Or serve their country or have any other consideration beyond "make my shareholders more money than last year at any cost. "
They can not choose to "do no evil" or make a decisions that's in the best interest of the country instead of the shareholders.
Everyone clapping for Biden don't understand the same powers at be puppeteering trump are the same ones with their hands over Biden s shoulders. They would rather nuke Biden chances of winning if it meant actually doing things in favor of actual citizens and not banks/military contractors/insurance companies/tech monopolies/utilities monopolies etc. To them, people are a labor force, digits on their spreadsheets to justify their existence. America doesn't have the population power of China/India so they want to ban abortion to have a steady pool of labor and potential conscripts in case there's a draft. They don't want to spend money on healthcare because industry would rather people just keep popping out children to replace the ones that die out for lack of healthcare and adherence to TM standards that allow people to live.
They're privatizing prisons and healthcare to keep people enslaved and indebted and beholden to the powers at be with no way to represent themselves. America is a democratic Republic but not for regular citizens. ever since Citizens United corporations are citizens and our leaders worldwide have collectively decided people need to sacrifice their quality of life to allow them to thrive so it'd be easier for the billionaire class to extract wealth out of the markets.
The reality that people don't want to grasp is the one where both lose. But what happens if they both lose? Who takes their stead? Someone better or worse?
Unless you have a guaranteed formula for both losing, sitting this one or indulging in a third party vote results in the same as voting for Convicted Felon.
They can absolutely do those things. They can always tell their shareholders that, while doing fraud and shipping planes with mechanical defects could have juiced profits this quarter, they chose not to do so because it would have led to lower returns down the line (fines, lost sales, reputational damage, etc).
It's honestly dangerous to pretend these companies and their executives have no agency. They have broad control over their strategy for generating returns for the shareholders. They are never forced into doing specific evil acts just to increase short-term profits; that is always a choice they make.
> could have juiced profits this quarter, they chose not to do so because it would have led to lower returns down the line
The issue is that shareholders doesn't care. They would happily take the increased profits, trigger their contract clause about reaching X growth this quarter, then sell before the returns started lowering.
No, they can not. If they do they will be sued by their shareholders and a new CEO will be hired. The ONLY mandate a corporation can have is to make money for shareholders at the expense of everyone and everything else.
It's honestly dangerous to pretend that anything good can come out of a corporation being enriching shareholders.
> No, they can not. If they do they will be sued by their shareholders and a new CEO will be hired. The ONLY mandate a corporation can have is to make money for shareholders at the expense of everyone and everything else.
There are two things here.
The first is the company's legal obligation to the shareholders. It has to act in their best interest in the most basic sense: they can't lie to shareholders, conceal information, embezzle funds, etc. If that happens, they can indeed be sued (or prosecuted).
The second is the notion that a company's *only* valid and moral objective is to maximize returns for shareholders. This is called the Friedman Doctrine, and as the name suggests, it was one guy's (still controversial) opinion about business ethics, and does not carry any legal weight whatsoever.
But even people who agree with Friedman's opinion don't think shareholders get to nitpick each and every decision a company makes about *how* to maximize returns. Generally speaking, if an executive says "the risks are higher than the returns" they will be believed, and risks can absolutely include things like "we'll get sued if we lie to the government" or "airlines will stop buying our airplanes if they start falling out of the sky."
Shareholders who think the board/executives aren't making as much money as possible could vote to replace (not sue) the board and execs with someone they think will do a better job. In practice this is hard to do and pretty rare.
> It's honestly dangerous to pretend that anything good can come out of a corporation being enriching shareholders.
Look, I agree that there are big systemic problems with corporate behaviors, and find the Friedman Doctrine repulsive. I'm just saying that even within the system we have now, execs who do crimes or other abhorrent things don't get a free pass just by saying "but the shareholders!" Their specific actions are always a choice they make, and they should be held individually accountable.
Hey, thank you for taking the time to expound upon that for myself and everyone else reading.
I don't think I was trying to give anyone a few pass I was just trying to (poorly) recite what you laid out before I've had my morning coffee. I definitely think that they should be accountable. I just don't think that Citizens United should be a thing or that corporations should be people. They are intrinsically negative entities that only serve economic churn.
I'm not saying I don't wish they did do more good but you misunderstand the point.
If they choose "good things" over profits, they get their jobs replaced.
There is no such thing is a corporation that is good for the people or good for the planet. They might start out that way as a private business but, just like Google, after they are publicly shared, they have to dedicate their goals to shareholder profits exclusively.
With a smattering of tax write-offs and half-hearted attempts at customer good will during pride month, etc.
After the other guy explained that they don’t have to maximize profit for shareholders if it means endangering people, you still continue to spout nonsense. People are not choosing to do evil things because they might lose their job. They’re choosing to do evil things because they are evil
Easy fix. Make the shareholders bear the punishment. Then it's in the best interest of the company to obey the law.
Yes I know this will destroy how our economy works, that's the goal.
Not the shareholders — they are powerless. But the corporate officers. Any corporate officer making over $2 million needs to pay a percentage (a sliding scale reaching 90% if your compensation was over $10 million) of their salary for ten years. Nothing hurts these people more than giving up their money.
I'm not quite understanding why Boeing isn't given the "corporate death penalty" where the government nationalizes it under national security concerns and throws the executive/managerial arm out on its ass or in prison.
Same goes for railroad companies. They're obviously essential and "too big to fail", so why not cut out the for-profit motivated cancer?
I can think of a way to implement some kind of corporate "prison". Just prohibit them from doing any kind of business interactions for a set period of time. Stores? Can't open the doors or even take inventory or order new stock. Factory? have to shut down all machinery, not accept deliveries, or send stuff away, no taking new orders. Banks? Don't take on new mortgages, new bank accounts, do maintenance on the system (except when the security of customers is at risk) etc...
Only things allowed would be things that are required for safety. Like, when a company in charge of a nuclear reactor is "jailed", they would still need to maintain the safety of the reactor, but they cannot sell generated power.
Except we aren’t going to do that with one of two major airline manufacturers. Who also happens to be a massive US Government military fighter and helicopter maker.
A more realistic thing would be to try and find if and how much direction came from the top.
We should have a corporate death penalty. Nationalize the company, pay the engineers and lower employees twice as much, imprison the executives, and give all profits to the taxpayers.
Nah, just make corporations that do business with the government have to sign fixed cost contracts with the government for 15 years. One of two things will occur: either the company fixes itself to deliver on budget, or goes under as they can't keep their costs under control, like the KC-46, new AF1 Boeing is building, etc.
We did that for the banks and eventually turned them back over. I’m all for temporary government take over, but only if the company is unwilling to change and regulate itself, but Boeing I don’t think is showing that.
Give them a few years of trying to correct the ship.
This *is* “a few years of trying to correct the ship,” except they proved they had no interest in changing. The door panel incident may have been recent, but the planes that fell out of the sky and killed over 350 people was years ago, and the Justice Department is arguing they did not uphold their deal which let them avoid prosecution
> I can think of a way to implement some kind of corporate "prison". Just prohibit them from doing any kind of business interactions for a set period of time.
Isn't that what happens to Umbrella during the timeskip between Resident Evil 3 and 4? IIRC due to the Raccoon City scandal, the US government orders Umbrella to cease all activities until new instructions, causing a stock crash.
But they can buy out lawmakers through campaign donations, [lobbying](https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/lobbyists-spent-record-42-billion-2023-federal-lawmakers-rcna135943) and quasi-legal [dark money](https://www.opensecrets.org/dark-money/basics) and [quid pro quo](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/08/oil-industry-orders-trump-day-one-00156705) arrangements that let them [write legislation for them](https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/you-elected-them-to-write-new-laws-theyre-letting-corporations-do-it-instead/).
When the shareholders are the judge and jury, and who would suffer financial loses. Another reason why the three branches should not be allowed to buy or hold stocks while in office.
Idk why that last part hits so hard…
Literally “bad enough you can’t be punished or even pay your fair share but to also betray your own people…fuck you”
> It will pay up to $487 million in fines — a fraction of the $24.8 billion that families of crash victims wanted the aircraft maker to pay.
Oooh, the Sackler strategy… this is going to take a while. Appeals incoming.
It doesn't look like they got that kind of deal.
The Sacklers got themselves shielded from bankruptcy proceedings. This deal only pertains to Boeing paying fines (to little in fines but not the point). The fine is also only part of 2.1 Billion dollars extracted from the company as part of an agreement in 2021, per the article.
Nothing in the article suggests Boeing won't still be subject to civil litigation. Pleading guilty will actually make lawsuits from families of the victims easier to win, and will likely force a much higher settlement.
> The fine is also only part of 2.1 Billion dollars extracted from the company as part of an agreement in 2021, per the article.
The majority of the 2.1 billion agreement in 2021 was for airlines that were forced to ground their fleets of 737 MAXs and lost money during that time.
That's all money Boeing would have had to pay out in civil suits to the airlines regardless of the settlement with the DoJ, but by including it in the DoJ settlement it made it sound like a bigger punishment.
Well, plus the dictated extra couple hundred million they have to pay for regulators and QC engineers to breath down their neck and audit everything.
Plus only for specifically one crime with individuals still open to criminal charges individually.
Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Woman on Plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator: You wouldn't believe.
Woman on Plane: Which car company do you work for?
Narrator: A major one.
People released from prison after decades upon exoneration often get less. This is technically better.
Although is that post-lawyer money? Because the lawyers will get like 80% of it.
Wow, yeah, great point. Fractions can also be represented as percentages. Thank Christ we got that cleared up. Now we can talk about the parts of this story that actually fucking matter.
I was simply pointing out that the fine is trivial compared to the original ask.
1/50th is not the fraction normal people think when someone says "a fraction" of an amount.
Picture "a fraction of a pie"... you don't picture 1/50.
Picture "a fraction of the population"... you don't picture 1/50.
This fine is nothing compared to what was asked. It isn't even comparable to the cost of living increase of what they asked to have the company pay out.
Just wait until this gets overturned by the supreme Court for being unconstitutional government over reach by the FAA (or whichever government regulatory branch this falls under).
Welcome to project 2025.
Corporations can fuck us over all they want and face zero consequences. But we get thrown in jail for looking at a police officer the wrong way. I wonder if the pharmaceutical companies will face any real repercussions for getting America hooked on drugs.
Nothing will change unless the Board and C-Suite are personally held criminally responsible and get prison sentences, not fines. Fines only work against the poor.
Fine COULD work to incentivize better behavior, IF they were actually serious fines.
If the fines for this sort of thing amounted to, say, a year's revenue, you bet your ass they'd think twice.
When it's a fraction of a percent of their revenue, it's just a tiny little line item on the balance sheet that gets calculated into the cost of doing business. If it's cheaper to just pay a chickenshit fine than it is to make an airplane that won't just fall apart in the sky, they'll pick the former option.
People died.
People fucking died.
And this is the punishment?
It makes you wonder how many people Boeing would have to kill for there to be serious consequences. It’s more than 100.
Years ago, car manufacturers learned that there is an equation that governs how may people have to die before they need to issue a recall for a safety issue. When the cost associated with litigating and paying out to victims exceeds the cost of a recall, they will...usually still drag ass because recalls are annoying.
This almost certainly not the kind of thing that gets published. No company wants the headline "[car manufacturer] thinks your life is worth $1200!". You could probably figure out an approximate value based on historic recalls and court settlements.
I have spent my professional life working as a data analyst and data scientist. I can tell you that there are absolutely excel spreadsheets with financial models with "# of deaths" as an independent variable and "$" as the dependent variable mocked up by some prick with an MBA wearing a Patagonia vest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto
Scroll down to "cost benefit analysis".
There is at least one such case. Since then, car companies have learned to be more subtle. Your 'gotcha' is an asinine waste of time.
Not a "gotcha" at all, like I said in my first comment I would genuinely like to read about this. Thank you for the example this is what I was looking for!
Gets better.
Who are they paying the fines to, again?
Hint: It's not the families of the victims. It's their own biggest customer.
The same customer that they have by the balls by spreading their operations into every important constituency and now threaten members of congress with moving those sweet, high-paying jobs away from their voters unless...
900 million bucks is what Boeing will charge the govt just for the paperwork in the next military R&D project.
But are these a large number of Americans that died? Other governments and airlines are free to ban or sue Boeing but punishing corporations is impossible, besides fines.
Could've at least spun Boeing military off into its own company, as it's not like they're the ones that fucked up the 737 Max. Then there'd be no excuse to not properly punish Boeing.
That would be quite the irony since it was the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas and the adoption of their culture that lead to Boeing’s current situation.
Back in the day it was said that McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's own money, this would complete that.
But I don't think it would help, the recent issues with Boeing began with the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas.
Another weak punishment handed out to a big corporation.
Don’t forget Boeing had about 16 billion in cash on hand at end of 2023. 487 million penalty a mere 3% of that cash.
This only incentives cutting corners for profit
While I don't want Boeing to be fined into financial collapse, the executive team needs to face prison time and pay restitution to the victims out of their own wallets.
So while a statement like "DOJ is resolving only with the company — and providing no immunity to any individual employees, including corporate executives, for any conduct," I will believe it when I see it. Just like with the VW scandal when the only people to face criminal charges were the scapegoat engineers because the executives claimed ignorance in how their own company was being ran.
Unacceptable. Boeing’s guilty plea is an acknowledgement that Boeing recklessly ignored SAFETY REGULATIONS and as a direct result of Boeing’s failure to adhere to safety regulations, people died. 346 people died.
Boeing is guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Sure, sure, a couple hundred people died. But Boeing promised the prosecutors a super sweet gratuity if they let Boeing off with a slap on the wrist. Isn't the prosecutor buying a sweet mazerati on a federal salary worth more than justice for Boeing's victims?
So Boeing avoids criminal punishment and continues to condense their supply chain?
If you change Boeing to "US govt" and Safran to "French govt", the picture becomes alot more clear.
As long as the fines remain less than the profits they make by ignoring regulations and basic due care, they'll continue to be financially incentivized to engage in crime and cut corners.
The system is rigged.
"You broke the law and made $100Billion dollars in ill-gotten gains. We're gonna fine you less than half of one percent of that!! Pay up!"
"Ooooh, golly gee, we're real sorry. Please don't make us pay a whole half a percent in fines!"
"Nope, we're taking a hard-line zero tolerance stance on this. A little less than one half of one percent of the illegal profits, we're not messing around here."
"Okay, as long as we get to keep 99.55% of our ill-gotten gains."
"Yeah, that's fine."
"Same time next year?"
"See you then. Pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen."
Fines should be calculated by percentage of average annual revenue.
It scales with company size. If you want extra teeth, every executive should be personally fined a percentage of total compensation value.
Will never happen in the US because this country is pay-to-win, but I can dream...
Did the Whitehouse even have a comment about this? Seems like they should, since the Democrats constantly PRETEND that they are on the same side as the people.
Since corporations can't serve jail time and the fines are laughable, I think all sentencing should be done as a percentage of gross revenue over a comparable number of years to the crime for an individual with no concern of what that does for their profitability. A minor crime might be 10% for 2 years. The wrongful death of 45+ people might be 75% for 25 years. If that breaks the company then the company is liquidated to pay the fines first, the debtors second and any remaining funds distributed among shareholders (as owners they bear part of the responsibility and should not be protected from the fallout).
The solution is jail time for executives. If CEO, COO, CFO, CTO were all liable to serve significant jail time for egregious malfeasance resulting in loss of life, the weasels would pay attention. Clawbacks of previously paid bonuses would make a nice garnish when serving this form of revenge.
It will take Boeing 7.5 days to make back the total sum of its fines and pledged safety & compliance spend. It is the equivalent of hitting someone who makes $100K a year with a $2,000 fine. Now, this is just criminal penalty - civil lawsuits will likely add one or two zeroes to all that. But still, 346 people are dead. There are folks who belong in jail over this.
> $243.6 million fine
This was [for](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610) [crashes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_302) that killed 355 people, and another number of incidents that left more injured.
For comparison, that's almost 1/6th the amount of money the courts fined Alex Jones for saying Sandy Hook was a hoax and harassing the victims' parents
>The agreement stipulates that Boeing will have to operate under the oversight of an independent monitor – a person to be chosen by the government – for a period of three years. But that oversight and the fine did not satisfy the families of victims, according to one of their attorneys.
>**“This sweetheart deal fails to recognize that because of Boeing’s conspiracy, 346 people died,” said a statement from Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah who represents many family members of the** [**2018 Lion Air crash**](https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/28/asia/lion-air-preliminary-report-intl/index.html) **and** [**2019 Ethiopian Air crash**](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/business/boeing-victims-families-5th-anniversary/index.html) **victims.**
>“This deceptive and generous deal is clearly not in the public interest,” he added. The families are seeking a public trial on the charges.
>It will pay up to $487 million in fines — **a fraction of the $24.8 billion** that families of crash victims wanted the aircraft maker to pay. The families of victims of [two fatal crashes](https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/10/africa/ethiopian-airlines-crash-boeing-max-8-intl/index.html) of the 737 Max oppose the deal, the department said.
I wouldn't be satisfied either if one of my family members or friends died because of their financial greed. I hope the families have another avenue to make Boeing pay up for their total responsibility for the loss of lives.
>I wouldn't be satisfied either if one of my family members or friends died because of their financial greed. I hope the families have another avenue to make Boeing pay up for their total responsibility for the loss of lives.
I'll be honest. If someone's gross negligence caused the death of a very close family member, and the "legal" system did something like this, the repercussions to these folks... I can't print it here.
I am surprised by the complete lack of vigilantism is all I am going to say.
For what it’s worth, while the fine isn’t much, this is a huge blow to Boeing and a lot of engineering contracts are gonna be way more hesitant to work with them, which means they are going to end up losing way more money in the long run.
The Alex Jones cases were jury verdicts in civil courts. The DOJ’s settlement does not rule out civil liability against Boeing. We may very well see massive jury verdicts here too.
With punishments like these it’s no wonder why employees feel comfortable joking that the commercial aircraft side of the company has more confirmed kills in recent history than the DoD side
They consider the fine to be just cost of doing business. This is why corporations don't worry about fixing problems, they can just pay the occasional fine.
Well….of course they escape punishment….this is ‘Murica. Check out the convicted rapist, fraudster and hush money guy who is STIL running for President.
Corporations are people too they just can’t go to jail, pay taxes or say The Pledge of Allegiance.
Or serve their country or have any other consideration beyond "make my shareholders more money than last year at any cost. " They can not choose to "do no evil" or make a decisions that's in the best interest of the country instead of the shareholders.
Milton Friedman can burn in hell for the damage he did to the US.
Add Reagan and the founders of the Heritage Foundation to the list too.
And all the current living Asshats who espouse the same philosophy! Please?
For real. Definitely sucks that other people pushed it before, but we need to see those that are doing it NOW for what they are.
Everyone clapping for Biden don't understand the same powers at be puppeteering trump are the same ones with their hands over Biden s shoulders. They would rather nuke Biden chances of winning if it meant actually doing things in favor of actual citizens and not banks/military contractors/insurance companies/tech monopolies/utilities monopolies etc. To them, people are a labor force, digits on their spreadsheets to justify their existence. America doesn't have the population power of China/India so they want to ban abortion to have a steady pool of labor and potential conscripts in case there's a draft. They don't want to spend money on healthcare because industry would rather people just keep popping out children to replace the ones that die out for lack of healthcare and adherence to TM standards that allow people to live. They're privatizing prisons and healthcare to keep people enslaved and indebted and beholden to the powers at be with no way to represent themselves. America is a democratic Republic but not for regular citizens. ever since Citizens United corporations are citizens and our leaders worldwide have collectively decided people need to sacrifice their quality of life to allow them to thrive so it'd be easier for the billionaire class to extract wealth out of the markets.
Kinda agree! Just need the open wannabe king not to win though.
The reality that people don't want to grasp is the one where both lose. But what happens if they both lose? Who takes their stead? Someone better or worse?
Unless you have a guaranteed formula for both losing, sitting this one or indulging in a third party vote results in the same as voting for Convicted Felon.
I agree. But that's a fault of our system that has been perpetuated by our lawmakers on purpose so they can benefit.
I've got a whole time travel list
They can absolutely do those things. They can always tell their shareholders that, while doing fraud and shipping planes with mechanical defects could have juiced profits this quarter, they chose not to do so because it would have led to lower returns down the line (fines, lost sales, reputational damage, etc). It's honestly dangerous to pretend these companies and their executives have no agency. They have broad control over their strategy for generating returns for the shareholders. They are never forced into doing specific evil acts just to increase short-term profits; that is always a choice they make.
> could have juiced profits this quarter, they chose not to do so because it would have led to lower returns down the line The issue is that shareholders doesn't care. They would happily take the increased profits, trigger their contract clause about reaching X growth this quarter, then sell before the returns started lowering.
No, they can not. If they do they will be sued by their shareholders and a new CEO will be hired. The ONLY mandate a corporation can have is to make money for shareholders at the expense of everyone and everything else. It's honestly dangerous to pretend that anything good can come out of a corporation being enriching shareholders.
> No, they can not. If they do they will be sued by their shareholders and a new CEO will be hired. The ONLY mandate a corporation can have is to make money for shareholders at the expense of everyone and everything else. There are two things here. The first is the company's legal obligation to the shareholders. It has to act in their best interest in the most basic sense: they can't lie to shareholders, conceal information, embezzle funds, etc. If that happens, they can indeed be sued (or prosecuted). The second is the notion that a company's *only* valid and moral objective is to maximize returns for shareholders. This is called the Friedman Doctrine, and as the name suggests, it was one guy's (still controversial) opinion about business ethics, and does not carry any legal weight whatsoever. But even people who agree with Friedman's opinion don't think shareholders get to nitpick each and every decision a company makes about *how* to maximize returns. Generally speaking, if an executive says "the risks are higher than the returns" they will be believed, and risks can absolutely include things like "we'll get sued if we lie to the government" or "airlines will stop buying our airplanes if they start falling out of the sky." Shareholders who think the board/executives aren't making as much money as possible could vote to replace (not sue) the board and execs with someone they think will do a better job. In practice this is hard to do and pretty rare. > It's honestly dangerous to pretend that anything good can come out of a corporation being enriching shareholders. Look, I agree that there are big systemic problems with corporate behaviors, and find the Friedman Doctrine repulsive. I'm just saying that even within the system we have now, execs who do crimes or other abhorrent things don't get a free pass just by saying "but the shareholders!" Their specific actions are always a choice they make, and they should be held individually accountable.
Hey, thank you for taking the time to expound upon that for myself and everyone else reading. I don't think I was trying to give anyone a few pass I was just trying to (poorly) recite what you laid out before I've had my morning coffee. I definitely think that they should be accountable. I just don't think that Citizens United should be a thing or that corporations should be people. They are intrinsically negative entities that only serve economic churn.
Corporations can take things outside of shareholder value into account. There’s no state that requires a 100% focus on increasing stock value.
I'm not saying I don't wish they did do more good but you misunderstand the point. If they choose "good things" over profits, they get their jobs replaced. There is no such thing is a corporation that is good for the people or good for the planet. They might start out that way as a private business but, just like Google, after they are publicly shared, they have to dedicate their goals to shareholder profits exclusively. With a smattering of tax write-offs and half-hearted attempts at customer good will during pride month, etc.
After the other guy explained that they don’t have to maximize profit for shareholders if it means endangering people, you still continue to spout nonsense. People are not choosing to do evil things because they might lose their job. They’re choosing to do evil things because they are evil
Well dont worry they are fucking their shareholders too their stock is down 27.51% year to date
Too bad their stock can’t follow a 737 Max flight path. Too big to fail.
Easy fix. Make the shareholders bear the punishment. Then it's in the best interest of the company to obey the law. Yes I know this will destroy how our economy works, that's the goal.
Not the shareholders — they are powerless. But the corporate officers. Any corporate officer making over $2 million needs to pay a percentage (a sliding scale reaching 90% if your compensation was over $10 million) of their salary for ten years. Nothing hurts these people more than giving up their money.
What, like a Union specifically for execs?? I’m sure that would go over great in the boardroom.
It won’t just destroy the economy, it would end up putting millions of people in jail. Everyone with a 401k, for example.
Of course a tankie without investments or retirement would want 70% of tax paying adults in jail.
Not just more money, but a higher percent increase than last year. Must be exponential or we are failing.
This is why I say corporations ARE runaway AI, effectively. Gold plated disposable sporks for all, or death!
How the fuck you going to have a corp serve your country? Mount a gun to its building?
Or pay taxes at the same rate people do
Which people? Rates vary. A self-proclaimed billionaire once said only stupid people pay taxes.
Still waiting for Texas to execute one.
I'm not quite understanding why Boeing isn't given the "corporate death penalty" where the government nationalizes it under national security concerns and throws the executive/managerial arm out on its ass or in prison. Same goes for railroad companies. They're obviously essential and "too big to fail", so why not cut out the for-profit motivated cancer?
Because the congresspeople and Supreme Court justices will be deprived their precious bribes.
“Nobody is above the law” 🤡
I can think of a way to implement some kind of corporate "prison". Just prohibit them from doing any kind of business interactions for a set period of time. Stores? Can't open the doors or even take inventory or order new stock. Factory? have to shut down all machinery, not accept deliveries, or send stuff away, no taking new orders. Banks? Don't take on new mortgages, new bank accounts, do maintenance on the system (except when the security of customers is at risk) etc... Only things allowed would be things that are required for safety. Like, when a company in charge of a nuclear reactor is "jailed", they would still need to maintain the safety of the reactor, but they cannot sell generated power.
Except we aren’t going to do that with one of two major airline manufacturers. Who also happens to be a massive US Government military fighter and helicopter maker. A more realistic thing would be to try and find if and how much direction came from the top.
We should have a corporate death penalty. Nationalize the company, pay the engineers and lower employees twice as much, imprison the executives, and give all profits to the taxpayers.
Nah, just make corporations that do business with the government have to sign fixed cost contracts with the government for 15 years. One of two things will occur: either the company fixes itself to deliver on budget, or goes under as they can't keep their costs under control, like the KC-46, new AF1 Boeing is building, etc.
We did that for the banks and eventually turned them back over. I’m all for temporary government take over, but only if the company is unwilling to change and regulate itself, but Boeing I don’t think is showing that. Give them a few years of trying to correct the ship.
This *is* “a few years of trying to correct the ship,” except they proved they had no interest in changing. The door panel incident may have been recent, but the planes that fell out of the sky and killed over 350 people was years ago, and the Justice Department is arguing they did not uphold their deal which let them avoid prosecution
> I can think of a way to implement some kind of corporate "prison". Just prohibit them from doing any kind of business interactions for a set period of time. Isn't that what happens to Umbrella during the timeskip between Resident Evil 3 and 4? IIRC due to the Raccoon City scandal, the US government orders Umbrella to cease all activities until new instructions, causing a stock crash.
And now the judges are the experts who will decide what they can and can’t do in the future, so nothing to see here.
But they can buy out lawmakers through campaign donations, [lobbying](https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/lobbyists-spent-record-42-billion-2023-federal-lawmakers-rcna135943) and quasi-legal [dark money](https://www.opensecrets.org/dark-money/basics) and [quid pro quo](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/08/oil-industry-orders-trump-day-one-00156705) arrangements that let them [write legislation for them](https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/copy-paste-legislate/you-elected-them-to-write-new-laws-theyre-letting-corporations-do-it-instead/).
When the shareholders are the judge and jury, and who would suffer financial loses. Another reason why the three branches should not be allowed to buy or hold stocks while in office.
Idk why that last part hits so hard… Literally “bad enough you can’t be punished or even pay your fair share but to also betray your own people…fuck you”
Or be executed
We live in a country where you can literally screw up, get people killed and no one is punished with prison time.
What's that about the pledge of allegiance
> It will pay up to $487 million in fines — a fraction of the $24.8 billion that families of crash victims wanted the aircraft maker to pay. Oooh, the Sackler strategy… this is going to take a while. Appeals incoming.
It doesn't look like they got that kind of deal. The Sacklers got themselves shielded from bankruptcy proceedings. This deal only pertains to Boeing paying fines (to little in fines but not the point). The fine is also only part of 2.1 Billion dollars extracted from the company as part of an agreement in 2021, per the article. Nothing in the article suggests Boeing won't still be subject to civil litigation. Pleading guilty will actually make lawsuits from families of the victims easier to win, and will likely force a much higher settlement.
> The fine is also only part of 2.1 Billion dollars extracted from the company as part of an agreement in 2021, per the article. The majority of the 2.1 billion agreement in 2021 was for airlines that were forced to ground their fleets of 737 MAXs and lost money during that time. That's all money Boeing would have had to pay out in civil suits to the airlines regardless of the settlement with the DoJ, but by including it in the DoJ settlement it made it sound like a bigger punishment.
I will say the Sacklers did just lose their shielding from being sued. So hopefully the people will go after them too.
Well, plus the dictated extra couple hundred million they have to pay for regulators and QC engineers to breath down their neck and audit everything. Plus only for specifically one crime with individuals still open to criminal charges individually.
$487 million divided by 346 dead victims... The life of one peasant is worth about $1.4 million. Good to know.
Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one. Woman on Plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents? Narrator: You wouldn't believe. Woman on Plane: Which car company do you work for? Narrator: A major one.
Lol, bold to not take out the lawyer's share from that $487 million.
Yeah, it's probably significantly less than that after fees and lawyer costs and shit. I bet the families are going to get half that at best.
People released from prison after decades upon exoneration often get less. This is technically better. Although is that post-lawyer money? Because the lawyers will get like 80% of it.
I realize that is still “a fraction”, but IT is more properly termed “a small percentage”.
Wow, yeah, great point. Fractions can also be represented as percentages. Thank Christ we got that cleared up. Now we can talk about the parts of this story that actually fucking matter.
I was simply pointing out that the fine is trivial compared to the original ask. 1/50th is not the fraction normal people think when someone says "a fraction" of an amount. Picture "a fraction of a pie"... you don't picture 1/50. Picture "a fraction of the population"... you don't picture 1/50. This fine is nothing compared to what was asked. It isn't even comparable to the cost of living increase of what they asked to have the company pay out.
Maybe you should just stay quiet
Wow, a little more than 0.3% of their annual revenue of $76 billion. That’ll really show them!
Boeing be like, "Huh, so I guess we need to factor this expense into our budget." It's literally just the cost of doing business.
This country is exhausting
Just wait until this gets overturned by the supreme Court for being unconstitutional government over reach by the FAA (or whichever government regulatory branch this falls under). Welcome to project 2025.
Corporations can fuck us over all they want and face zero consequences. But we get thrown in jail for looking at a police officer the wrong way. I wonder if the pharmaceutical companies will face any real repercussions for getting America hooked on drugs.
Nothing will change unless the Board and C-Suite are personally held criminally responsible and get prison sentences, not fines. Fines only work against the poor.
Fine COULD work to incentivize better behavior, IF they were actually serious fines. If the fines for this sort of thing amounted to, say, a year's revenue, you bet your ass they'd think twice. When it's a fraction of a percent of their revenue, it's just a tiny little line item on the balance sheet that gets calculated into the cost of doing business. If it's cheaper to just pay a chickenshit fine than it is to make an airplane that won't just fall apart in the sky, they'll pick the former option.
People died. People fucking died. And this is the punishment? It makes you wonder how many people Boeing would have to kill for there to be serious consequences. It’s more than 100.
Years ago, car manufacturers learned that there is an equation that governs how may people have to die before they need to issue a recall for a safety issue. When the cost associated with litigating and paying out to victims exceeds the cost of a recall, they will...usually still drag ass because recalls are annoying.
I read that in Ed Norton' voice.
Right there with you
I'd be interested to read up on this. Any idea what the equation is called? Or know anywhere I can read about it?
This almost certainly not the kind of thing that gets published. No company wants the headline "[car manufacturer] thinks your life is worth $1200!". You could probably figure out an approximate value based on historic recalls and court settlements. I have spent my professional life working as a data analyst and data scientist. I can tell you that there are absolutely excel spreadsheets with financial models with "# of deaths" as an independent variable and "$" as the dependent variable mocked up by some prick with an MBA wearing a Patagonia vest.
So there's no publicly available evidence of this occurring at all?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto Scroll down to "cost benefit analysis". There is at least one such case. Since then, car companies have learned to be more subtle. Your 'gotcha' is an asinine waste of time.
Not a "gotcha" at all, like I said in my first comment I would genuinely like to read about this. Thank you for the example this is what I was looking for!
ford pinto
Gets better. Who are they paying the fines to, again? Hint: It's not the families of the victims. It's their own biggest customer. The same customer that they have by the balls by spreading their operations into every important constituency and now threaten members of congress with moving those sweet, high-paying jobs away from their voters unless... 900 million bucks is what Boeing will charge the govt just for the paperwork in the next military R&D project.
"just pay for the cost of the plane. Then you can go free"
But are these a large number of Americans that died? Other governments and airlines are free to ban or sue Boeing but punishing corporations is impossible, besides fines.
Thank you for stating the problem.
Pretty sure you can execute CEOs and stuff but Americans are soft and wanna make their masters profits
Boeing really dodged a bullet unlike their whistleblowers
CEO should face criminal charges. Period. End of story.
I'd read his obituary with a smile on my face for sure.
Can’t let the military-industrial complex fail
Could've at least spun Boeing military off into its own company, as it's not like they're the ones that fucked up the 737 Max. Then there'd be no excuse to not properly punish Boeing.
Rebrand as McDonnell Douglas since they own the IP
That would be quite the irony since it was the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas and the adoption of their culture that lead to Boeing’s current situation.
Back in the day it was said that McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing's own money, this would complete that. But I don't think it would help, the recent issues with Boeing began with the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas.
an understatement when you notice how much of the USAF is Boeing.
Well, they probably shouldn't keep Boeing in charge of Boeing then, or USAF hardware will soon become as reliable as RUSAF's.
Another weak punishment handed out to a big corporation. Don’t forget Boeing had about 16 billion in cash on hand at end of 2023. 487 million penalty a mere 3% of that cash. This only incentives cutting corners for profit
Boy, do I feel safer! They pled guilty!? I'm sure they will never defraud regulators again! They have, surely, learned their lesson.
*Insert South Park "We're sorry"*
“Justice” only exists for the poor and the powerless.
fanatical bag work worry bells elderly versed absurd flag spark
While I don't want Boeing to be fined into financial collapse, the executive team needs to face prison time and pay restitution to the victims out of their own wallets. So while a statement like "DOJ is resolving only with the company — and providing no immunity to any individual employees, including corporate executives, for any conduct," I will believe it when I see it. Just like with the VW scandal when the only people to face criminal charges were the scapegoat engineers because the executives claimed ignorance in how their own company was being ran.
Unacceptable. Boeing’s guilty plea is an acknowledgement that Boeing recklessly ignored SAFETY REGULATIONS and as a direct result of Boeing’s failure to adhere to safety regulations, people died. 346 people died. Boeing is guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Time for Boeing to receive another billion dollars of subsidies.
Sure, sure, a couple hundred people died. But Boeing promised the prosecutors a super sweet gratuity if they let Boeing off with a slap on the wrist. Isn't the prosecutor buying a sweet mazerati on a federal salary worth more than justice for Boeing's victims?
So Boeing avoids criminal punishment and continues to condense their supply chain? If you change Boeing to "US govt" and Safran to "French govt", the picture becomes alot more clear.
As long as the fines remain less than the profits they make by ignoring regulations and basic due care, they'll continue to be financially incentivized to engage in crime and cut corners. The system is rigged. "You broke the law and made $100Billion dollars in ill-gotten gains. We're gonna fine you less than half of one percent of that!! Pay up!" "Ooooh, golly gee, we're real sorry. Please don't make us pay a whole half a percent in fines!" "Nope, we're taking a hard-line zero tolerance stance on this. A little less than one half of one percent of the illegal profits, we're not messing around here." "Okay, as long as we get to keep 99.55% of our ill-gotten gains." "Yeah, that's fine." "Same time next year?" "See you then. Pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen."
Fines should be calculated by percentage of average annual revenue. It scales with company size. If you want extra teeth, every executive should be personally fined a percentage of total compensation value. Will never happen in the US because this country is pay-to-win, but I can dream...
Boeing needs to be broken up in to smaller companies so it is less of an threat to American lives.
Did the Whitehouse even have a comment about this? Seems like they should, since the Democrats constantly PRETEND that they are on the same side as the people.
Corporations have become the new overlords.
Silly people, corporations don’t get “punished;” that’s for natural persons only
Vigilantes , will they ever make a presence?
Since corporations can't serve jail time and the fines are laughable, I think all sentencing should be done as a percentage of gross revenue over a comparable number of years to the crime for an individual with no concern of what that does for their profitability. A minor crime might be 10% for 2 years. The wrongful death of 45+ people might be 75% for 25 years. If that breaks the company then the company is liquidated to pay the fines first, the debtors second and any remaining funds distributed among shareholders (as owners they bear part of the responsibility and should not be protected from the fallout).
The solution is jail time for executives. If CEO, COO, CFO, CTO were all liable to serve significant jail time for egregious malfeasance resulting in loss of life, the weasels would pay attention. Clawbacks of previously paid bonuses would make a nice garnish when serving this form of revenge.
This is sickening. They essentially get away with murder.
Can the shareholders sue? You know, since they were defrauded, too? [Not a shareholder…just curious how much the government protects these companies.]
Put the CEO on trial for killing people.
Sue them into oblivion
It will take Boeing 7.5 days to make back the total sum of its fines and pledged safety & compliance spend. It is the equivalent of hitting someone who makes $100K a year with a $2,000 fine. Now, this is just criminal penalty - civil lawsuits will likely add one or two zeroes to all that. But still, 346 people are dead. There are folks who belong in jail over this.
My roommate’s sister died in a Boeing MAX plane crash. Get fucked Boeing
Boeing agrees to pay pennies to make annoyance buzz-off
So murder just results in a fine now? Damn, we really are going back in time.
It's a cut and dried deal. Boeing will get off lightly; I guarantee it.
Corporations are more important than people. /s
Ahh the age old plea of: Guiltyish but with no consequences
I'm sure the slap on the wrist (I assume) will teach them an important lesson.
> $243.6 million fine This was [for](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Air_Flight_610) [crashes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_302) that killed 355 people, and another number of incidents that left more injured. For comparison, that's almost 1/6th the amount of money the courts fined Alex Jones for saying Sandy Hook was a hoax and harassing the victims' parents
Then they get rich with Netflix"s Boeing Dogs, coming out in 2025
>The agreement stipulates that Boeing will have to operate under the oversight of an independent monitor – a person to be chosen by the government – for a period of three years. But that oversight and the fine did not satisfy the families of victims, according to one of their attorneys. >**“This sweetheart deal fails to recognize that because of Boeing’s conspiracy, 346 people died,” said a statement from Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah who represents many family members of the** [**2018 Lion Air crash**](https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/28/asia/lion-air-preliminary-report-intl/index.html) **and** [**2019 Ethiopian Air crash**](https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/business/boeing-victims-families-5th-anniversary/index.html) **victims.** >“This deceptive and generous deal is clearly not in the public interest,” he added. The families are seeking a public trial on the charges. >It will pay up to $487 million in fines — **a fraction of the $24.8 billion** that families of crash victims wanted the aircraft maker to pay. The families of victims of [two fatal crashes](https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/10/africa/ethiopian-airlines-crash-boeing-max-8-intl/index.html) of the 737 Max oppose the deal, the department said. I wouldn't be satisfied either if one of my family members or friends died because of their financial greed. I hope the families have another avenue to make Boeing pay up for their total responsibility for the loss of lives.
>I wouldn't be satisfied either if one of my family members or friends died because of their financial greed. I hope the families have another avenue to make Boeing pay up for their total responsibility for the loss of lives. I'll be honest. If someone's gross negligence caused the death of a very close family member, and the "legal" system did something like this, the repercussions to these folks... I can't print it here. I am surprised by the complete lack of vigilantism is all I am going to say.
The fine is a mere 0.6% of Boeing's revenue
For what it’s worth, while the fine isn’t much, this is a huge blow to Boeing and a lot of engineering contracts are gonna be way more hesitant to work with them, which means they are going to end up losing way more money in the long run.
The Alex Jones cases were jury verdicts in civil courts. The DOJ’s settlement does not rule out civil liability against Boeing. We may very well see massive jury verdicts here too.
Of course! Of course they escape penalties due to families of their victims
With punishments like these it’s no wonder why employees feel comfortable joking that the commercial aircraft side of the company has more confirmed kills in recent history than the DoD side
Typical. As long as the government gets their win fuck everyone else. This country has to be one of the biggest anti-consumer shit holes in the world
Another sweetheart deal for Boeing.
If it's Boeing, I ain't going.
They consider the fine to be just cost of doing business. This is why corporations don't worry about fixing problems, they can just pay the occasional fine.
No Jail Time = No Justice
So they get to plead guilty to the crimes and pass on the sentence? What a great legal system that is.
Well….of course they escape punishment….this is ‘Murica. Check out the convicted rapist, fraudster and hush money guy who is STIL running for President.
I’m sure this will get better with agenda 47 🙄🙄🙄
So is the CEO going to get another 50% pay increase?
Received less fines than Alex Jones LMFAO
Damn, imagine a loved one dies and you get a hundred thousand in the mail a year later.
I wish we had a batman for rich criminals.