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United States44311 Posts
On January 15 2014 06:44 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:32 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:21 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 15 2014 06:09 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 05:26 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 14 2014 22:56 KwarK wrote:On January 14 2014 16:55 DeepElemBlues wrote:Assuming that they keep the money the same place they keep the liability. If they separate the two then you're out of luck.
There's no place the company can put the money to keep it safe from a judge ordering them to hand it over. Unless it's in numbered accounts in some Kazakhstan bank and no one can prove that it is theirs. That's something that annoys me about corporate personhood. The advocates of it explain that a corporation is, at its heart, a group of people acting collectively and therefore should be respected and protected under the law as if it's a person. And yet if a corporation does something criminal or negligent the shareholders, who have been established to collectively be the corporation, are not held accountable. Shareholders aren't held accountable because most of the time shareholders do not hold an active position of authority within the company and it would be a great miscarriage of justice to punish people for something they had no active part in. Shareholder authority is delegated to the board and shareholder authority usually doesn't extend much past "we can fire the board." If your group is collectively negligent, or employ someone to be negligent on your behalf, you should be accountable. People would be far more involved in making sure their corporations acted responsibly in society if they didn't have all the rights and none of the accountability of the people involved. It's hardly fair to suggest that shareholders hire people to be negligent on their behalf when negligence occurs. Shareholders usually don't hire anyone except the board, and they hire them to increase their dividends and share price, not be negligent and have the government hit the company for millions or billions of dollars and have the value of their stock plummet. Let's say Wal-Mart commits some horrible crime, are you really suggesting 83-year old Mitzy Perkins from Creekbottom Junction, Iowa, who owns 100 shares of Wal-Mart stock, bears some responsibility? What did she or any shareholder do but buy stock? Mens rea, sir, you can't just throw it out the window because you feel like things would be better if you could spank people who had no actual connection to the crime. It is not likely that if you could, shareholders would become more vigilant in their oversight of the company. The more likely outcome of your suggestion would be that far fewer people would become shareholders, increasing the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. Which would, things being as they are, probably make it harder for successful punishment of wrongdoing. That's bad, right? Cause it's not like you can have another shell company handle the storage for a nominal fee and then lease their services to the main company who then denies all responsibility in the case of a leak. Quit being so naive. If a company can create a legal barrier between its obligations and its assets it will. The idea that you can be a shareholder in a business while not actively taking any responsibility for what the business does in your name is the problem I seek to address. It would not be a miscarriage of justice to hold people accountable for what their business does, just because they're negligent in running the thing doesn't mean they don't own it. Yes, shareholders hire the board to increase their dividends or share price, not to act responsibly, ethically or in the long term interests of society. Well done, gold star. The reason they do this is because the arrangement allows them to act (because as we know the corporation really is just them, that's why it gets personhood) unethically and irresponsibly without ever having any repercussions. You've correctly identified that the shareholders don't give a shit about acting responsibly, and why would they, they're not accountable. So yes, if Mitzy Perkins is negligent and allowing criminal shit to happen in her name then yes, Mitzy Perkins bears a portion of the responsibility. That's what ownership entails. If you don't want to be responsible for something don't buy it, this should really be very obvious. The practice of absentee shareholders pushing their boards to maximise dividends while offloading costs to the public and acting in criminal ways would be ended. Banks that irresponsibly lost the savings of their depositors only to declare bankrupt and require the state to reimburse all the deposits would be held accountable. They're absentee landlords who simultaneously grant an agent with their rights and deny any responsibility for what the agent does with those rights. And as for "but if we didn't allow them to reap the rewards of antisocial and irresponsible practices without ever being held to account then they wouldn't do it and the only shareholders would be the ones who actually care how it's run", yeah, that's pretty much the point. Kwark, I have a question. Would you say then that parents are responsible for raising their child? If you answered yes, then whatever the child, regardless of age, does is actually the parent's responsibility? If you answered yes to that then it follows that when their child has kids since the parents were responsible for raising the child what the child of the child does is actually the grandparent's fault? If you say yes to that. Then isn't it really the great great great great great great great great grandparents fault? Then no one is able to be blamed that currently lives so there is in fact no way to punish people. That's kind of what a stockholder is. You give some money to a company in the thinking that they'll do something worthwhile, raising a kid is a lot like that but you also give love and compassion and have a great deal more to do with the actual outcome. Now in this idea the child grown up is the board they make decisions for themselves, and the parent (majority stockholders) can say, "that's not good" and fire the board. The great great great great great great great great great grandparent is that one stock holder who holds less than .0000000001% of the stock. Sure she has some impact on the company but she didn't tell them to act like that, in fact she can't tell them to do anything. She is so far removed, on her own, that she has no power. You might as well hold all of society accountable for things that go wrong, because lets face it, this society is where most of us were raised. Children aren't property. They're not owned by their parents. They're actually capable of free will and independent action, especially as they get older. Corporations on the other hand either need to grow up and be treated as independent entities rather than insisting that because they're owned by people they are people or be treated like property and have the owners held accountable. I don't accept your premise. I find your premise incredibly stupid and if you can't see the difference between not holding a human being's parents accountable for the actions of that independent, sentient human being and holding the owners of a business accountable for the non sentient, dependent business they own then I think you need to seek help. My understanding is that Islamic law held back the development of both Western style finance and corporate entities in the Middle East. Are there any useful parallels that we can draw from that? Or do cultural / political differences make comparisons too hard? Not sure what the relevance of this is to anything but they have rules regarding usury. So did Christianity for that matter, and many Christian groups still do require special arrangements be made for banking and insurance, although most have chosen practicality over what their religion says. But in the olden days we needed Jews to do all our banking for us because it was a sin. Anyway, they have workarounds, a fuller explanation of them can be seen here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_banking Yeah I know they have workarounds. I was pointing more towards the reluctance to create corporate entities than the usury aspect. Timur Kuran has argued that such reluctance held back Middle Eastern development. I'm wondering what you think of that.
I doubt it. As we've seen in the west, the rules were discarded when they got in the way of the practical realities of what the economy needed. Both faced the same obstacles in terms of religious prohibitions on finance, the story of why industrialisation, mercantilism and finance appeared where it did is a much more complicated one.
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On January 15 2014 06:45 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
maybe there's something wrong with the very premise that the sole purpose of a corporation is to make money for the shareholders Eh? Is that how it works in Norway or something?
Norway is a beautiful land with great landscapes and intelligent people. I wouldn't be surprised if it was.
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On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works.
Eh, not sure what slavery laws you learned about, because most held the slave responsible for crimes committed.
Of course, if you gave alcohol and car keys to anyone and they drove drunk, you would be held accountable. Because that's how negligence works.
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United States44311 Posts
On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.)
The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused.
You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense.
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Shareholders in limited liability firms have on average an extremely small share any individual corporation. They have neither the ability nor the willingness to keep close tabs on what is going on in the firm. Prosecuting those people is both impractical and morally and legally questionable. So, to suggest that shareholders should be liable for the actions of a firm beyond the value of the shares they hold, means an end to limited liability constructions.
This, in turn would mean that succesful businesses lose much of their ability to attract the capital required to expand their operations. Both because it is difficult to attract new investors without the option to go public, and because firms lose the ability to provide liquidity for their initial investors, meaning those investors will be less willing to invest.
It is an interesting ethical position, but it would not be very desirable to bring it into practice.
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On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense.
We aren't pretending that no one is responsible for the acts of a corporation are we?
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On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense.
I put the bar scenario in () to signify it wasn't truly apart of the discussion. Just as a side note/footnote if you will.
So you are saying that if your, non-existent, slave which you own .0000001% of drove drunk after being told by more than 50% of the other owners then you are responsible, as a group. Which means that the person who owns .00000001% of but decided that they didn't want to part ways from the group is responsible.
Ok. I think I understand what you're saying. Correct me if I'm wrong.
If someone chooses to be apart of a group and that group makes a decision then the people who are apart of that group are all responsible.
If the group makes a decision and a person leaves because of the decision they are not responsible?
Is that correct?
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United States44311 Posts
On January 15 2014 06:56 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense. We aren't pretending that no one is responsible for the acts of a corporation are we?
We're saying that the limit of the responsibility of the shareholder is the potential loss of value of the shares which makes it a fairly easy decision about whether to require the board to act responsibly within society or simply to try and maximise the share value.
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On January 15 2014 06:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
maybe there's something wrong with the very premise that the sole purpose of a corporation is to make money for the shareholders
This premise certainly creates many perverse incentives. The company I work for is a good (though anecdotal) example of this. Management pursues a very aggressive expense cutting strategy, that shareholders love. Every time they do another round of layoffs the stock price climbs. However, those of us who actually have to make the company money have an increasingly difficult time doing our jobs, because many of the support personnel have been fired.
Perhaps this will not be good for the company in the long run, because eventually it will lose all its customers. However, in the short run shareholders are happy with the CEO, and what does she care about the company's long term viability? She'll leave in a couple years and it will be someone else's problem.
Share price maximizing strategies aren't necessarily good for a corporation in the long run, let alone its employees or society in general.
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It must be wonderful to be able to conclude that corporations cannot act irresponsibly or neglect broader social obligations a priori. You better let reality know.
The fuck are you talking about Kwarky, this is typical of your bullshit. If you can't actually respond to what I said and have to make up bullshit and then act like it's my opinion, just forego the whole process and don't respond. I would think my multiple references to corporate malfeasance would make it clear that I believe in it, but I guess I've fooled myself again. Clearly, my multiple references to corporate malfeasance show that I do not believe in corporate malfeasance.
Do you feel any shame at all when you pull this crap? When you say with a straight face that people have said and believe in things that anyone looking at the conversation could easily tell they have not and do not? Any shame at all?
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On January 15 2014 06:56 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense. We aren't pretending that no one is responsible for the acts of a corporation are we?
No. My thoughts are the people making the decision are mostly responsible and should receive most of the punishment.
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On January 15 2014 06:50 Nacl(Draq) wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:45 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 15 2014 06:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
maybe there's something wrong with the very premise that the sole purpose of a corporation is to make money for the shareholders Eh? Is that how it works in Norway or something? Norway is a beautiful land with great landscapes and intelligent people. I wouldn't be surprised if it was.
They also have a lot of oil and a big sovereign wealth fund. Lucky fucks 
I meant that in the US corporations don't exist for the sole purpose of turning a profit, even though that's a popular idea.
Edit:On January 15 2014 07:00 Mercy13 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:
maybe there's something wrong with the very premise that the sole purpose of a corporation is to make money for the shareholders Share price maximizing strategies aren't necessarily good for a corporation in the long run, let alone its employees or society in general.
I wouldn't disagree with that.
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United States44311 Posts
On January 15 2014 06:59 Nacl(Draq) wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense. I put the bar scenario in () to signify it wasn't truly apart of the discussion. Just as a side note/footnote if you will. So you are saying that if your, non-existent, slave which you own .0000001% of drove drunk after being told by more than 50% of the other owners then you are responsible, as a group. Which means that the person who owns .00000001% of but decided that they didn't want to part ways from the group is responsible. Ok. I think I understand what you're saying. Correct me if I'm wrong. If someone chooses to be apart of a group and that group makes a decision then the people who are apart of that group are all responsible. If the group makes a decision and a person leaves because of the decision they are not responsible? Is that correct?
I'm saying that if you believe your business is acting unethically or criminally and you cannot force it to act otherwise because you are a minority shareholder then you should sell your stake in it so it is not doing it in your name. Reaping the rewards of the actions while disowning the responsibility is not an acceptable stance.
Is the nightmare scenario in which shareholders desert negligent businesses such a problem here?
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On January 15 2014 07:00 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +It must be wonderful to be able to conclude that corporations cannot act irresponsibly or neglect broader social obligations a priori. You better let reality know. The fuck are you talking about Kwarky, this is typical of your bullshit. If you can't actually respond to what I said and have to make up bullshit and then act like it's my opinion, just forego the whole process and don't respond.
Ad hominem provides no actual use to the discussion. I'm sorry you were attacked instead of your discussion.
"don't let a jerk make you jerk."
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On January 15 2014 07:03 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:59 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense. I put the bar scenario in () to signify it wasn't truly apart of the discussion. Just as a side note/footnote if you will. So you are saying that if your, non-existent, slave which you own .0000001% of drove drunk after being told by more than 50% of the other owners then you are responsible, as a group. Which means that the person who owns .00000001% of but decided that they didn't want to part ways from the group is responsible. Ok. I think I understand what you're saying. Correct me if I'm wrong. If someone chooses to be apart of a group and that group makes a decision then the people who are apart of that group are all responsible. If the group makes a decision and a person leaves because of the decision they are not responsible? Is that correct? I'm saying that if you believe your business is acting unethically or criminally and you cannot force it to act otherwise because you are a minority shareholder then you should sell your stake in it so it is not doing it in your name. Reaping the rewards of the actions while disowning the responsibility is not an acceptable stance. Is the nightmare scenario in which shareholders desert negligent businesses such a problem here?
Ok. I understand now. That is a very acceptable stance.
Do you think shareholders should share evenly in responsibility or should the punishment be shared equal to the amount of the company they own. So that .000001% gets only .000001% of the punishment.
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On January 15 2014 07:03 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:59 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense. I put the bar scenario in () to signify it wasn't truly apart of the discussion. Just as a side note/footnote if you will. So you are saying that if your, non-existent, slave which you own .0000001% of drove drunk after being told by more than 50% of the other owners then you are responsible, as a group. Which means that the person who owns .00000001% of but decided that they didn't want to part ways from the group is responsible. Ok. I think I understand what you're saying. Correct me if I'm wrong. If someone chooses to be apart of a group and that group makes a decision then the people who are apart of that group are all responsible. If the group makes a decision and a person leaves because of the decision they are not responsible? Is that correct? I'm saying that if you believe your business is acting unethically or criminally and you cannot force it to act otherwise because you are a minority shareholder then you should sell your stake in it so it is not doing it in your name. Reaping the rewards of the actions while disowning the responsibility is not an acceptable stance. Is the nightmare scenario in which shareholders desert negligent businesses such a problem here?
No, the nightmare scenario is when people are penalized or punished for actions they had no direct responsibility for.
If someone is purely a monetary investor in a company, then their "penalty" for supporting a company that commits criminal or unethical actions is the hit your invested money takes.
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United States44311 Posts
On January 15 2014 07:05 Nacl(Draq) wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 07:03 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:59 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense. I put the bar scenario in () to signify it wasn't truly apart of the discussion. Just as a side note/footnote if you will. So you are saying that if your, non-existent, slave which you own .0000001% of drove drunk after being told by more than 50% of the other owners then you are responsible, as a group. Which means that the person who owns .00000001% of but decided that they didn't want to part ways from the group is responsible. Ok. I think I understand what you're saying. Correct me if I'm wrong. If someone chooses to be apart of a group and that group makes a decision then the people who are apart of that group are all responsible. If the group makes a decision and a person leaves because of the decision they are not responsible? Is that correct? I'm saying that if you believe your business is acting unethically or criminally and you cannot force it to act otherwise because you are a minority shareholder then you should sell your stake in it so it is not doing it in your name. Reaping the rewards of the actions while disowning the responsibility is not an acceptable stance. Is the nightmare scenario in which shareholders desert negligent businesses such a problem here? Ok. I understand now. That is a very acceptable stance. Do you think shareholders should share evenly in responsibility or should the punishment be shared equal to the amount of the company they own. So that .000001% gets only .000001% of the punishment.
Shared out by ownership.
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On January 15 2014 07:03 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:59 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense. I put the bar scenario in () to signify it wasn't truly apart of the discussion. Just as a side note/footnote if you will. So you are saying that if your, non-existent, slave which you own .0000001% of drove drunk after being told by more than 50% of the other owners then you are responsible, as a group. Which means that the person who owns .00000001% of but decided that they didn't want to part ways from the group is responsible. Ok. I think I understand what you're saying. Correct me if I'm wrong. If someone chooses to be apart of a group and that group makes a decision then the people who are apart of that group are all responsible. If the group makes a decision and a person leaves because of the decision they are not responsible? Is that correct? I'm saying that if you believe your business is acting unethically or criminally and you cannot force it to act otherwise because you are a minority shareholder then you should sell your stake in it so it is not doing it in your name. Reaping the rewards of the actions while disowning the responsibility is not an acceptable stance. Is the nightmare scenario in which shareholders desert negligent businesses such a problem here?
Let's all just ignore that this is the first time you've said that knowledge and disregard of malfeasance would be required for punishment to be just. And don't take that sarcastically, it is a big improvement. Not much objectionable with that.
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On January 15 2014 07:07 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 07:05 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 07:03 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:59 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense. I put the bar scenario in () to signify it wasn't truly apart of the discussion. Just as a side note/footnote if you will. So you are saying that if your, non-existent, slave which you own .0000001% of drove drunk after being told by more than 50% of the other owners then you are responsible, as a group. Which means that the person who owns .00000001% of but decided that they didn't want to part ways from the group is responsible. Ok. I think I understand what you're saying. Correct me if I'm wrong. If someone chooses to be apart of a group and that group makes a decision then the people who are apart of that group are all responsible. If the group makes a decision and a person leaves because of the decision they are not responsible? Is that correct? I'm saying that if you believe your business is acting unethically or criminally and you cannot force it to act otherwise because you are a minority shareholder then you should sell your stake in it so it is not doing it in your name. Reaping the rewards of the actions while disowning the responsibility is not an acceptable stance. Is the nightmare scenario in which shareholders desert negligent businesses such a problem here? Ok. I understand now. That is a very acceptable stance. Do you think shareholders should share evenly in responsibility or should the punishment be shared equal to the amount of the company they own. So that .000001% gets only .000001% of the punishment. Shared out by ownership.
Ok. So now if someone goes to a stock trader, and gives them the ability to move their money around. That stock holder then takes the money and invests in an business doing unethical things. Is the stock trader responsible or the actual owner of the stock?
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On January 15 2014 06:59 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 15 2014 06:56 xDaunt wrote:On January 15 2014 06:53 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:41 Nacl(Draq) wrote:On January 15 2014 06:39 KwarK wrote:On January 15 2014 06:32 Nacl(Draq) wrote:
If money is the requirement with who should be blamed then giving money to a drunk makes you accountable for him driving drunk later. You don't own drunk people. You can own a business. Jesus. Is this what passes for logic where you live? But if I gave my slave a load of alcohol and car keys and he drove drunk I would absolutely be held accountable for his actions because he's my slave. That's how property works. So money has no business in owning things. So owning things is owning things. Ok, I see the point. So if you owned .000001% of that slave and then someone else, who owned more than 50% of him, told him to drive drunk. Would you be responsible? Again, attacking the person instead of the topic is considered ad hominem and is generally considered rude. That's fine. I can deal with it. (and oddly enough, if you own a bar and that bar gives alcohol to someone and that person later drives drunk, then the owner of the bar is held responsible. So in actuality even though you don't own the person you are responsible. This is how US law works anyway.) The bar example is completely irrelevant, bars aren't judged responsible because they own their customers, they're judged responsible because they are given a legal responsibility to ensure their product is not abused. You keep explaining how if a free person freely chooses to do something then you wouldn't hold another unrelated individual responsible and therefore that somehow means that if an institution you own that is legally controlled by you and has no individual rights but rather rights derived from you does something then you shouldn't be held accountable either. It doesn't make any kind of sense. We aren't pretending that no one is responsible for the acts of a corporation are we? We're saying that the limit of the responsibility of the shareholder is the potential loss of value of the shares which makes it a fairly easy decision about whether to require the board to act responsibly within society or simply to try and maximise the share value.
What more do you want? The executives are criminally (or otherwise) liable for their actions on behalf of the corporation. Shareholders stand to lose large percentages of their investment holdings if their corporations act badly and the government comes after them with sufficient punitive powers. I don't see why the problem is the corporate form as opposed to the failure of the government to enact laws proscribing specific actions that you want to stop.
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EPT
