to the test' is a real problem. Normalizing risk is a real problem. Blaming individuals is very satisfying, and it's very easy to do with hindsight, but if you want large complex systems to work b…

From the article: >Boeing admitted that two of its 737 Max flight technical pilots “deceived” the FAA about the capabilities of a flight-control system on the planes, software that was later implicated in the two crashes, the Justice Department said. ...what exactly does that mean when "deceived" is in quotation marks? Seems like deceiving regulators would be a straightforward crime. Unless "deceived" means something…

In context, the quotation marks mean that Boeing literally used the word "deceived".

It's a bit of a bug in the language that real quotes and "scare quotes" are delimited with the same symbols. But we're stuck with it.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#36

Post by entangledqubit » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:04 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #24

m1sta_ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines like this typically punish shareholders and lower level employees (via restructuring in response to a need to find budget for the fine).

> Fines like this typically punish shareholders Good. That should motivate shareholders to assure that they can hold management of firms they invest in accountable. > and lower level employees Which is regrettable, but I’m not sure how any form of corporate sanction could avoid that.

You could have the fines be "heavily" pulled out of compensation packages for the higher ups who actually have the power to change the organization... but then they'd probably just leave and screw up some other place?

Do boards generally try to claw back compensation in these sorts of situations? (Just as they have been doing in some of the recent cases involving financial shenanigans.)

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#37

Post by heymijo » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:07 AM UTC

csours wrote: post #13

RachelF wrote: post #3

So anyone at Boeing going to jail for killing 346 people?

Who do you think should? An engineer who worked on the system? A manager? What law was broken? If you were in their position, how would you know you were breaking the law? Diffuse responsibility is a real problem. 'Teaching to the test' is a real problem. Normalizing risk is a real problem. Blaming individuals is very satisfying, and it's very easy to do with hindsight, but if you want large complex systems to work b…

The CEO for starters.

Post-Enron accounting rules via Sarbanes-Oxley made it so that the CEO had to sign off on and certify the financial statements. The buck stopped there. [0]

Why not here as well?

Unless you are thinking about putting the system that incentivizes a CEO and company to do this on trial.

[0] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2014-152

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#38

Post by arcticbull » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:12 AM UTC

KorematsuFred wrote: post #14

RachelF wrote: post #3

So anyone at Boeing going to jail for killing 346 people?

Constant news around this bothered me deeply. Someone admits they committed fraud and 346 people died but pays a small sum to get out of the mess without jail time for anyone ? A lot of people say this is bad and these corporations are too powerful and we need someone like Bernie sanders to teach them a lesson. A closer scrutiny reveals exactly the opposite. It is the government that is too powerful, government tries…

> It is the government that is too powerful, government tries to open an investigation with an explicit objective of jailing the executive.

"It is the government that is too powerful, government tries to open an investigation with an explicit objective of jailing the [person responsible]."

Oh no. Just wait until you learn what the job of the police is in a civil society.

> Boeing did not benefit from 346 deaths on other hand it suffered massive losses.

It absolutely did. It benefited up front from not having to redesign the 737 MAX to conform to global aviation standards. This allowed it to go to market faster, reduced development costs, and gave it an edge in sales against its competitor, the A320 family on the order books. You know, the one that didn't fall from the sky spontaneously. Boeing achieved this through lying and deception.

All this fine did was attenuate the benefit.

> Remember how USA bombed countries while making completely fraudulent claims about WMD ? Who went to jail for that ?

One unprosecuted crime doesn't mean all crime should no longer be prosecuted. Whataboutism is never a good look.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#39

Post by mayneack » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

csours wrote: post #13

RachelF wrote: post #3

So anyone at Boeing going to jail for killing 346 people?

Who do you think should? An engineer who worked on the system? A manager? What law was broken? If you were in their position, how would you know you were breaking the law? Diffuse responsibility is a real problem. 'Teaching to the test' is a real problem. Normalizing risk is a real problem. Blaming individuals is very satisfying, and it's very easy to do with hindsight, but if you want large complex systems to work b…

The DOJ certainly seems to think a law was broken. As I see it you charge the most obvious person and let them try to blame someone else. Eventually you either find people you can blame and if you can't go up a level until you reach the CEO.

If the CEO goes to prison, other CEOs will care more than this one, if some compliance officer does, the next one won't be as willing to bend to implied pressure from leadership.

Re: DOJ fines Boeing over $2.5B, charges it with fraud conspiracy

#40

Post by bergstromm466 » Fri, Jan 08, 2021, 1:27 AM UTC

chmaynard wrote: post #17

Corporations in the USA have the same legal rights as individuals in matters such as free speech, political lobbying, and so on. But when it comes to criminal liability, the people in charge are not held accountable and can buy their way out of jail with corporate funds. What a great country.

By using the US intellectual property system, corporations can also patent and own DNA.