Mega-Fines and Consumers

  I'm back!

  I know, I've been away for a bit.  Long story.  Ain't over yet.  Doesn't improve with retelling.  But, I've been up to my fat arse in alligators, and every damned one of them has wanted a bite.  Ugh.  Ain't much of my sit-upon left...

  Anyhow.  On to why I'm here...

  Howcumzit that, whenever some company does something wrong, the government fines the company for the wrongdoing?  The problem with those fines (case in point - the recent FCC fine of $100M against AT&T over their "unlimited" data plan and low data speeds) is that:
  1) The people who made the decisions aren't personally hit with anything
  2) The fines are "passed through" to the consumers, in the form of rate or price increases.

  Every time I hear about some mega-fine against some company, I groan inside.  Every time I hear someone cheering about it, I don't keep it in.  Then, I end up having to explain why I'm groaning about it.  The usual answer I get?  "Damn.  I never thought of it that way..."

  (No shit.  Most people wouldn't.  Gotta step back and look at a bigger picture...)

  Same with class-action suits.  Except we can add to the list:
  3) The only people who really "win" anything are the attorneys.  Big payday for them!  Niggardly payout for the members of the class.

  Pfizer has to pay out $150M for some pharma class action judgement?  1/3 of that is raw attorneys' fees ($50M,) a good chunk of that gets eaten up in administration ($20M or so,) and the rest filters down to the class (2-5M members,) postage out, and it's probably not a cash payout to the class anyhow.  Lawyers make bank, people get boned.

  I propose something different...

  FINES: If a "company" is to be fined due to executive decisions, then the company itself is not to be fined.  Rather, the executives responsible for the decision(s) are to be fined personally.  This means the B-, C-, E-, V-, and D- level execs are the ones on the hook for fines, they've got to cough up, and cough up HARD.  Company's consumer prices are to be fixed at present level by law, and allowed nominal increases for the following five years or so, with any increase above the amount allowed by the judgement requiring detailed technological justification (id est, a major technical upgrade became necessary, or a natural disaster made replacing a data centre necessary, or something like that.  Such justification to be filed with the governing body and posted in detail to be available for the consumers [and sent out in summary with the last bill prior to the increase.]

  To be honest, I'd rather see the Execs and/or the Board held personally liable to the tune of $100M than the company held liable for $100M - the company doesn't "make decisions," that's why it has Directors and various executives.  So, hold them up!

Discuss

JDK