I've noticed many airports have HSBC plastered all over the walls. This has been amusing to me after it came out that HSBC runs the world's largest money laundering operation for drug cartels. It's surreal thinking about how TSA and customs will put away recreational drug users for life but the bank that funds the largest drug cartels operates out in the open. Our system is broken at every level.
Never mind the fundamental fact that if your fine was less than the profit you gained from your illegal activity, you can just write it off as a business expense. Fines have to be punitive or they will have no effect; it's simple math.
I am always in constant bewilderment at how galling some of these corporate crimes are.
How does one even go about planning these?
Do the chief executives [1] [2] sit with the board members and discuss the tradeoffs of turning a blind eye to some hanky-panky stuff going on in Mexico? [3]
I know that they have legal counsels and all. But do they really sit down and weigh the legal ramifications and discuss who shall be thrown under the bus, if things should flare up?
Whether its a Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial [4] or a Maurice R. Greenberg[5] of AIG or even a Calisto Tanzi of Parmalat [6] [7]; do these people even have a good pulse of the prosecution climate of a given administration, the likelihood of getting caught and the possible fines and sentences before they choose to set these financially murky things in motion?
Or are they more like hot-shot, fledgling politicians [8] who think they are invincible and can never possibly get caught, in a scandal?
If anything, the public has come to be struck in awe of these people and their mettle, rather than find their actions, reprobatory.
The slap on the wrist fines and sentences ( if any at all ) that major executives and their houses have received, only reaffirms the notion that one -above all other skills and qualifications - has to be a skilled manipulator of fact, circumstance and public opinion, to head a large and highly profitable enterprise, these days.
After all the cake and watermelon, I am loath to admit that deviousness and calculated deceit has become sexy.
> I know that they have legal counsels and all. But do they really sit down and weigh the legal ramifications and discuss who shall be thrown under the bus, if things should flare up?
I come from a country where this used to be fairly widespread (I don't know if it is anymore; I imagine it is). Owing to my hatred (and no, I'm not using the wrong word; few things give me a more unpleasant, visceral sensation) for large organization and business crap, I wasn't involved in any stuff like this, but I know people who were.
Your supposition is in fact correct: yes, people actually sit and discuss which is actually more profitable and what they can do in order to make sure they don't get caught, either.
It's not usually a board decision, because a large board tends to spread its efforts far wider and, as you involve more people, the danger of news spreading (even for personal image gain) increases. It's usually something driven by two or three of the more important figures, who make sure (via bullshit, oh, sorry, I mean politics) that the rest of the board follows along -- not for free of course.
Things aren't ever written and are cleverly disguised under various contracts that are otherwise legal.
Obviously, this implies that the legislation lays the proper ground for this. Consequently, most of these things are usually done with political support from within the legislative unit.
One day, some forty-fifty years from now people will look back at this age and label it no differently than we now label the age of the robber barons. [1]
Far more importantly than that, they will observe that this was the onset period of a new era of disenfranchisement - somewhat like and some what unlike the eras before - where the individual's capacity to preserve his or her rights and privileges is far outmatched by the corporation's ability to do the same.
It is just so gosh darn enticing to form a corporation of some kind and reap the benefits that such a shelter offers. I don't know how you would form one, if you were, by profession, a X-ray technician or if all you did was make bee wax or farmed Tilapia. It wouldn't be large enough to offer you the legislative perks that a larger outfit would be able to lobby for. However, it sure as heck would be better than going it alone as a private citizen.
The things one - yes you and I, included - could get away with as a corporation that we couldn't as individuals, boggles the mind.
The sheer number of things you could skirt, is nothing short of astounding.
Tax-dodging is the juiciest aspect, of course.
Even blogs do it.
Blogs! Yes, blogs!!
Gawker is organized like an international money-laundering operation. Much of its international revenues are directed through Hungary, where Denton’s mother hails from, and where some of the firm’s techies are located. But that is only part of it. Recently, Salmon reports, the various Gawker operations—Gawker Media LLC, Gawker Entertainment LLC, Gawker Technology LLC, Gawker Sales LLC—have been restructured to bring them under control of a shell company based in the Cayman Islands, Gawker Media Group Inc.
Why would a relatively small media outfit based in Soho choose to incorporate itself in a Caribbean locale long favored by insider dealers, drug cartels, hedge funds, and other entities with lots of cash they don’t want to advertise? The question virtually answers itself, but for those unversed in the intricacies of international tax avoidance Salmon spells it out: “The result is a company where 130 U.S. employees eat up the lion’s share of the the U.S. revenues, resulting in little if any taxable income, while the international income, the franchise value of the brands, and the value of the technology all stays permanently overseas, untouched by the I.R.S.”[2]
I hope its sooner than forty-fifty years time that we could look back and observe in horror and exclaim at how all this was allowed so flagrantly for so long.
> One day, some forty-fifty years from now people will look back at this age and label it no differently than we now label the age of the robber barons. [1]
It sure is a lot of stuff to keep unentangled in your head without ever so much as jotting it down in your daily planner for fear that it might someday be deemed admissible in court.
I wonder what kind of apps they'd trust to transmit or store information on their iPhones and iPads.
Speaking of technology that executives see fit to use, here's the billionaire owner of Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones, pictured using a flip phone:
Makes me think of all the popular media about the mob where a major plot point is getting hold of the "books" (in which the money from all the dirty business dealings is tallied up).
I'd like to hear more about this. Imagine that I, a sole proprietor, take in $10 million in a year, with deductible expenses of $1 million (if the numbers are rosy, well, it's my scenario ;) ). Imagine that I get hit with a fine of $8.5 million. How am I supposed to pay taxes on my $9 million of income with my $500K cash? Taxes get paid quarterly, so imagine I've already paid them when I get hit with the fine. Will the fine be discharged in my inevitable bankruptcy? Do the courts have to stand in line with my other creditors?
I don't think the fine would apply instantaneously. Also, the money you give back (the not punitive part) is clearly not income, so why would you pay taxes on it?
More like you have to return 6 million you didn't earn. Your profits are now 3 million. You owe taxes on 3 million, and the remaining 2.5 million fine comes out of what's left.
If I owe taxes on $3 million, and I also owe a $2.5 million dollar fine, then I owe a lot more than $3 million total. The fine can't "come out of what's left"; it's bigger than the amount that's left.
