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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (18980)	5/23/2024 9:04:42 AM
From: Sun Tzu	1 Recommendation Recommended By Cogito Ergo Sum Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27216

One last thing to demonstrate why it is a bad idea to treat corporations as people. Suppose there is a corporation that is engaged in criminal or corrupt activities. Here I don't want to consider the cases of blatant criminal organizations such as the mafia or organized crime. My focus is on regular malicious acts. We can take the opioid drug case as an example (in contrast to say drug cartels). If we remove the corporate shield, individual members that operated the corporation are held accountable for their criminal negligence and willful blindness. As would be the major shareholders that benefited from the proceeds of the criminal acts. The law is very clear on this. But by treating the corporation as a person, we allow the executives to keep their bonuses and money that they made for breaking the law. They retire with riches without ever being accountable for their actions. Who foots the bill? Whoever is holding the shares when the court case settles or is on its way. Why should we not keep the board members or even the mutual funds that benefited from the crimes accountable? Personal accountability is the cornerstone of how the society progresses and evolves. If mutual funds and major shareholders know that they will be liable for some of the fines even after they sell their shares, then they will do better due diligence and keep a better eye on the board than they do today. Ditto for the retiring executives. How often have we seen a CEO cash in huge payments and leave a company super rich, only for the following CEO to point out that he is innocent of the problems facing the company and it was the previous management at fault? There are times that we have to treat a corporation as a "person" because there is no other way to protect the rights of the individuals. But as much as possible, we should emphasize individual responsibility and keep real people accountable, not virtual ones. The current treatment of corporations often removes or highly distorts personal accountability. It should always be the individual that is primarily held accountable for the actions.