Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bad_alloc 2611 days ago
> You can’t blame individuals

You can and you have to. Corporations are structuredi nsuch a way that there is always somebody who is in charge of a certain project or descision. Of course this might be hidden. in order to fight "Profit before people / product / planet", these individuals need to be punished. It cannot be allowed that blame diffuses in a corporation. Otherwise there will be no change.
1 comments
lisper 2611 days ago
That's actually not true. If the punishment is severe enough then it can be made to diffuse all the way back to the shareholders in a way that they will notice, and that will eventually bring about change.

The problem is that we have insulated the shareholders from responsibility so that granny can buy blue chip stocks to fund her retirement without having to actually pay attention to the bothersome details of corporate governance. Management is doing exactly what it was hired to do: maximize granny's ROI by any means necessary.

link
Scoundreller 2611 days ago
> The problem is that we have insulated the shareholders from responsibility

Do we? Shareholders take the hit when the corporation negotiates a fine instead of punishing the decision-makers responsible directly.

How much did dieselgate cost VW shareholders? How much did it impact the people that made the decisions?

link
CamperBob2 2611 days ago
How do you propose to punish shareholders?

Fine them? The market already does that, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in the 737 MAX case.

Jail them? Good luck with that.

What else can/should be done to them, in your opinion?

link
lisper 2611 days ago
> Fine them? The market already does that, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in the 737 MAX case.

Really? How? The day before the Lion Air crash Boeing stock was just a hair under $360 a share. Today it's at $380. How exactly is that punishing the shareholders?

The market isn't punishing Boeing shareholders because everyone knows full well that the U.S. government will not allow the last domestic producer of commercial jets to go bankrupt.

link
CamperBob2 2611 days ago
Really? How? The day before the Lion Air crash Boeing stock was just a hair under $360 a share. Today it's at $380. How exactly is that punishing the shareholders?

Well, that's not exactly the whole story, is it? What happened on March 8?

https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+stock

A single crash won't usually tank the company's stock, nor should it.

link
lisper 2611 days ago
> What happened on March 8?

The stock dropped 5%. And your point would be...?

> A single crash won't usually tank the company's stock, nor should it.

This was two crashes. Caused by gross negligence. Yeah, that ought to put a dent in the stock price IMHO.

link