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#20
Political discussions are frowned on in this forum, but with that caveat and with apologies to the moderators:
No matter how you write the laws, the costs will be passed along to the consumer and for anyone to attempt to prevent that will increase the complexity of tax-law exponentially and will destroy the profitability of those corporations, Corporations must by able to pass along their costs, or they cannot make a profit and without profit, those companies will not exist, the jobs they create will no longer exist and thus the stream of revenue will cease.
If you think that we would all be better off with the old mom and pop stores instead of large corporations, you are mistaken. It requires large sources of capital in order to invest in research and development and invent the many things we take for granted everyday.
The most economically successful societies have always been the least regulated. In such an environment, everyone wins, the consumer wins through buying products made cheaper through the economies of scale available only to0 large commercial interests, the employees win because when the company profits, wages go up, the government wins because when companies are profitable, revenues increase, and the stockholders win because their stock values go up and their dividends increase.
The most tightly regulated economies are the least successful--which is why socialism and communist invariably fail as economic models.
[quote]I agree with your basic argument, but identifying who is responsible and who should be held responsible aside from the lower down people who merely did what they were told is very difficult--in private businesses as it is in government.Why should everyone in the corporation be punished?
Why not punish those who were involved and those who were supposed to be overseeing the company's operations?
Fining a corporation only punishes the general public and the shareholders.
That's why corporations cover up manufacturing defects.
There have been many examples of companies (think automotive) not performing recalls, because the lawyers and accountants calculated that court fines would be less than the cost of a product recall.
If the law was, the BOD is civilly and criminally responsible for actions of their corporations (except in the case of actions performed by external unaffiliated person(s) or rogue employees) the corporations would "clean up their acts" overnight.
Example: At what point is a corporate executive (or BOD) responsible for the neglect of a single employee or a single manager who is concealing his actions? Did they exercise sufficient "due diligence?" In the case of the Tylenol contamination/poisoning, was security sufficiently tight? Was supervision properly exercised?
Any investigation automatically penalizes the entire corporations at least as much as a blanket fine, both in costs and in man power and distraction from pursuing their business.
Personally I would like to see more "hard time" prison sentences handed out for "white collar" criminals--such as those you identify. I think serving time in Attica or Folsom would be a much better deterrent than a couple of years at "Club Fed."
Well first, I don' live in a "democratic government," I live in a republic, a system in which the states have defined powers and jurisdiction and the powers of the federal government are strictly and precisely laid out in a charter (the Constitution).If you live in a "Democratic" society, why are you scared of the Government?
Could it be that the Government passes laws that benefit special interest groups (e.g. corporations, unions, religious groups, etc.) to the detriment of the majority of the citizenry?
Eliminate the influence of special interest groups and make the politicians do what the majority of voters tell them to.
Of course if you are in a minority group, things might not be so rosy.
The closer a government is to the people, the more responsive it is to their needs. I prefer that the federal government be restricted to those areas in which they are uniquely suited to function and leave the remainder of governing to local government. The problem isn't government, it is too much government.
As former President Gerald Ford said: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have."
The government should be at the sufferance of the people, not in control of them. As we say here, "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people."
Government has its functions: to defend its citizens from foreign and domestic enemies, to ensure that each citizen has the opportunity to succeed--or fail--as their own abilities allow, to provide an environment in which a persons level of financial and personal success is dependent solely on their willingness to sacrifice and strive for that success.
What we see all too often is government trying to limit the success of one in the interest of a nebulous and capricious concept of "fairness." Trying to ensure equality of outcome rather than of opportunity. Too many people see success as a zero sum game rather than a limitless resource. Just because one person is successful does not prevent another from being the same. Government has a tendency to impose limits on one to further the success of another--either for political reasons or to achieve some assumed noble goal--the "green movement" and "green energy" is a perfect example.
Government's job is not to protect people from themselves or their own actions, it is to protect them from outside interference. Let the market place decide who succeeds and who fails, not the government. Also, let the people pay the price for their own ignorance and willful neglect.
In the case of corporations, government should ensure that accurate and full information is available; it should not be trying to make decisions on that information in the place of the individual. Yes smoking is bad for you, but the decision whether to smoke or not should be the individual's decision, not the government's.
Government was correct to force the tobacco industry (and all of the others like Monsanto and asbestos, etc) to reveal the truth, but that is the point at which their activity should cease. Once the facts are known, the people through the power of their pocketbooks should decide who succeeds and who fails.
Sorry for being so verbose and again I apologize to the moderators for going Political. I won't respond again because of the admonition against political discussion.
Enjoyed the exchange though, lehnerus2000.