We can't very well put everybody who works for that company in prison, and we can't levy some huge fine against a company and then just divide the amount of the fine by the number of people working there and have everybody pitch in their share.
The guy bending a wrench on the assembly line (eg) didn't make the decisions that led to the problem that caused hundreds of people to die in the plane crash.
And we can't condemn 10,000 employees to death by firing squad.
But that seems to be the approach when something like the Boeing 737Max goes through a couple of instances of Unscheduled Rapid Disassembly mid-flight.
The company gets slammed with lawsuits and fines, which has the effect of making the employees pay for the bosses fuckups. And even though the bosses may get dinged a little (the mid-level bosses anyway), a lot of the time, the guys at the top get paid handsomely just to walk away, which does kinda leave those 10,000 employees to face the free market firing squad.
I don't know what to do about any of this, but I think one thing that has to happen is that we have to stop delivering privileged, situational treatment to entities - people or companies or whatever - just because they have money and power, and their PR pimps can hawk some bullshit like Too-Big-To-Fail - when maybe a (metaphorical) death penalty is in order for at least a few guys wearing suits.
Like I said - I just don't know. And that bugs the ever-livin' shit outa me.
Families of Boeing 737 MAX Crash Victims Ask US to Seek $24 Billion Fine
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Relatives of the victims of two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes asked the Justice Department on Wednesday to seek a fine against the planemaker of up to $24.78 billion and move forward with a criminal prosecution.
"Because Boeing’s crime is the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history, a maximum fine of more than $24 billion is legally justified and clearly appropriate," Paul Cassel, a lawyer representing 15 families, wrote in a letter to the Justice Department released on Wednesday.
The families said the Justice Department could potentially suspend $14 billion to $22 billion of the fine "on the condition that Boeing devote those suspended funds to an independent corporate monitor and related improvements in compliance and safety."
The Justice Department said in May it determined Boeing violated a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement that shielded the company from a criminal charge of conspiracy to commit fraud arising from fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
Boeing last week told the government it did not violate the agreement. Federal prosecutors have until July 7 to inform a federal judge in Texas of their plans, which could be proceeding with a criminal case or negotiating a plea deal with Boeing. The Justice Department could also extend the deferred prosecution agreement for a year.
Justice Department officials found that Boeing violated the deferred prosecution agreement after a panel blew off a new Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet on Jan. 5, just two days before the 2021 agreement expired. The incident exposed continued safety and quality issues at Boeing.
In the letter, the families also said Boeing’s board of directors should be ordered to meet with them and the department should "launch criminal prosecutions of the responsible corporate officials at Boeing at the time of the two crashes."
Boeing and the Justice Department did not immediately comment.
The letter noted that Senator Richard Blumenthal, who chairs the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and held a hearing with Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun on Tuesday, said, "There is near overwhelming evidence in my view as a former prosecutor that prosecution should be pursued."
The two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 MAX planes occurred in 2018 and 2019 in Indonesia and Ethiopia and led to the best-selling plane's worldwide grounding for 20 months. A safety system called MCAS was linked to both fatal crashes.
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