On Sun, 27 Sep 2015 09:00:50 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:

| | The stockholders are also innocent. Why would you punish them? The
| | "market" is already punishing them anyway.
|
| The stockholders are the ones who stand to win
| or lose. It's their responsibility financially. And in
| this case, a controlling interest is owned by two
| families that are said to hold a tight rein. It's not
| punishing the stockholders. It's holding the
| corporation responsible.
|
|
| None of those people had a damn thing to do with this malfeasance. Why
| would you punish them AND all the direct and indirect employees who
| make their living thru VW? It's like shooting yourself in the foot
| and doing it on purpose. Punish the wrongdoers not the innocent.

You haven't fully read the foregoing sub-thread.
That's not what's being talked about.

What do you think the corporation is? If VW is
fined $10 billion that comes out of the stockholders.
They're the corporation. Where else would it come
from? Punishment and reward for a corporation is
all in terms of money. The corporation itself is held
responsible. Essentially, the corporation is the
stockholders. I don't make those rules. And
I don't support them. But that's how it works. It's
unlikely that individuals will be criminally punished
*because* of the way that incorporating avoids
personal responsibility.

(That's the core of the current debate around the
Citizens United case. The Scalia junta of the SCOTUS
ruled that a corporation is an individual and that,
therefore, as long as you incorporate you're free to
corrupt the political system with money in a way
that actual people are not. The result is all sorts
of extremists, both liberal and conservative, filing
a few papers to call themselves something like
"Americans for America" and then using that money
anonymously to buy their favorite candidate.)

This sub-thread started with two people using the
excuse of not harming the employees as their rationale
for not having govt regulation or punishment. They're
saying there should be no punishment. Their concern
about employees was clearly bogus, but it raised an
interesting point. All I said was, if they're worried about
the line employees, then why not arrange for the penalty
to help them? Let VW cover any losses of the low-level
employees rather than have the govt do it through
unemployment benefits.

In the case of VW, the company is closely held,
with the majority of the stock owned by two
falimies, Porsche and Piesch (sp?), who agree to
vote together. So they control the company.
Another big chunk is owned by the German state
of South Saxony. Most of the stock is *not* in the
hands of people who have no say in how the company
operates.

But even if it was, I still don't see why they shouldn't
lose. The small stock owner owns part of the company.
If they're not liable, at least financially, then there is
no liability. That's the problem we have now with mutual
funds being used to finance retirement. Lots of people
own a tiny part of large corporations and have a financial
interest in the success of those corporations, while
sharing no say and no responsibility for corporate actions.
It's actually a kind of money laundering and "sin laundering"
on a massive scale. In the case of something like the
BP oil spill, for instance, there are many people with mixed
interests. As citizens it's in their interest to punish BP and
require them to clean up. As owners of mutual funds it's in
their interest for all large corporations to profit as much as
possible and never suffer penalties. Who is BP, after all?
It's all those mutual fund owners. The result of that is
widespread amoral corporate governance and an apathetic
public.

I'm curious what your plan is for VW. You want to
punish those responsible? Who's responsible? How do we
figure that out? Someone had to write the software.
Others had to road-test the software. Those people
had managers. How do we figure out exactly who's
to blame, and how much? How do we punish them and
compensate the VW owners? Should all those people
have all their money taken away? What if all that money
doesn't nearly cover the penalties? And what about the
poor children of those guilty VW employees who are
innocent? And what about VW in that scenario? If only
particular empoyees are punished then what would be
to motive for the owners of VW to be more honest next
time? Wouldn't they "owe it to the stockholders" to
cheat even more?

Personally I'm not so much advocating a particular
position here as exploring the issue. To my mind the
legal structure of corporations is the biggest, underlying
problem. As long as penalties are essentially just a
cost of profits there's no motive for humane, ethical
behavior in corporate governance.

The "corporate veil" has been pierced many times - particularly in
Canada and the USA -= which is why "officers and directors" insurance
is such a big thing now. Officers and directors of corporations can
now be held financially (and in some cses criminally) responsible for
the actions of the corporation.