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by concordDance 1198 days ago
> Anyone working in risk management will tell you SVB’s risk team and executive team should be in jail.

Jail seems extreme for an error in judgement that neither killed nor maimed anyone.

5 comments

They could be jailed for insider trading for selling all their stocks within the past few months. And the funds from those sales should absolutely, at least, be clawed back and then some for their responsibility for their decision making.

I'd, for a change, like to see those responsible for massive business failures held to account personally and financially. The limitations on corporate liability are meant for investors, not executives or board members. And TBH, those accounts with over 100MM in deposit should probably lose the 10% or so under normal rules for this kind of thing, not be bailed out by the Fed, who will in turn likely need to be bailed out by taxpayers, or worse if this happens another couple times in the next couple years.

It nearly killed billions of dollars in real value and required untold thousands of taxpayer-funded employees working through the weekend to unfuck the situation.

If I drive recklessly, I am still guilty of reckless driving even though I didn't hit anyone or anything.

that might (or might not) be arguable from a moral viewpoint, but it definitely isn’t arguable from the actual statistics. about half of the US state prison population is there for non-violent crimes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...

Those mostly wouldn't be errors in judgement but people who knew they were doing something wrong, like shoplifting.
> like shoplifting

or like being in possession of a gram of meth for personal use: something a person might legitimately believe isn’t “wrong”. the meth user didn’t get into jail for violating his own moral code: he’s there for an error in judgement, this error being that he didn’t understand how strongly the people around him would react to actions he thought were not that big of a deal.

sibling comment does good by calling attention to driving: enough people text while drive that it can be considered normal behavior, that people who do this don’t actively think they’re doing wrong. but that doesn’t save them from culpability when they roll the dice poorly and hit a pedestrian.

what’s the difference between “manslaughter” and “murder”: it’s intent. our justice system does consider intent, but it doesn’t require it.

Directly, nobody was injured. Proximately, we really have no idea. I am in favor of strict liability for a broader variety of negligent behavior. Losing one's career over bad judgment is of course a kind of deterrent, but realistically lots of people fuck up and then go on to have moderately profitable second careers by writing a book and giving talks with titles like 'Learning Hard Lessons'. If they're entrepreneurial they can become stars of the MBA circuit.
Strict liability for negligence would just mean sending business overseas where that rule isn't in play, and chilling it domestically.

No one is interested in the deal "if you get it right, you make some money; if you get it wrong, we obliterate you".

The move from caveat emptor to caveat venditor has coincided with everyone legally ringfencing things with corps & LLCs. People find ways back to a fair deal.

If we have strict liability for truck drivers nobody will sign up to drive hazardous cargo.
Yes people make mistakes. That's legal and it should be.

Especially in a business such as finance where the job literally is to estimate risk, someone will make the (in hindsight) wrong decision.

People go to jail for all kinds of frauds and all kinds issues they cause to other people.