[HN Gopher] Boeing plea deal over fatal 737 MAX crashes rejected...
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Boeing plea deal over fatal 737 MAX crashes rejected by judge
Author : impish9208
Score : 115 points
Date : 2024-12-05 17:43 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| impish9208 wrote:
| https://archive.is/qqf05
| hx8 wrote:
| Boeing is becoming a national embarrassment. We discuss this ad
| nauseam every time a post about them makes it to the front page.
| I think this is a sign that their reputation is beginning to be
| worth less, and more people in the system are going to be more
| critical. This one case won't penalize Boeing enough that they
| return to a more quality focused culture. Maybe there aren't
| enough legal penalties to do so. I wish I could see a feasible
| path to Boeing redemption.
| inamberclad wrote:
| Boeing should be put under financial oversight by the US
| government, the same way GM was in 2008.
|
| It's apparent that the FAA's oversight powers are not strong
| enough to to overcome the financial pressures of management on
| their own.
|
| For what it's worth, I work for a smaller aircraft manufacturer
| right now. Aerospace will always be a day late and a dollar
| short when profit is the focus instead of safety and sound
| design.
| mmooss wrote:
| Was GM under financial oversight? I thought the US government
| financed and oversaw what was essentially a bankruptcy
| proceeding, with the loss-making and highly leveraged assets
| spun off and the rest consolidated in a 'new' GM. (or
| something like that)
| nradov wrote:
| How would that work exactly? GM was in bankruptcy proceedings
| but Boeing is still a going concern. The federal government
| generally doesn't have statutory authority to impose
| financial oversight on companies.
| damiankennedy wrote:
| How much can the US federal government fine a company like
| Boeing? 30 trillion would be nice. Or perhaps a federal
| level registration fee that covers safety/quality checks
| and costs 50 million per plane?
| nradov wrote:
| Under which law could Boeing be fined $30T (an amount
| which greatly exceeds their enterprise value)? Please to
| provide a specific US Code citation.
| Nathanba wrote:
| The judges could give them such large fines to force them
| into bankrupcy. Alex Jones was fined 1.1 billion dollars.
| How much should Boeing be fined for causing actual deaths?
| duxup wrote:
| Most of the times the US is "involved" (by varying degrees)
| has involved serious financial issues / bankruptcy / some
| government agency's legitimate and legal involvement.
|
| I don't know of any situation where "Boeing you're still
| solvent but we think you're being stupids." would be legal,
| or even desirable.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > beginning to be worth less
|
| the transition from worth less to worthless isn't very far.
| even in monospace fonts.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Here's the path:
|
| 1. Imprison executives who made the decisions that led to the
| result. Preferably in a way that makes them spend their
| fortunes on legal costs so that when they get out in 20-30
| years, they're dependent on social safety nets for the rest of
| their natural lives. People are dead because they thought that
| possibility of profit was worth the risk of hundreds of deaths.
| That's negligent homicide.
|
| 2. There is no 2.
| dboreham wrote:
| Responsibility will turn out to be so diffuse that no
| individuals will be found to be liable. This is a superpower
| of large organizations and permeates our daily lives. Also
| one of the main reasons government regulation is always
| required. And why capatilist bros are constantly wittering
| about removing regulation.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > Responsibility will turn out to be so diffuse that no
| individuals will be found to be liable.
|
| Au contraire. Most executives will justify their pay
| packages by saying they shoulder all of the risk.
|
| Well, what risk? Losing their jobs? When you make in a year
| what most people make in an entire career, that's not a
| risk. Losing their wealth? See the prior statement, but
| take into account that they have money managers who are
| paid to do nothing but diversify holdings and manage risk.
| They can't be held liable in a civil suit as individuals;
| that's the entire point of incorporation.
|
| Either they have risk to justify their compensation or they
| don't. They don't. So we need to find some risk.
|
| When you look for another way to assign risk to increase
| the quality of the decisions made by c-suites, Leavenworth
| starts to look like a fairly attractive option.
|
| And it would be for the convicted, when you consider that
| the crimes actually happened in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
| thmsths wrote:
| I fully agree. We need to adopt the same mindset they
| have in maritime tradition: the buck stops at the
| captain. If you're in charge you're responsible for the
| misdeeds of the people working for you. It does not
| matter that you did not explicitly order the bad thing or
| that someone took an initiative without your knowledge.
| At that level of pay/power/responsibility, "It was not
| me"/"I did not know" are NOT acceptable defenses.
|
| As the CEO you're in a unique position to ask for more
| controls, more safety, more audit. So unless you went
| above and beyond and things were truly out of your
| control, then yes, you should be held responsible when
| disaster strikes. If you think this is too much risk,
| then you're free to walk from the job (and the 8 figures
| pay package).
| bgirard wrote:
| Exactly. When you make the CEO responsible for things
| that they don't have direct visibility into normally it's
| amazing how suddenly they staff new
| positions/departments/orgs with competent folks with
| legitimate resources and power to oversee it properly.
|
| We should not accept large organizations, bureaucracy and
| lack of visibility as a deference.
| richwater wrote:
| All you're doing would be to kill companies above a
| certain size as literally every company makes mistakes
| and thus no one would have any interest in going to jail.
| A fantastic way to ruin the economy frankly.
| thmsths wrote:
| I am not advocating for a zero tolerance approach. In the
| example I mentioned, the navy, there are plenty of times
| when the inquiry into a disaster absolved the captain of
| the blame. All I am saying is that CEOs should be held to
| the same standards we hold licensed professions such as
| lawyers, doctors, engineers or pilots. Aka if something
| goes wrong we will scrutinize their behavior in the lead
| up and then determine if they took reasonable steps to
| prevent the issue.
|
| In that framework a CEO putting "safety first" will not
| have to worry in case a black swan events happen, it's
| the CEO who decided to do some "cost optimization" that
| will have to answer if the company routinely kills or
| injures people.
| gruez wrote:
| >Au contraire. Most executives will justify their pay
| packages by saying they shoulder all of the risk.
|
| Feels like a strawman, or at least a misunderstanding of
| what "responsibility" is. Shareholders are willing to pay
| dearly for executives not because they need a fall guy in
| case something go wrong, they do so because someone in
| that position can easily fuck up the business, and
| therefore it's worth paying extra to get someone more
| qualified (at least in theory), so that doesn't happen.
| It's not any different than you not picking the cheapest
| guy on cragislist to housesit when you're on vacation.
| The premium isn't because you want a fall guy to sue in
| case your house burns down, it's so you don't end up with
| a guy who fucks up your house while you're away.
| thmsths wrote:
| You're assuming it must be one OR the other. Why can't it
| be both? If you're rewarded for your good decisions, it
| seems normal to also be punished for the bad ones, in a
| proportional manner.
| gruez wrote:
| >Why can't it be both?
|
| I wasn't making a normative claim, only disagreeing with
| OP's characterization that executives' pay packages are
| justified by the threat of going to jail.
|
| >If you're rewarded for your good decisions, it seems
| normal to also be punished for the bad ones, in a
| proportional manner.
|
| FAANG engineers are paid pretty well. Should they go to
| jail (or even fined 5-6 figure sums) for bugs they're
| responsible for?
| thmsths wrote:
| Bugs are simply not comparable to losing 2 aircrafts and
| killing hundreds of people, furthermore FAANG engineers
| have little impact on the org individually. But we
| already have that kind of threats for malpractice in
| several fields, if an engineer or doctor makes a mistake
| resulting in injuries or death they will be held
| responsible financially and sometimes criminally.
| gruez wrote:
| >Bugs are simply not comparable to losing 2 aircrafts and
| killing hundreds of people
|
| Software bugs caused 900 miscarriages of justice and "at
| least four suicides"[1]. The Crowdstirke bug caused
| millions of machines to go down and bililons in
| damage[2]. Sure, that might not compare to crashing 2
| planes, but it feels entirely arbitrary to exclude those
| two cases.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
|
| [2] https://www.cio.com/article/3478068/counting-the-
| cost-of-cro...
|
| >FAANG engineers have little impact on the org
| individually
|
| Sounds like the "Responsibility will turn out to be so
| diffuse that no individuals will be found to be liable"
| excuse a few comments up. FAANG engineers are 100%
| responsible for memory corruption bugs that they
| introduce.
| ipython wrote:
| One could argue the societal harm from social media could
| be directly linked to mass events such as
| https://www.wired.com/story/how-facebooks-rise-fueled-
| chaos-..., https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/
| abs/pii/S00142..., and more.
|
| The diffuse nature of the after effects of faang
| engineers actions make them harder to prosecute, but
| potentially much more devastating than even the tragedy
| of two airline crashes.
| thmsths wrote:
| I don't necessarily disagree (although it is extremely
| hard to quantify the effects of small but widespread
| harm). But what I am saying is that the FAANG engineer is
| NOT responsible. The CEO is.
| sensanaty wrote:
| You won't find me disagreeing with tossing Zucc in jail
| and losing the keys.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Shareholders couldn't care less if someone fucks up the
| house. Most corporate shares in the US are held by
| retirement and pension funds. Those funds are run by
| people who are paid to make sure that they can divest
| from a position relatively quickly and with minimal loss
| in value. Many of them diversify their holdings and are
| perfectly fine with someone screwing the company so long
| as it bumps the number at quarter's end. Jack Welch is an
| excellent example of this.
|
| For further evidence, see how the market reacted to the
| murder of United Healthcare's CEO yesterday. The stock
| barely moved when the news broke and is still up for the
| month as of about half-an-hour ago. That's not the
| behavior of a market that sees the CEO as a watchful
| guardian of assets and a risk-bearer of corporate
| decisions; it's the behavior of a market that sees
| everyone as utterly disposable.
|
| The only reason they're down today is because speculators
| are beginning to worry that they'll run out of executives
| to refuse to enter into the marketplace of sane solutions
| to America's healthcare cost crisis.
| gruez wrote:
| >Shareholders couldn't care less if someone fucks up the
| house. Most corporate shares in the US are held by
| retirement and pension funds. Those funds are run by
| people who are paid to make sure that they can divest
| from a position relatively quickly and with minimal loss
| in value. Many of them diversify their holdings and are
| perfectly fine with someone screwing the company so long
| as it bumps the number at quarter's end. Jack Welch is an
| excellent example of this.
|
| Activist investors and private equity are a counter to
| this. If it's really true that companies are ineptly run
| that all it takes is for someone who cares to turn it
| around, it should be easy to make a bunch of money by
| buying a company, exercising the tiniest of shareholder
| pressure over management, and then selling it after the
| company's turned around. Moreover, this strategy working
| would mean it's possible to get above average returns,
| which all institutional investors would be interested in.
| The board of Harvard isn't going to be very happy with
| their investment manager if Stanford is getting 1.5x
| returns by exercising good corporate governance. That's
| not to say corporate governance is prefect for all
| companies. The fact that activist investors exist at all
| suggests some companies at least are performing below
| average, but the claim that "Shareholders couldn't care
| less if someone fucks up the house" is delusional.
|
| >For further evidence, see how the market reacted to the
| murder of United Healthcare's CEO yesterday. The stock
| barely moved when the news broke and is still up for the
| month as of about half-an-hour ago. That's not the
| behavior of a market that sees the CEO as a watchful
| guardian of assets and a risk-bearer of corporate
| decisions; it's the behavior of a market that sees
| everyone as utterly disposable.
|
| counterpoint:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-13/new-
| starb...
| lenerdenator wrote:
| > Activist investors and private equity are a counter to
| this. If it's really true that companies are ineptly run
| that all it takes is for someone who cares to turn it
| around, it should be easy to make a bunch of money by
| buying a company, exercising the tiniest of shareholder
| pressure over management, and then selling it after the
| company's turned around.
|
| That's literally what happened at my last company.
| Actually they didn't even have to turn it around. They
| just destroyed employee morale with layoffs and got
| Oracle to buy the place, and they've gutted the company
| further.
|
| Which isn't good when you consider that it's EMR
| software, but, hey. It's been a profitable gutting,
| meaning that it's good for everyone from shareholders to
| doctors to patients.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Yes. This is how you end up with a gunman waiting outside
| the Hilton.
|
| When there is no justice, vigilantes and lynch mobs
| materialise.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _People are dead because they thought that possibility of
| profit was worth the risk of hundreds of deaths_
|
| Probably untrue, to the point that Boeing may prefer the
| government do this instead of pursuing the company as a
| whole. The problem was nobody was connecting the cost cutting
| to outcomes.
| ruined wrote:
| who's responsible for that connection? who's responsible
| for outcomes? executive power comes with executive
| responsibility
| organsnyder wrote:
| > The problem was nobody was connecting the cost cutting to
| outcomes.
|
| That's negligence at best. This sort of high-level strategy
| is the vast majority of the job descriptions for senior
| leadership.
| zelon88 wrote:
| Criminal negligence that results in death is..... Get
| ready for this...
|
| Negligent Homicide.
| plagiarist wrote:
| It's neat that you can simply file paperwork and suddenly
| stealing wages from employees or negligent homicide of
| customers (and child labor employees) becomes a civil
| matter. Not a personal civil matter, of course.
|
| Also sometimes you can shuffle all the profits to a
| different set of paperwork and have the old paperwork
| vanish along with its consequences. Very neat system.
| jajko wrote:
| Anybody knowing anything about quality control in critical
| systems knows _why_ its pursued at all costs, exactly due
| to such consequences - thats not even 101 of QC rather just
| first paragraph on first page.
|
| Lets not make these into some clueless clowns, they knew
| darn well the risks and took them. Mass manslaughter would
| be a good start. Would be...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _anything about quality control in critical systems
| knows why its pursued at all costs_
|
| Nothing is pursued at all costs. Someone in a safety-
| critical function thinking they're pursuing safety at all
| costs is incredibly dangerous because it suggests they
| don't know the boundaries of their envelope.
| ssivark wrote:
| > The problem was nobody was connecting the cost cutting to
| outcomes.
|
| If so, that sounds like (reckless) criminal negligence in
| the most charitable case and wilful disregard bordering
| malice in the worst case.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_negligence
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _that sounds like (reckless) criminal negligence_
|
| Quite possibly.
| saturn8601 wrote:
| So how do you suggest to implement this plan?
|
| This country has been an oligopoly since its founding and
| apart from a few edge cases (FDR preventing the complete
| transition to socialism by placating the masses with the New
| Deal) the working class have never really had power.
| perfectstorm wrote:
| it will never happen. these company executives are major
| donors to politicians of both aisles. laws and regulations
| are for the common people like you and me. not for the ultra-
| rich. heck, even the judiciary is corrupt these days.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| You can change the leadership to someone who is amenable to a
| quick concession as opposed to a drawn out legal fight. But
| can you destroy the desire for profit?
| bithive123 wrote:
| We can't destroy ignorance and violence but we don't just
| shrug and let the ignorant and violent run amok.
| danaris wrote:
| It's not about _destroying_ the desire for profit.
|
| It's about recognizing that you _can 't_, and putting
| safeguards in place to ensure that even _with_ that desire
| --even when it 's so overriding that in other circumstances
| we might classify it as a mental illness--the amount of
| harm that can do to people is strictly limited.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| As harsh as this sounds, it also seems to have other
| benefits. Often when things go wrong the solution the
| government comes up with is "micromanage the industry more",
| and the industry becomes yet more bureaucratic and compliance
| focused. Innovation is harder because the people making the
| rules aren't necessarily the domain experts.
|
| I think an accountability approach lets engineers build for
| safety leveraging their expert knowledge, in contrast to a
| rule based approach which favors compliance and bureaucracy.
| Accountability will select for leaders with an understanding
| of good engineering and safety culture, rather than leaders
| who are good at bureaucracy and compliance.
|
| I worked in the financial sector for a bit, where some
| leaders have personal accountability (eg chief compliance
| officer). I've seen questionable projects die because the
| company couldn't find someone to stay in that accountability
| role. The financial sector is not necessarily a good example
| of what I'm talking about generally, but in my particular
| experiences accountability seemed to work.
|
| tl;dr: Fewer rules, more personal accountability.
| vanviegen wrote:
| What does 'personal accountability' actually mean in your
| book? How is a person held accountable when their domain
| implodes due to incompetence or greed?
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| I mean personal criminal liability. Not civil or criminal
| liability absorbed by the larger corporation (though
| penalties to the corp might be necessary as well).
|
| Patent law uses the concept of "a person having ordinary
| skill in the art" (PHOSITA) to determine which patents
| are novel and which are non-novel. The idea is that if an
| invention is obvious to a PHOSITA at the time of
| invention, the invention isn't novel or surprising. I
| think we could use the same concept in risk management.
|
| If, at the time a decision is made, a PHOSITA would say a
| decision is likely to lead to serious harm, then someone
| in a leadership position should face criminal liability
| if that decision later does in fact lead to harm.
|
| I think a) who should face the criminal liability, b)
| what we mean by "likely" c) what we mean by serious harm
| are all topics you could get into at length. But before
| you fiddle too much with the knobs on a, b, and c we
| would probably need to determine if criminal liability is
| the correct solution. I obviously think so.
| kiba wrote:
| I don't think making an example out of those executives are
| going to do anything in particular. Stripping them out of
| their position and banning them from holding executive
| positions will. Forcing Boeing to reorganize their structural
| incentive will. Forcing shareholders to take a haircut means
| that they will likely hold the board more accountable will.
|
| Like, nobody really think about risking people's lives for
| slightly more profit. It's more like they think about
| "cutting cost to get promotion and make more money. What
| risk? There's no risk.".
|
| It's not like Boeing are particularly competent. Their
| projects experienced cost overrun for example. This whole
| idea of outsourcing to individual contractors turned out to
| make development of aircraft even more expensive. Their space
| division is currently blowing another hole in their budget.
| Their Starliner program is a joke and has no future beyond
| the ISS.
|
| Some people may need to go to jail because it's more than
| just gross incompetence, fair enough. I am just skeptical of
| long lengthy sentences.
| greenavocado wrote:
| > Stripping them out of their position and banning them
| from holding executive positions will
|
| Do you know what this means? It means getting the UHC
| treatment.
| brokencode wrote:
| Murder is murder, and nobody deserves that kind of
| treatment. It makes our society worse, not better.
| tivert wrote:
| > Stripping them out of their position and banning them
| from holding executive positions will.
|
| You mean a golden parachute? I don't think that will deter
| _anything_.
|
| I think the GP is on the right track. Business leaders need
| _fear_ consequences, so they moderate their behavior, and
| that means messages must be sent. It would be perfect to
| have some fortune 100 CEO go to Davos one year, then return
| the next in a prison jumpsuit to tell all the collected
| elites about what it feels like to be utterly ruined. Then
| do it again and again until the message gets through.
| mcculley wrote:
| What about putting shareholders in jail?
| anonym29 wrote:
| A great solution to disincentivize all investment into
| capital markets - bankrupting thousands of companies,
| resulting in hundreds of thousands if not millions of
| layoffs and widespread economic devastation not seen in
| the U.S. since the great depression.
|
| Should we also start imprisoning everyone who voted for
| Obama because Obama's DoD conducted drone strikes against
| weddings, churches, and other civilian facilities and
| gatherings resulting in more civilian deaths than Bush's?
|
| Shareholders are no more responsible for the misdeeds of
| management than voters are for the misdeeds of
| politicians, after all.
|
| Your proposal goes against the core tenants of justice,
| liability, and property rights that have guided the
| civilization responsible for every part of your life that
| you cherish - from the device and connection you're
| posting with to the appliances that you cannot live
| without, to the economic systems that have lifted more
| human beings out of poverty than any other economic
| system ever conceived.
|
| What's the argument in favor of your proposal that
| outweighs these cons?
|
| P.S. - I upvoted your comment because as much as I
| vehemently disagree with your proposal, I believe we
| should all have the decency to discuss ideas we disagree
| with rather than attempt to censor them.
| tivert wrote:
| > Shareholders are no more responsible for the misdeeds
| of management than voters are for the misdeeds of
| politicians, after all.
|
| That's BS. Big shareholders can get seats on the board of
| directors and have influence over management decision-
| making.
|
| Jail time for shareholders is probably going too far in
| most circumstances, but forfeiture of shares is pretty
| reasonable.
| anonym29 wrote:
| >but forfeiture of shares is pretty reasonable.
|
| From who, and to who?
|
| From only those big shareholders with seats on the board,
| from the "little guy", or from both?
|
| What happens to the forfeited shares in your proposal?
| Are we redistributing them? Are they getting
| nationalized? Mandatory buybacks? Destruction of those
| shares, increasing the voting power of the other shares?
| bigiain wrote:
| > A great solution to disincentivize all investment into
| capital markets
|
| While I agree with your argument here, that opening line
| really raises questions.
|
| Do we want "capital markets" at all if they're structured
| in a way that incentivizes risking innocent people's
| lives to reward the market participants with increased
| profits, without any equivalently existential
| consequences when that risk goes bad and hundreds of
| people die as the next Boeing airliner ploughs a hole in
| the ground?
|
| Something's deeply wrong with how things work now, and
| capitalism is looking awfully like the root cause.
| anonym29 wrote:
| >Something's deeply wrong with how things work now, and
| capitalism is looking awfully like the root cause.
|
| I don't refute that there are big problems with how
| things are currently being run, but what evidence exists
| suggesting that an alternative economic system is the
| solution?
|
| Please correct me if I'm wrong, but China has far _more_
| industrial accidents and avoidable deaths than the US
| does, no?
|
| We also didn't have the same extent of the kinds of
| problems being discussed here in the past, while the US
| was still a capitalist country then too, right?
|
| That makes me ponder whether a change in the
| implementation of capitalism is to be blamed more so than
| capitalism itself - if not a combination of that and
| other factors unrelated to the economic system.
|
| It's not difficult to draw a line back to when we shifted
| away from a more "stakeholder-y" capitalism towards
| shareholder value maximization as a motif, but that begs
| the question: why were we more unified and stakeholder
| oriented back then, but not so much anymore, if the
| rationale behind shareholder value maximization was as
| true then as it is now?
| mcculley wrote:
| I appreciate you treating the question in the way it was
| intended: A thought experiment.
|
| Our system does not treat seriously the bad behavior of
| corporations. It is a way for shareholders to get only
| the upside and not suffer the consequences.
|
| Long ago, I divested from a mutual fund when I realized
| that it made me an indirect owner of Philip Morris. As
| shareholders, we can make choices that harm people and
| yet we risk no consequences beyond losing our investment.
|
| If it is a serious argument that we should jail more
| CEOs, then all who profit from criminal corporate
| behavior should be punished.
| rolandog wrote:
| Exactly: "everything punishable should be punished,
| everywhere across the decision chain, all at once".
|
| No sternly worded letter, no slap on the wrist...
| Consequences!
|
| I'd even "scare them incorrupt" by threatening to
| nationalize the company if no sufficient corrective
| actions are implemented to stop being a net negative to
| society.
| tivert wrote:
| > I'd even "scare them incorrupt" by threatening to
| nationalize the company if no sufficient corrective
| actions are implemented to stop being a net negative to
| society.
|
| Now that's the way to discipline the shareholders, which
| is a different problem than disciplining the leaders.
|
| The "401k objection" is often used as cover by the
| defenders of those people, in a ploy to avoid
| accountability: "shares are held by all kinds of common
| people in their 401ks, and all you be doing is punishing
| those innocents!" My answer to that is to require public
| companies (with brokerages) to maintain a registry of the
| beneficial owners of their shares, then just nationalize
| the shares of the largest shareholders (as those are the
| people/organization with any real influence).
|
| As for predictable objections of "it's impossible to
| collect that info1!1" they're already 90% of the way
| there, because they already know where to mail proxy
| statements. I think you can get the rest of the way with
| extra reporting requirements and onerous penalties for
| non-compliance (e.g. forfeiting the shares after a
| suitable grace period or if there is evidence of
| evasion).
| kiba wrote:
| If they can't work another executive job, they can't go
| around harming other businesses and people. The first
| thing that should happen is that the bad actions stop
| happening, by whatever means necessary. Justice can come
| later if that's truly necessary.
|
| _I think the GP is on the right track. Business leaders
| need fear consequences, so they moderate their behavior,
| and that means messages must be sent. It would be perfect
| to have some fortune 100 CEO go to Davos one year, then
| return the next in a prison jumpsuit to tell all the
| collected elites about what it feels like to be utterly
| ruined. Then do it again and again until the message gets
| through._
|
| There's no need to resort to extreme measure, unless
| things are truly beyond the pale. It matters far more
| that regulations are enforced and consequences are
| enacted. Consequence don't need to be dire, unless
| actions are so beyond the pale that it required criminal
| investigations and consequences. If things escalated to
| the point of criminal investigation, your system isn't
| working.
|
| The first step is early detection, enforcement, and
| auditing. The FAA should be beefed up so that they can
| rely on their own agents for enforcing the rules,
| together with the ability to ramp up fines, stop
| production, and other gradual escalation until there are
| compliance to regulation.
| bigiain wrote:
| > Consequence don't need to be dire
|
| Sometimes, consequences _do_ need to be dire.
|
| I had a boss once who used to calm everybody down when
| things were going badly saying "It's OK. Nobody is going
| to die." And he was right. We just build websites. No
| matter which customer was yelling on the phone like the
| world was ending, it was at worst a website outage.
|
| But some jobs, you can't say "Nobody is going to die."
| Canonically these are rocket science and brain surgery.
| But building airliners is 100% a job where if you don't
| do it right people are going to die. And airliners are
| more serious, brain surgery kills one patient when you
| make a mistake, rocket science kills a few astronauts.
| Faulty airliners kill hundreds of passengers at once.
|
| In my opinion, consequences for trading off even small
| increases in risk of death for hundreds of people at once
| just to meet financial targets _should_ be dire.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| The problem is the elites also have ownership in the
| prison industry and control of the government.
| evoke4908 wrote:
| It's really very extremely simple.
|
| You're in charge of a safety-critical business.
|
| You make decisions that trade safety for profit.
|
| People die.
|
| You are charged with murder and go to jail for a very long
| time, just like any regular citizen.
|
| This really should not be controversial or complicated. If
| you kill people, there are consequences. That's how the
| world works for 99.9999% of the human race. The same
| standard should be applied to CEOs as the proxy for the
| corporate entity that they are.
|
| To argue anything else is to argue that so long as you have
| enough money, it's perfectly acceptable to kill as many
| people as you want in as gruesome a fashion as you'd like.
|
| The price of being a scumsucking robber baron murdering
| thousands of people for profit should be _extreme_. The
| profits gained from such behavior should be clawed back
| with the full force of government from any source even
| remotely related. The company should be gutted and
| auctioned off, or nationalized if they 're "too big to
| fail". Investors immediately and irrevocably lose all
| stakes, no exceptions. All recovered moneys should be
| distributed to victims and families.
|
| Boeing _never_ should have happened and it should _never_
| happen again. But this behavior and exploitation and mass
| murder will not stop so long as it 's profitable and
| murderers just walk away with zero repercussions and keep
| their billions in blood money.
|
| Boeing is _not_ a case of incompetence. This is a case of
| pure and simple greed. They 've ignored safety reports and
| FAA guidance. They even rigged the FAA inspection process
| to let them rubber-stamp things in-house (while ignoring
| failing reports). This has been a _long_ decline and they
| 've made the worst decisions the entire time.
|
| Even if it were incompetence or ignorance, it absolutely
| does not matter. If you run over a kid because you were
| texting or simply not paying attention to the road, you go
| to jail. If your incompetence leads to hundreds and
| thousands of deaths, you should be just as culpable.
|
| Stop making excuses for billionaire mass murders. Drag them
| to the gallows instead.
| bdangubic wrote:
| > You're in charge of a safety-critical business...
|
| This sounds super amazing but where do you stop? I am
| software developer working on the latest cool algorithm
| to control traffic lights to help with congestion. I fuck
| up, green turns on opposite sides of the road, car
| accident, 10 people instantly dead. I go to jail as lead
| dev on software that runs?! CEO goes to jail because
| project may have required 10 QA people but he only hired
| 3 to save a few bucks...?
|
| These things is why you have government and you have
| regulation. We put people in offices whose job is large
| part is to protect the citizens. Expecting a CEO to act
| in the best interest of citizens is like trusting a fat
| kid around apple pie :)
| kiba wrote:
| _It 's really very extremely simple.
|
| You're in charge of a safety-critical business.
|
| You make decisions that trade safety for profit.
|
| People die._
|
| Let me use a different example.
|
| People die all the time in motor accident all the time.
| It is a regular occurrence that close calls happen all
| the time, sometime with nobody's fault. The solution for
| like 90% of time is actually simple but also politically
| unpalatable: just reduce the amount of driving that's
| needed to be done. You don't need more traffic police or
| amazing self driving technology or draconian punishment.
| You can then concentrate your police resources on stuff
| elsewhere that matters.
|
| That's it.
|
| Advocating draconian consequences isn't really going to
| move the needle. Maybe it will even scare all the risk
| adverse CEOs and now you have dangerous executives in
| charge who will be insensitive to the consequence of
| possibly serving jailtime and being ruined.
|
| Plus, there's also time and money wasted in pursuing
| extreme punishment. Beyond past a certain point, there's
| going to be no meaningful difference. What's the
| difference of being in utterly extreme pain and being in
| utterly extreme pain 1000x?
| sgt101 wrote:
| I think you are onto something. There's often a threat to
| make companies pay 4% of their global turn over or
| something, but it would be more effective to make them
| issue voting shares with a value of 4% of their equity to
| the goverment - who could then sell them. If stockholders
| were threatened with a 4% dilution then they'd be much more
| vigilant than if the company has to pay a fine - which in
| the end shareholders will pass on to customers.
|
| Also I think that governments are wary of destabalising
| companies with big fines - especially banks. A shareholder
| dilution will not threaten the finances of structurally
| important entities.
| legitster wrote:
| The idea that severe punishment for executive failure will
| lead to improved executive decision making I don't think
| bears out.
|
| When dictators publicly executed advisor 1 and then advisor 2
| and then advisor 3, they would still manage to always find
| someone greedy/desperate enough to want to take a crack on
| chance #4 or #5. But it did nothing to make the advisors
| better, it just meant that the next guy had to be even more
| greedy or desperate.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| That's not an analogous situation.
|
| It's entirely possible to run a company like Boeing in a
| responsible way that's still profitable. Indeed, that used
| to be true for Boeing itself.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| And the parent comment does not disagree with this. It's
| just that harsh punishment for executives might not
| improve the selection - in fact, it might be adverse
| selection, since increasing the risk will lead actually
| good people to avoid the position.
| izacus wrote:
| Are you seriously claiming that people would avoid
| position with millions of compensation just because their
| poor decision making could lead to the same consequences
| many of the worker class need to endure for their
| actions?
| sgt101 wrote:
| Unfortunately I think that's a hard yes - because these
| people don't have to accept these positions. I think that
| this kind of high stakes gambling is part of the problem
| here...
|
| Much better to defuse responsibility in the executive
| suite and pressure shareholders in general to ensure good
| governance.
| sdwr wrote:
| People who value their peace of mind or long term safety
| might.
|
| Reckless, impulsive, emotionally empty people won't be
| deterred at all
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| We should try it and find out how well it works. Its very
| different situation then the dictator/advisor. Our current
| approach of doing nothing isn't working, so lets innovate
| and disrupt the CEO racket with accountability and
| penalties.
| freddie_mercury wrote:
| There are plenty of countries that put executives in
| prison. Vietnam just upheld an execution sentence for
| Truong My Lan in a case of financial fraud. Trinh Xuan
| Thanh was kidnapped from the streets of Berlin and flown
| back to Vietnam to serve a prison sentence for financial
| mismanagement of Petrovietnam Construction Joint Stock
| Corporation.
|
| Ask anyone in Vietnam if they think the very common
| prison sentences for executives has led to positive
| material changes and they will laugh at the idea.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Did it make it worse? If you asked the Vietnamese people
| if Truong My Lan should be released and given back all
| her wealth, power, and position. Would they say yes?
| egl2021 wrote:
| Why stop with the executives? Why not throw the shareholders
| into jail --- they approve the selection of the executives
| and benefit from whatever malfeasance you are targeting.
| brokencode wrote:
| Most shareholders have no real say in the company, though
| it's fair to investigate what the board knew and how they
| acted, as they serve on behalf of the shareholders.
|
| I do think there needs to be legal culpability for anybody
| who was informed of risks and pushed on regardless. Though
| I can see where it would be very hard to prove anything.
|
| It really is a tough problem here. I hope that somebody
| will be seriously punished for the deaths of hundreds, but
| I'm very doubtful.
| tjwebbnorfolk wrote:
| If you have a 401k, you almost certainly are a Boeing
| shareholder.
| sirspacey wrote:
| Then we should also jail the shareholders who profited and
| the activist shareholders who pushed for it
|
| CEOs, especially of large companies, are glorified management
| christhecaribou wrote:
| I downvoted then thought about it more and changed my mind.
|
| It's a fascinating idea to consider. If we could hold
| shareholders of companies like UnitedHealthCare or Boeing
| accountable for unethical behavior... it would sure stop
| fast.
| tjwebbnorfolk wrote:
| This used to be the case with banks prior to the 1910s.
| If a bank became insolvent, the shareholders were
| personally liable for fixing it.
| anonym29 wrote:
| Trying them for negligent manslaughter or homicide seems
| extreme, but I'd entertain an attempt at justifying that, and
| I'd do so in good faith and with an open mind to the
| arguments presented.
|
| Just to be clear though, are you proposing that they should
| have these charges brought up against them and given the same
| rights to due process that everyone else gets, are you
| proposing something more akin to extrajudicial detention - a
| suspension of due process and the suspension of habeas
| corpus?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > 1. Imprison executives who made the decisions that led to
| the result.
|
| I'd go a step further. Follow the Truong My Lan case [1] -
| make these people _actually fear getting executed_.
|
| I'm not a fan of the death penalty at all. It is
| disproportionately affecting the poor and otherwise
| disadvantaged. But for ultra rich people making money off of
| risking the death of others? Maybe that is what is needed to
| get rabid capitalism under control.
|
| If the government keeps going on with not actually doing
| anything to the ultra rich until they steal from other ultra
| rich (SBF, Madoff), eventually people will take the law into
| their own hands otherwise. This United Health CEO will not
| have been the last, but "citizen justice" is not what anyone
| should want.
|
| [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vietnam-death-sentence-
| tycoon-t...
| BurningFrog wrote:
| If Boeing doesn't go through a convincing change, I doubt
| they'll sell a lot of planes.
|
| And that's fine. Bad companies get replaced by good ones. Life
| goes on.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| For the people who are still alive, at least.
|
| There's at least three problems with this laissez-faire
| ideal:
|
| 1) For some reason that is hard to understand, the prospect
| of Boeing's long-term decline does not necessarily translate
| into incentives for the people at the helm to steer it right.
| They can reap unfathomable rewards while guiding it to its
| doom. That's not only perverse and unjust, it's also bad for
| incentivizing success. This is not necessarily something
| specific to Boeing; any company is vulnerable to this
| disease.
|
| 2) It may be a contagious condition. When executives who
| ruined Boeing leave the company, they may take up influential
| positions at other companies, and have similar destructive
| effects. It's hard to understand how this can happen, but
| it's the sort of thing that does happen; that is a major
| problem that deserves to be solved.
|
| 3) A Darwinian process of creative destruction is fine if
| Boeing were sinking because it was improving but too slowly,
| and Airbus had improved even more and faster and surpassed
| it. If Canon replaces Kodak, life goes on and we get nice
| cameras. But in a case where Boeing dies not by being
| outgrown but by regressing, because 2024-Boeing has worse
| quality standards than 1994-Boeing, there's nothing fine
| about that; that's something that should concern anybody who
| cares about the production of high-quality airplanes. It's
| worth examining how we got here, and if an incentive
| disconnect at the executive level is responsible then there
| could be very valuable lessons to learn about corporate
| governance going forward.
| dmix wrote:
| Not sure the value of attacking laissez-faire when Boeing
| is one of the most propped up and protected businesses in
| America. As you said yourself:
|
| > the prospect of Boeing's long-term decline does not
| necessarily translate into incentives for the people at the
| helm to steer it right. They can reap unfathomable rewards
| while guiding it to its doom.
|
| What should scare off customers of their business and scare
| them straight doesn't happen because they can do stuff like
| SLS indefinitely and US "needs" a monopoly in airline
| manufacturing because risk (during the window it dies off
| and competition is encouraged) is treated as intolerable
| and Boeing is a jobs program is 20 states.
|
| Intel will be the next one anointed thanks to CHIPs and
| will get a free hand to be as awful as it wants as long as
| someone can bring up 'jobs', national security, or China.
| They'll be opening little R&D shops in various states to
| make sure it's always protected.
| tomcar288 wrote:
| i'm no expert on this but i thought the military buys a bunch
| of stuff from them because there's no other choice, right?
| and all those airlines, their only other choice is airbus.
|
| the industry simply doesnt compete enough, no?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Depends on the kind of aircraft, but there are other
| options. Cargo are often Boeing because they specialize in
| that kind of aircraft, and there are a fair number of
| aircraft that are modified off of Boeing base-aircraft
| (AWACS was built on the 707; KC-46 the cursed refueler
| program is built on the 767).
|
| Fighters, bombers, and helicopters are more varied.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_States_
| m...
| NickC25 wrote:
| I think you're right - some of the hardware the military
| buys from Boeing is because legally they can't buy from
| anyone else. IIRC they are forced to buy American made
| stuff on national security grounds.
|
| I don't have a problem with that, except that Boeing's
| products kinda suck.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| There's a priority for US-based, but it's not a hard
| requirement. KC-46 was almost the KC-45, that was an
| NG/Airbus effort built on the A330.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Which has been a complete shitshow while the Airbus
| alternative keeps snagging up customers around the world.
|
| > By January 2021, Boeing's losses on the program were
| estimated at $5 billion (~$5.55 billion in 2023).[88] At
| the time, it was expected that the KC-46 would not be
| combat ready until at least late 2023.[89]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_KC-46_Pegasus
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Yep, why I wrote this in my other comment: KC-46 the
| cursed refueler program.
|
| It's an excellent example of the self-inflicted wounds
| plaguing US DOD acquisition and sustainment programs.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Boeing's decisions were ultimately not a matter of the dubious
| leaders or the MD acquisition. They were a matter of the
| preferences of the owners, which is to say they expressed the
| preferences of Wall Street investors and the preferences are
| "provide a steady stream of revenues by cutting costs and
| gutting the company if necessary (subcontract nearly everything
| out, make the workforce disposable, etc)". You can see this in
| the decision of California's PG&E to give the money needed to
| maintain lines to their shareholder as a dividend. Overall, the
| process dispossesses the employees and mortgages the future of
| the enterprise.
|
| To change this, you'd have to have a different source of
| funding for these enterprises at the least.
| adamc wrote:
| Perhaps we need to rethink protecting shareholders from
| liability. I'm sure that would be unpopular, but having
| companies create harm for profit is a problem.
| hx8 wrote:
| Criminal liabilities? Something tells me that would cause a
| massive flight of capital from US stock exchanges.
| duxup wrote:
| >O'Connor said the settlement's provisions for choosing an
| independent monitor improperly required considering the race of
| the person appointed and minimized his role in the process.
|
| How did considering the race of the person appointed even come
| up?
|
| I can't imagine either side thinking there was some kind of
| advantage to doing so?
| lupusreal wrote:
| Something something diverse viewpoints mumble mumble equity
| duxup wrote:
| The concept that a given person's race or background makes
| them willing or even qualified to speak / address all people
| with similar background or race to me makes zero sense to me.
| nielsbot wrote:
| If you mean that's what DEI is about, it's not.
|
| Also, I'd say it's human nature to feel more comfortable
| and familiar with your "in group". Do you disagree?
| Taters91 wrote:
| According to the NPR article about this: "The judge also
| objected to a requirement that the monitor selection process
| adhere to the DOJ's diversity and inclusion policy." So it
| seems as if the judge doesn't like something the DOJ routinely
| has, because the judge is saying the court should have a large
| part in deciding who the overseers are. The judge brought up
| DEI. Neither of the parties seem to have, besides what seems to
| be a standing policy.
| https://www.npr.org/2024/12/05/nx-s1-5217960/court-rejects-b...
| I agree with you, it would be very odd (even as someone who is
| generally pro DEI) to include it in this provision.
| duxup wrote:
| That makes a lot more sense thanks.
|
| Yeah I don't see a reason that just because the DOJ is a part
| of a legal deal ... somehow their department policies should
| be injected. Could have some very negative outcomes and
| strangeness about what kind of deal DOJ can even make if a
| department policy gets injected that counteracts something in
| the deal.
| rob74 wrote:
| > _Reed Charles O 'Connor (born June 1, 1965) is a United
| States district judge of the United States District Court for
| the Northern District of Texas. He was nominated by President
| George W. Bush in 2007_
|
| Yeah, makes sense that he would interpret a reference to DEI
| as discriminatory. Maybe he wants to get noticed by the
| incoming administration for appointment to a higher court?
| Taters91 wrote:
| I can think of one reason, and it is that Boeing was accused of
| loosening hiring requirements because of their DEI policies. I
| do not believe this is the case for this ruling, and there is
| no evidence that Boeing changed hiring or training standards
| due to DEI policies.
| tomohawk wrote:
| The Biden admin has been putting in DEI requirements on a
| number of legal settlements and contracts. For example, largs
| delays in CHIPs act rollout and EV charging station rollouts
| were caused by this. This is not routine, but extremely unusual
| and likely violates the US Constitution.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Yeah. Both parties have become very used to backdooring
| things that can't come in through the front door. Hey,
| there's a reason they can't come in the front door!
|
| The current DEI issue is simply one of many. The DEI focus is
| not routine, the overall problem is.
| nis0s wrote:
| Boeing took a nose dive in standards and quality when they
| replaced people who understood engineering and product
| fundamentals with bottom-line focused MBAs. I hope Boeing serves
| as a cautionary tale for other companies, most others are not
| "too big to fail".
| bigiain wrote:
| It won't. The incentives are not aligned that way.
|
| Whenever those MBAs in the C suite are judged by investor
| shareholders purely on financials, and they can pocket their
| own millions over short few-year timespans, they'll just juice
| the numbers to manipulate share prices and walk away from long
| term consequences.
|
| I can't see this changing unless executive renumeration can
| somehow be tied to decades-long company performance. And
| ideally executive accountability can extend to real risks of
| jail sentences for poor decision well beyond when they jump
| ship.
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