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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday June 05 2018, @03:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the sticking-it-to-the-consumer dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow8317

Car makers like Jaguar Land Rover and Peugeot have been accused of using special software to raise spare parts prices.

Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/06/04/car-makers-used-software-to-raise-spare-parts-prices/

Ever had the nagging suspicion that your car's manufacturer was charging outrageous prices for parts simply because it could? Software might be to blame. Reuters has obtained documents from a lawsuit indicating that Jaguar Land Rover, Peugeot, Renault and other automakers have been using Accenture software (Partneo) that recommended price increases for spare parts based on "perceived value." If a brand badge or other component looked expensive, Partneo would suggest raising the price up to a level that drivers would still be willing to pay. It would even distinguish parts based on whether or not there was "pricing supervision" over certain parts (say, from insurance companies or focused publications) to avoid sparking an outcry.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @04:02PM (47 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @04:02PM (#688905)

    Unrestrained capitalism eventually devolves into monarchy or oligarchy. Probably monarchy once the oligarchy devours itself. It's an inherent contradiction, and that inherent contradiction cannot be ignore. The working class then becomes the serf class.

    Why should we put unrestrained capitalism in place then?

    I've identified a problem that capitalism can address. Must we throw the baby out with the bathwater?

    Socialism too, like capitalism, does not work in its pure, theoretical form.

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday June 05 2018, @04:15PM (3 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 05 2018, @04:15PM (#688908) Journal

    Do you have citations for your presumptions? Unrestrained capitalism leeds to monarchy, or oligarchy? Surely you have some historical examples?

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 05 2018, @04:58PM (2 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday June 05 2018, @04:58PM (#688930)

      Unrestrained capitalism leeds (sic) to monarchy, or oligarchy? Surely you have some historical examples?

      I have one: Republican Rome. Capitalism was extremely unrestrained by modern standards, scams were common, environmental and labor laws were basically non-existent. As an example of a not-uncommon practice: A house is on fire in the middle of a city. The richest guy in the city, with his slaves and hired thugs, shows up and uses force to prevent anyone from putting out the fire until the owner sells their house to the rich guy at a steep discount (the owner sells because the alternative to selling is having his house burn down and be left with nothing). By the time of Julius Caesar, the whole system had become unstable in large part because the people with political power, the senators, were also hogging the vast majority of the wealth, in effect forming a hereditary oligarchy. That created the grievances among the poor that allowed Julius Caesar and later Octavian to have the level of popular support they needed to take over and turn Rome into a monarchy.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @05:37PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @05:37PM (#688943)

        That's interesting. I used to argue that Rome was capitalist, but the majority of the hivemind disagreed.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by quietus on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:47PM

        by quietus (6328) on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:47PM (#689011) Journal

        You should mention Sulla [wikipedia.org] here as the first to effectively exploit the inequality within Roman society for grasping near-unrestricted power. You should also stress the importance of the publicani [wikipedia.org], and not merely the political class, in creating this inequality. It is true that, to make the climb on the societal ladder -- the cursus honorum [wikipedia.org] -- vast amounts of money were needed, partly to create favour with the masses, and partly to create favour with more advanced members in the cursus honorum. To get those sums, loans were needed from rich businessmen -- the publicani -- in exchange, ofcourse, for profitable outsourcing contracts in future.

        As a well-written description of the whole process, I can recommend Rubicon, by Tom Holland.

        As to the deeper moral of the story: when you hear a politician preaching about the private sector being more efficient at something currently done by public administration (and throwing in some promise of tax cuts for the masses), you should know what's going on.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 05 2018, @04:44PM (42 children)

    You're conflating economic system with governing system. The term you want is anarchy not capitalism.

    You're correct about absolute capitalism leading to badness but that's specific to where a monopoly (natural or otherwise) is involved. In any other case it will eventually correct itself.

    Socialism, however, is predicated on human beings acting other than human beings naturally act and takes heavy-handed micro-management to exist for any length of time.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 05 2018, @05:11PM (9 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday June 05 2018, @05:11PM (#688935)

      You're correct about absolute capitalism leading to badness but that's specific to where a monopoly (natural or otherwise) is involved. In any other case it will eventually correct itself.

      That's definitely not the only market inefficiency that can occur under capitalism. Here's an example:
      --------------------------------------
      Consider a widget that requires a great deal of capital to produce. There's no red tape or anything, since this is absolute capitalism, but there's just a ton of stuff you need to make a minimum viable product (a railroad line, a high-tech bit of hardware that requires complex equipment to manufacture, etc). Now, there isn't a monopoly, but there are just 3 firms that have the necessary capital. Now, the CEO of each of those 3 firms, tasked with making more money, has three ways to do it:
      1. They can make a better widget, which is good for the real economy because better widgets are now available.
      2. They can cut their prices to try to gain market share, which is good for the real economy because now it's easier to get those oh-so-handy widgets.
      3. They can raise their prices in the hopes that the other 2 firms will raise their prices in response, creating a tacit agreement that all 3 firms will overcharge for widgets and thus all make more money selling widgets. This is bad for the real economy, because it means widgets cost more than they really should based on the cost to produce said widgets.

      Of those, option 3 is by far the easiest one to engage in. But, you cry, what prevents that is another competitor entering the marketplace. But the new competitor isn't going to be able to easily enter, because the step of acquiring the capital is often insurmountable. And once they do, they have no real incentive to not overcharge for widgets themselves. Plus mergers and acquisitions often prevent that new competitor from staying independent for long - remember, all 3 of the established players have a strong incentive to remove the upstart from the market.

      And that describes a very large number of markets in existence today in capitalist countries.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:07PM (5 children)

        ...because the step of acquiring the capital is often insurmountable.

        Nah, startup capital isn't a problem. Unless the government is throwing roadblocks in the way or other exclusive deals have been signed, an investment in a third party with solid plans for kicking the shit out of the entrenched parties is easy money and enough investors know it. Either of those conditions is an artificial monopoly stifling competition though.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:32PM (4 children)

          by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:32PM (#689006)

          Nah, startup capital isn't a problem.

          ... says somebody who I'm reasonably certain has never tried to acquire startup capital. I mean, have you ever walked into the offices of, say, Goldman Sachs, and said "I have a great idea for a business, can I have $100 billion?" Yeah, I didn't think so.

          And here's the biggest barrier to getting the startup capital you completely left out of your considerations: Your most likely sources of startup capital are going to have to be very rich, because this is a business with a high capital cost. Said sources are quite likely to be invested in one of the 3 players in this oligopoly. That investment means that they want the gravy train to continue unabated, because they're getting some of that gravy.

          If you want empirical evidence that oligopolies are inefficient, just look at the shareholder reports of players in the major oligopolies today. If all market players are reporting high profit margins then the market is inefficient, because those high profits come from charging a lot more for the product in question than it costs to produce it. Or you can examine markets where the price of a product has increased substantially without any significant increase in the costs of production.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
          • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:41PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:41PM (#689009)

            You are asking for WAY too much critical thinking.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @11:31PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @11:31PM (#689076)

            ... says somebody who I'm reasonably certain has never tried to acquire startup capital. I mean, have you ever walked into the offices of, say, Goldman Sachs, and said "I have a great idea for a business, can I have $100 billion?" Yeah, I didn't think so.

            That's not how it works. How much capital were youtube or github blowing through before acquisition? How much is twitter blowing through now and what exactly is twitters business model?

            • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 06 2018, @01:38PM

              by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday June 06 2018, @01:38PM (#689292)

              All your examples are relatively low-capital businesses, where they could and did release their product to the market after spending a few million at most. Modern examples of the businesses I'm talking about are much more complex than that, like designing and manufacturing microchips or nationwide cell phone coverage.

              --
              The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06 2018, @12:56AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06 2018, @12:56AM (#689091)

            Google had no problem raising capital to go against microsoft when it owned 90% of the browser market and people were talking abut having to get the government to step in and fix the situation.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday June 05 2018, @09:35PM (1 child)

        by frojack (1554) on Tuesday June 05 2018, @09:35PM (#689038) Journal

        . But the new competitor isn't going to be able to easily enter, because the step of acquiring the capital is often insurmountable.

        Or, say with a Car Analogy, (remember where we started?)...

        The current manufacturer of that particular car still holds a bunch of patents, and it ties into their on-board computer system which tries to protect patents when parts are added.

        You've got a warehouse full of parts, and you have to maximize profit. You take the best course of action on each part.
        Part fits multiple model years? Price remains high. Part has several third party competitors, price stays low.

        I suggest the Accenture software probably reduces prices on over stocked items, as well as those that can be obtained from multiple sources. But we won't hear about that on SN. Only price rises.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Friday June 08 2018, @12:40AM

          by sjames (2882) on Friday June 08 2018, @12:40AM (#690132) Journal

          That's because a competitive market is what is supposed to be happening. The fact that it's increasingly not the case is a problem that needs to be addressed.

          "Man walks past bank, doesn't rob it" isn't news.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:18AM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:18AM (#689141)

        3. They can raise their prices in the hopes that the other 2 firms will raise their prices in response, creating a tacit agreement that all 3 firms will overcharge for widgets and thus all make more money selling widgets. ... And that describes a very large number of markets in existence today in capitalist countries.

        Yeah, what he said. Price competition capitalism is for suckers, like independent truck drivers - they'll undercut each other until they're losing money on more jobs than they make money on, come to think of it that's kind of like Uber too...

        Unfortunately, very little in life is available from competitive suckers, and the big corporations with protected markets are driving more and more expenses of daily life into the protected market arena.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:02PM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:02PM (#688961)

      No, I am certain the terms I want are capitalism and socialism, not anarchy. The failure mode of capitalism you identify, monopoly, is the polar opposite of anarchy.

      fwiw, I am in agreement with Mr. Vim that government is a violently imposed monopoly.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:08PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:08PM (#688966)

        Government will always be a violently imposed monopoly and the only solution is to keep governments as small / local as possible. By definition they are a violently imposed monopoly, how else do you prevent someone from doing something the majority deems unacceptable? Make all humans angels first, then we can discuss more idealistic forms of governance.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06 2018, @12:07PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06 2018, @12:07PM (#689272)

          Read some Kropotkin.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:12PM (4 children)

        The failure mode of capitalism you identify, monopoly, is the polar opposite of anarchy.

        Only in the case of a government imposed monopoly. Anarchy put no barriers against natural or collusion-based monopolies, only those created by a government. So, yeah, you need to pick your terms better.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:52PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:52PM (#688996)

          How is a government imposed monopoly different from monopolies imposed by other means?

        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday June 05 2018, @09:32PM (1 child)

          by sjames (2882) on Tuesday June 05 2018, @09:32PM (#689037) Journal

          As soon as someone manages a monopoly on an essential resource, the anarchy party is over [wikipedia.org].

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:05PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:05PM (#688963)

      but that's specific to where a monopoly (natural or otherwise) is involved. In any other case it will eventually correct itself.

      You do realize that a pure capitalist will do everything in their power to create a monopoly yes? The "correct itself" statement is the crux of the problem here, markets don't give a shit and require a human to make a difference. What to do when someone corners the market and pushes out all competition? We see this all the time, and usually it is despite government regulation contrary to the typical libertarian lament about "if only the gov would stop meddling with the perfect market!"

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:09PM (3 children)

        You can read, can't you? Reread what I actually wrote instead of what you wanted me to say.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:27PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @06:27PM (#688981)

          Ha, I'm not putting words in your mouth you giant fool. I'm pointing out that your theory of market self-correction fails miserably most of the time. It only works for markets where initial capital investment is low and there is no incumbent who can simply lose money for a little while to put you out of business.

          How do you think you're so smart? I just don't get it, constant failures to understand what other people say and horrible logic and assumptions to prop up your own world views. You are too smart for your own good, but not smart enough to be any good. Except coding perl apparently, at that you are sufficient.

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:50AM (1 child)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:50AM (#689127) Homepage Journal

            It only works for markets where initial capital investment is low and there is no incumbent who can simply lose money for a little while to put you out of business.

            You're horribly wrong but you wouldn't listen if I pointed out a million examples, so I won't bother.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:53PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:53PM (#689353)

              Nice to see your usual tactic of "I'm right, you're dumb, i dont have to offer proof."

              Cause history disagrees with you, only by the grace of government regulation do we have a halfway decent society. Go eat a turd you stupid bird.

    • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:03PM (1 child)

      by sjames (2882) on Tuesday June 05 2018, @07:03PM (#689000) Journal

      One problem is that what we call the free market in the U.S. is nothing like it, it's just an excuse to let government created "corporations" walk all over everyone. In order to get at the form of Capitalism that might work, we will have to remove all corporate charters, all IP law, prescription laws, and any form of license. Significant imbalances in power between buyer and seller corrupt the whole system.

      In U.S. politics, the "free market" people are mostly whackados who recoil in horror at the thought of any of those measures. They just don't like regulations that don't let them externalize their costs. I'll note that this includes the current Libertarian party which now supports corporate charters.

      Interestingly, the same whackados are happy to let the corporations push the courts aside in favor of "arbitration" where the arbiters' financial future depends on pleasing the corporations.

      It's also worth noting that even if we do implement that sort of economy, we'll see a lot of "miracle crystal water cures your cancer" type products out there. We'll also need major revisions to our civil courts so the people who get dumped on can afford to sue those who do the dumping unless we want to see a big increase in murders and "unfortunate fires".

      Even with all of that, you'll need a mechanism better than handwaving to overcome the problem that money attracts money and so eventually someone ends up being the king.

      In other words, "pure" Capitalism doesn't really work either. If something is going to work, it appears to be a balanced and mixed economy. In the U.S. that means a shift towards the left.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:53AM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:53AM (#689128) Homepage Journal

        You've mistaken me for someone who holds up the US economic system as an example of capitalism done well. It's not. Our government does the exact opposite of what it should every chance it gets. The US government never met a hand full of cash it didn't want to exchange for regulatory capture rather than ensuring competition like it should.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:46AM (16 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday June 06 2018, @02:46AM (#689123)

      Socialism ... takes heavy-handed micro-management to exist for any length of time.

      I think you're conflating the historically heavy handed governments that purported to implement socialism with the actual economics of socialism.

      Scandinavia isn't doing nearly as much micro-management as the USSR/China used to, and I think they're getting much better results.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:02AM (15 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:02AM (#689134) Homepage Journal

        Really, we're talking more communism than socialism but let's skip that argument and just switch to the proper term for the duration of this discussion.

        Yes, communists can show good results for a time. Eventually though every single communist regime runs into precisely the same problem. They run out of other people's money to spend.

        Let me ask you a question and I want you to really think about it honestly. Is there ever going to be a point where a communist population says "Okay, we're getting enough help. No need to pile any more of a burden on the people creating all the wealth we're living off of."?

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:13AM (14 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:13AM (#689138)

          Is there ever going to be a point where a communist population says "Okay, we're getting enough help. No need to pile any more of a burden on the people creating all the wealth we're living off of."?

          I believe tax rates in Scandinavia have been relatively flat for the last 30 years, as opposed to the US where I've watched some taxes yo-yo up and down while others (Florida Sales Tax, for instance) steadily increase from 3.5% to 7% and no sign of stopping.

          Personally, I'd welcome a 25% VAT, if it meant that we could get healthcare costs under control and my company would turn over the $25K/yr they're spending on my health insurance to me in salary.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:17AM (13 children)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:17AM (#689140) Homepage Journal

            Man, I'd club a baby seal if it meant I only had to pay one kind of tax, ever. I wouldn't pick a VAT though. That's a horrible way to tax folks. All other reasons aside, it makes your population less willing to spend on non-necessities, thus harming your overall economy.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:30AM (12 children)

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday June 06 2018, @03:30AM (#689144)

              Taxes on consumption are the method of choice for Caribbean nations like Anguilla, where they hope to attract and retain wealthy immigrants. I didn't see much struggle in the economies of northern Europe and they have all had crazy high VAT for a long time now. The Danish did seem to not buy new cars very often, but this was an observation I made while leisurely riding a bicycle clear across their major landmasses in less than a day each.

              --
              🌻🌻 [google.com]
              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday June 06 2018, @05:34AM (11 children)

                by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday June 06 2018, @05:34AM (#689195) Homepage Journal

                Oh it sounds peachy keen for a rich person but only if they make their money elsewhere. Flat percentage income taxes or even "progressive" income taxes harm the purchasing power of the majority of the population less than does a VAT; that's just fairly straight-forward math.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 06 2018, @04:57PM (10 children)

                  by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday June 06 2018, @04:57PM (#689387)

                  My personal feeling is that a quasi progressive income tax (and yes, Petunia, capital gains IS income, and if you are an artificial entity like a corporation your artificial self also makes demands on the infrastructure of the country and needs to pay taxes too...) should be both sufficient for the bulk of revenue collection, and a driver of economic growth.

                  When I say quasi progressive, what I mean is a flat tax that kicks in somewhere around the poverty level, coupled with a UBI sufficient for food, shelter, and occasional modest transportation sufficient to hold some kind of job. The people on the bottom have no excuses of desperation to justify crimes of theft/fraud, the people just above them have negative and then very low effective tax rates (providing purchasing power to the masses) due to their receipt of UBI, and even the wealthiest also receive UBI, but of course pay it back many times over with their flat tax on income.

                  Of course that will just turn the country into a pile of dope smoking TV addicts, but the present system doesn't seem to be avoiding that fate very effectively, anyway.

                  --
                  🌻🌻 [google.com]
                  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday June 07 2018, @03:10AM (9 children)

                    if you are an artificial entity like a corporation your artificial self also makes demands on the infrastructure of the country and needs to pay taxes too...

                    Foolish statement. They already do pay for infrastructure even without income taxes. They pay their bills and the taxes on them, they pay gas tax for roads, they pay to tag their vehicles, they pay extra to be DoT compliant, blah, blah, blah... The idea that income taxes are needed for infrastructure is simply a lie that you got fooled into believing.

                    --
                    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 07 2018, @12:35PM (8 children)

                      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday June 07 2018, @12:35PM (#689830)

                      They pay their bills and the taxes on them

                      I thought we were trying to abolish VAT and other consumption taxes... sure, if we go consumption tax based, then everybody can quit paying income taxes: people and corporations.

                      If the people pay income taxes to cover federal expenses like social health care, military defense, roads, etc. I don't see why corporations get a free ride on that train. Well over 50% of my road use is in service to my corporate employer.

                      --
                      🌻🌻 [google.com]
                      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday June 09 2018, @11:34AM (7 children)

                        I don't see why corporations get a free ride on that train.

                        Look, man, if you want corporations not to have rights like people, you can't tax them like people. The desire to tax abstract concepts like corporations instead of sticking to human beings is why we have this corporate personhood bullshit to begin with.

                        --
                        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday June 09 2018, @12:01PM (6 children)

                          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday June 09 2018, @12:01PM (#690757)

                          if you want corporations not to have rights like people

                          Fine, the day a corporation can no longer sue me in court, they can quit paying taxes.

                          The desire to tax abstract concepts like corporations instead of sticking to human beings is why we have this corporate personhood bullshit to begin with.

                          See, from where I stand, it looks like the idea that a corporation can dodge taxes and deflect personal liability is why we have corporate personhood bullshit to begin with.

                          --
                          🌻🌻 [google.com]
                          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 11 2018, @02:01AM (5 children)

                            Can't drop the suing thing or you'd have to be unable to sue them to maintain parity. You can absolutely remove their ability to take any part in politics though.

                            Dodging taxes and deflecting personal liability is not a corporations thing, it's an anyone who can afford the accountants and lawyers thing.

                            --
                            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 11 2018, @02:53AM (4 children)

                              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday June 11 2018, @02:53AM (#691269)

                              You can absolutely remove their ability to take any part in politics though.

                              I'm all for this, but consider it an impossibility. Natural persons within corporations can directly or indirectly channel corporate funds to natural persons who act on the corporation's behalf. As it stands today, my employer (a corporation with 100K+ employees), has a whole political action department that does nothing other than monitor world politics and lobby for the corporate benefit. A former, smaller ~1K employee company made a point to hire an attorney who was the campaign treasurer for a prominent congresscritter, and used him exclusively for access to the congresscritter's ear - raising medicaid reimbursement for the company product, lobbying the FDA for additional approvals, etc.

                              Dodging taxes and deflecting personal liability is not a corporations thing, it's an anyone who can afford the accountants and lawyers thing.

                              See, this is one thing that Trump sort of is blowing in the right direction on (as randomly as he blows, some of it has to go the right way just by chance...) Reduction and simplification of laws and tax structures is a good thing. Simplify it to the point that there aren't "legal dodges" that you just have to hire an army to find and justify - o.k. that's the goal, at least start moving in that direction.

                              Anyway, what do the accountants and lawyers do with rich people's money to help them dodge taxes and personal liability, and so many other things like obfuscation of ownership, etc.? They set up corporations within corporations within corporations - as complicated as need be to achieve the goal. This is where your money really can buy you additional personhood, you don't have to employ real people, you can just rent an accountant and/or lawyer to set up a fake person or 50 for you, and let them deflect everything you would rather not have stick on you.

                              I'm not saying we should abolish corporations overnight, they're too entrenched in the world's systems - but turning the tide toward gradual dismantlement of them would be a good thing.

                              --
                              🌻🌻 [google.com]
                              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 11 2018, @03:09AM (3 children)

                                Nah, man. There's ways around all those problems if you stop thinking of corporations as people. I mean even you are doing it. Corporations should be for being owned not for owning other things. Remove their ability to own anything intangible.

                                As for abolishing them, no way. They're the best way to organize a business that you don't want a single owner of for whatever reason. Stockholders could use more control over the boards but other than that the organizational aspect is fantastic compared to any other distributed ownership method.

                                --
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                                • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 11 2018, @03:57AM (2 children)

                                  by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday June 11 2018, @03:57AM (#691280)

                                  Remove their ability to own anything intangible.

                                  That's a start, sounds like a major dismantling already.

                                  They're the best way to organize a business that you don't want a single owner of for whatever reason.

                                  So, keep the multiple natural persons' ownership, but retain personal liability for the actions of the corporation. These multiple owners may all want to be "silent partners" with no liability for whatever might go wrong, and that's O.K. up to a point, but we've gone beyond the O.K. point long ago - somebodies within the corporation have to retain liability for the corporate actions. When Union Carbide gasses a major city, the corporation should be required to put forward the responsible parties to stand trial for manslaughter and whatever other crimes have been committed.

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                                  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday June 11 2018, @04:30AM (1 child)

                                    For the owners? No. They should never be able to lose anything but their investment unless they had some actual part in illegal activity. Guilt isn't communicable like that. You either had an actual part in or knowledge of the crime or you didn't. Anyone who did, crime's crime and they go to jail. Anyone who didn't, didn't and that's the end of it.

                                    --
                                    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                                    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday June 11 2018, @11:06AM

                                      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday June 11 2018, @11:06AM (#691345)

                                      For the owners? No. They should never be able to lose anything but their investment unless they had some actual part in illegal activity.

                                      Yes, up to that point that they had actual part in illegal activity, such as demanding that a chemical plant be put online before adequate (legally required) safety checks can be performed: if members of the board are presented with information that legally required safety checks have not been completed and they vote to commence operations anyway, that's a responsible act.

                                      This kind of responsibility wouldn't start and end with the owners, it would start with the line workers responsible for the safety checks and proceed upward through management to the level which "the buck stopped here" and they demanded go ahead to meet schedule against the law. Needless to say, today's normal levels of transparency and recordkeeping would need to increase to make this actually work - it's more than technically feasible and no more onerous than current regulatory compliance, just not practiced in a sufficiently transparent manner to find, for instance, exactly who within VW decided that cheating on emissions tests was in the company's best interests.

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