[Henchman21]

Along with this we need the revocation of corporate charters and the liquidation of all assets belonging to the owners of any corp that is dissolved in this manner. The penalty for fucking over the public in general should be a lifetime of poverty.

[devilbunny]

The owners of corporations are mostly pension funds and the like.

[mlsu]

Arguably that is worse. If a criminal misuses his own resources to commit crimes and then you take that away from them, it only affects him.

The companies should be liquidated still. That would put the incentives in the correct order.

[devilbunny]

> If a criminal misuses his own resources to commit crimes and then you take that away from them, it only affects him.

There is certainly a case to be made here for “if it seems too good to be true…”, but realistically we are not going to impoverish the retired teachers of X state because X state chose poorly.

[zie]

Sort of True-ish. There are lots of different kinds of ownership. Ownership with little to no say in how things are run to ownership with basically all the control.

If you are an owner with all the control, i.e. you are on the board or in corporate leadership(CEO/CFO/etc), then hey guess what,there is a really great cell here at the local prison just waiting for you, depending on how involved you were.

If you are an owner with little to no control, i.e. most shareholders that just vote for the board, etc. The assets would get liquidated, bond/debt holders would get paid back, and then anything left over would go to these shareholders.

This would incentivize shareholders to care more about what they are owning, this is a good thing. Even if it's pension funds and individual retirement accounts. This would get sorted pretty quickly as soon as the new normal is known and adjusted for.

SpaceX for example just went public, but if you read the docs, the control was not given to the public. Elon Musk 100% controls SpaceX still. Even if every public shareholder unanimously agrees against Elon Musk, guess what happens? Elon Musk still gets his way.

I don't know what the parent comment was thinking, but to my mind, the ones with the most control get the worst of the consequences. So Pension Funds/etc that hold little to no control would get paid out before those with more control.

[jackb4040]

This whole thread is a fascinating exercise. I'm watching HN derive Lenin's "What is to be Done?" from first principles.

[Henchman21]

I think to state it succinctly, the thing I was thinking was: "the people that make the bad decisions should bear the consequences".

[zie]

That generally turns out to be the same thing as me, just said more succinctly. I agree with your thinking.

[nitwit005]

Good. It's purely positive if they take losses from investing in companies engaging in fraud, as it'll encourage them not to do that.

[unethical_ban]

Yet another issue with the modern US iteration of capitalism. The intentional design of the US stock market for people to depend on it for retirement, instead of getting enough wages to save their money risk-free or with government benefits.

Pushing 401k and IRA, making it so that's the only viable way (other than having a high-6-digit wage) to live comfortably in retirement, is a detriment to a healthy society.

[lesuorac]

What version of capitalism wouldn't have the problem of risky investments paying out more than safe ones?

The people with better ROI are just going to outbid the ones with a worse ROI for their retirement spending so if you just invest it into T-Bills you'll do worse than inflation.

[unethical_ban]

I'd say a better version is one where the average citizen does not have to *rely* on a boom-bust, unregulated financial system to secure their ability to survive in retirement. Through tax, fiscal and monetary policy it would be better if people could rely on government services and normal wages to get through their elder years.

[gustavus]

We have Social Security though and that doesn't seem to be working much better.

[devilbunny]

Yeah, before capitalism you just worked until you died, or your children took care of you. That’s still an option, but you must have kids and they must like you.

[lesuorac]

I didn't check, but I don't think the corporate charter for this companies allows for fraud.

Not sure what the penalty for doing things you weren't incorporated for but seems reasonable for me that the liability doesn't rest with the corporation.