It's so convenient that all these people waited until retirement to speak out, but they also said they weren't doing anything wrong? Zero morals by anyone in this story.
It is easy to be ethically and morally responsible, after one becomes rich, after one is retired. Until then, it is enough to follow the law just enough to not get fined. Actually, even that is a tall ask these days - fines are just cost of doing business.
It sucks that it is this way, but society seems to have largely accepted it
Fine are the cost of doing business... FOR COMPANIES.
For individuals: arrest, jail, prison, and horrifically crippling fines are normal.
An individual kills 1 person, and its 15y to life. But if youre an 'insurance company' and make policies in abeyance of insurance and arbitrarily deny 30% of claims getting many killed (Luigi says hi), thats perfectly fine. Youre a business leader making lots of money.
You steal $100 from the till at $shitretailjob and company calls cops and has you arrested. BUT if they fraudulently change timesheets and steal $100 from you, wellllll thats a civil matter.
Or, a company made 1B dollars but spent $990M, they only owe taxes on 10M$. But if I make $100k and spent $90k, I still pay taxes on 100k, not 10K.
This country should be called the Corporate States of America. That fiction has more rights than I or any other non-billionaire average human will ever have.
China is definitely different in this particular aspect. The balance of powers in "state vs corporations" is completely different from the US. And China is seeing massive benefits from this particular aspect of its country, it's closely related to their ascension vs. the decline of the US in particular.
Before people turn to Reddit-style downvoting and flagging, this isn't a vouch for China as a country on the whole. It has plenty of other problems that certain Western countries don't have. I'm simply talking about the specific topic at hand.
Yea, when the communist party thinks an industry should change it changes in the way the communist party says. Of course it is often not without side-effects.
Can you enumerate some of these benefits? They famously arrested Jack Ma for not bending to the CCP enough. I don’t think that’s really a benefit (e.g. if the equivalent in the US was Democrats arresting any CEOa politically against them).
They're countless. Can you not think of any major issues as of 2026 directly caused by the enormous power that megacorporations hold in the US? I struggle to believe you can't. If you can, then it should be easy to see that at least some of them would not happen in China because of the opposite balance of power.
Just to give one example, look up the crackdown on Alibaba and platform monopolies. You also mentioned Jack Ma. The Ant Group IPO he was pushing, was likely to be a bad thing for most of Chinese society.
How did Netflix do making a business decision that defied the wishes of the Ellison family? With Trump 47 there are literally pages of this sort of stuff.
Other notable non-Trumpist example is Joseph Nacchio, the former CEO of Qwest. He refused to comply with a request for phone records without a warrant. The reaction was a drop in Federal business and a prosecution for insider trading.
That was over 20 years ago? And there were half a dozen Qwest executives who were profiting from insider trading on inflated revenues that started in 1999, long before the NSA incident in 2001. I remember it clearly because I had the misfortune of being a shareholder in that dog.
I can call these hypocrisies to light. I do so on the off chance that we gain enough support to start reversing end-stage capitalism.
Im not going to list factoids of what rank we are or arent. Its honestly irrelevant. Im stuck here, since I have no familial claim of citizenship elsewhere.
So, yeah. I speak out here and in person, about these abuses.
Eventually, we'll do better. Takes time. Probably longer than I have alive.
> Companies committing fraud do get caught and the penalties are often larger than the fraud brought in.
The problem is, we don't send companies to prison for wrongdoing. It's always just a fine, so breaking the law boils down to a cost x risk / benefit analysis.
Why is it always a fine? Let's invent a prison for companies. Revoke the corporate charter, order it to cease operations, and freeze all trading of the company's shares for N years. Maybe that would be enough for corporate leadership, the board, and shareholders to take wrongdoing seriously.
But also, what if you have those ideas and thoughts from the beginning and during the entire time, yet also build your life on those systems you despise, then you use your "won" resources to fight against them, isn't that at least better than the alternatives?
We built our modern society on the principle that profit must be prioritized over morality, they're just conforming to systematic incentives. Those who sell their souls to the devil don't get to act shocked when they wind up in hell.
> Those who sell their souls to the devil don't get to act shocked when they wind up in hell.
Which is everyone, since everyone has their pension invested in a giant pool made of of unethical companies that we can't fine, ban or let fail because it would destroy people's retirements who will then vote in an angry way to reverse this, or it will destroy some upstream national important industries that are very well regulated, or lobby very well, like Purdue pharma.
It's a collective fault, not that of only a handful of people.
I feel like this supposes a better world where most people are educated, rational, and calm investors with the time, money, and energy to actively manage a diversified portfolio.
Or I guess you could get there by abolishing the stock market as it exists, which seems more likely.
I served in an executive role for a non-Federal government organization. Think a senior director, not a political position.
My stock holdings had to be disclosed, and were and still are publicly viewable. They audit them and explore potential conflicts. When I was promoted, I had to justify and certify potential conflicts due to long existing stock holdings of myself and my son, which were subject to monitoring and I was not allowed to participate in certain activities without counsel approval. Even that was only permissible because I asked for specific permission due to the hardship I would face from tax liability. If I hadn’t asked for that permission I could’ve been subjected to a civil penalty or even criminal prosecution.
That’s required for public confidence. The federal rules are stricter. A Federal official can be subject to a fine for displaying a political lawn sign at their home. Their supplemental retirement plan obscures the corporate affiliations of their investments.
Unfortunately, you’re displaying the nihilist, uninformed perspective which put fascists in power. By saying the president is corrupt, but so is everybody else you’re implicitly supporting and endorsing the behavior. That’s what they want.
>That’s required for public confidence. The federal rules are stricter.
You're trying to hide behind a bureaucratic mumbo jumbo, which is how the likes on Nancy Pelosi can constantly beat the stock market by a wide margin, and yet not raise any legal eyebrows.
Not putting you in the same basket as her, just saying that just because there are rules in place, doesn't mean they have the desired preventing effect you talk about, because it's the enforcement that's lacking. Just because the policies keep YOU honest, doesn't mean they apply to everyone else.
>Unfortunately, you’re displaying the nihilist, uninformed perspective which put fascists in power. By saying the president is corrupt, but so is everybody else you’re implicitly supporting and endorsing the behavior. That’s what they want.
You're soo offtopic that it's laughable. Sure buddy, everyone with a different opinion than you is a fascist, only you have the right answer to everything from within your bubble.
Why do you think that special forces officer was arrested for insider trading but not Trump's friends? Now tell us again, how there's no legal double standards, and your legal mumbo jumbo prevents insider trading.
It's actually not convenient at all. Consider this: animal study to human study fail all the time.
In another world, there could have been NO impact at all to human beings and PFAS could be just another random chemical the body doesn't clear but doesn't actually do anything and sits there inert.
I know everyone's pissed about this but the thyroid/other connections stuff happens 10 years later as a result and these are idiot business people playing in waters they don't understand (and neither did medicine at that time). You could say, "you can't take the risk." For me these questions are maybe we need to take a deeper/closer look at what are permissible risks and at what point.
But you could use the same logic to not make any advancement ever. No antibiotics because it will cause resistence. No chemo because it will cause damage and death. People want there to be a Dr. Eggman or Hitler in this story because it's turned out to be so impactful. Like Aesbestos which solved for fire, just poorly - carpet was solving for comfort, sound deadening, and emotional well being. We just can't necessarily quantify that as easily.
It's fantastic that science continually grows in understanding and can attribute once thought "inert" chemicals to problems. "How evil children playing with matches" are though, is asking the wrong question. These people were stupid enough to say - "there's cancer in rats, lets just keep going".
True, but if you contaminate water, and people, with chemicals not supposed to be there; I feel the burden should be on you to prove the chemicals are not harmful.
> you could use the same logic to not make any advancement ever
No you couldn't - the measures taken to prevent contamination were inadequate, they could've innovated while also following the rules. And if not, no business is owed a viable business model, certainly a random strangers heath isn't worth the price of profiting from easy-to-clean carpets.
> We just can't necessarily quantify that as easily.
Quantify what?
> can attribute once thought "inert" chemicals to problems
we (or America) have a whole system of classifying chemicals as safe for human consumption or not. Whatever was thought about PFAS, I don't believe they had been proven safe enough to dump into drinking water?
>But you could use the same logic to not make any advancement ever. No antibiotics because it will cause resistance. No chemo because it will cause damage and death.
I understand the argument you are making, and I'm no fan of govt/regulations, but you will notice that often basic testing of toxicity/side effects is missing or the system is gamed.
One example I recently came across: antidepressant drugs are tested on people for around 12 weeks and then labeled safe if there are no side effects or reversible side effects. To summarize: profits overrides and safety concerns.
Better to not be a hypocrite and continue abusing your hard exploited capital?
It's the banality of evil over and over again. Can't really blame the individual, with some extreme exceptions, otherwise by calling people out as you are doing you are participating in perpetuating the problem without contributing with anything new.
