Perfect Patsies ?

(the SHARE-side of shareholding?)

pat•sy
Noun [plural pat•sies. slang.]
1. a person who is easily swindled, deceived, coerced, persuaded, etc.; sucker.
2. a person upon whom the blame for something falls; scapegoat; fall guy.
3. a person who is the object of a joke, ridicule, or the like.
    (Source: Dictionary.com)

In follow up to the Déjà Vu Times post of October 5, 2015 entitled, “Capital Punishment,” I recommend a CBC News Post of October 19th:

From Bell to VW, shareholders pay for executive sins: Don Pittis
Why do innocent shareholders pay fines when company executives go scott-free?
By Don Pittis, CBC News Posted: Oct 19, 2015 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Oct 20, 2015 10:57 AM ET^[1]

Mr. Pittis’ first two paragraphs inform us thus:

Martin Winterkorn stepped down from his job as CEO following the Volkswagen emissions scandal last month and will get a golden goodbye worth as much as $90 million. The figure was calculated by the Wall Street Journal from information in the company's annual report.

While Winterkorn and other departing executives enjoy their perks, shareholders face up to $18 billion US in fines in the United States alone after VW cheated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, plus the cost of lawsuits and fixing millions of affected cars.

We are even informed that the North American Volkswagen CEO Michael Horn admits knowing of the “emissions rigging” in 2014.

So patsies of the world unite! Begin with Winterkorn and Horn. Hit this rhyming duo with the Capital Punishment² decreed by Moses; and thence onward to those “Bell Boys (& Girls),” and to the myriad other “profit-loss” schemers that hang to the [g]rafters of the corporate structure.

Why indeed do shareholders tolerate crimes against themselves by their HyPEs?³ How long before “patsy” definitions 1, 2, & 3 are added verbatim as ”shareholder” definitions 2, 3, & 4 at Dictionary.com?

How long before we admit the great con, corruption, and connivance of the shareholding system? The whole game is supposedly “gain,” but it seems that most shareholders are so far removed from influence, knowledge, oversight, or conscience they have become the perfect patsies.

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1. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/corporate-legal-responsibility-volkwagen-and-others-1.3272750?cmp=rss&cid=news-digests-canada-and-world-morning
2. http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2015/10/capital-punishment.html
“If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double. ... If a man shall deliver unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out of the man's house; if the thief be found, let him pay double. … For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour.” (Old Testament | Exodus 22:4, 7, 9; bold emphasis added.)
3. Highly-Paid Employees = HyPEs

Capital Punishment ?

Capital punishment … is punishment by death. The sentence is referred to as a death sentence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally "regarding the head" (referring to execution by beheading).¹

In light of recent corporate crimes committed in pursuit of greater capital (aka: mammon, moola, lucre, bottom-line, etc.) as in

▪  «Bristol-Myers Squibb to Pay $14 Million: Neither Admits Nor Denies SEC Charges in China Bribery Case»  (filed in News, October 5th, 2015)²

▪  «Consumers blindsided by Volkswagen's emissions test rigging: 'There's no way for a customer to know if something like this is going on': automotive researcher»  (CBC News Posted: Sep 22, 2015 5:00 AM ET) ³

▪  «TransAlta could pay $56M settlement for inflating Alberta energy prices» (CBC News Posted: Sep 30, 2015 3:58 PM MT)⁴

▪  «KPMG tax 'sham' used by at least 25 wealthy Canadians; Document says Case against KPMG to proceed as out-of-court talks break down» (CBC News Posted: Sep 30, 2015 5:00 AM ET)⁵

▪  «Toshiba CEO Hisao Tanaka resigns over doctored accounts that inflated profits: Toshiba acknowledges systematic coverup that began in 2008» (CBC News Posted: Jul 21, 2015 5:25 AM ET)⁶

▪ (etc., etc., as in the déjà vus of “things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come”);⁷

perhaps we should return to the early days before corporations joined the immortals (as in: too-big-to-fail). And since our “fine-system” does not seem to carry sufficient deterrence, perhaps we could take a lesson from Moses:

If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double. ... If a man shall deliver unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out of the man's house; if the thief be found, let him pay double. … For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour. (Old Testament | Exodus 22:4, 7, 9; bold emphasis added.)

If the entirety of criminal, corporate profits automatically became a doubled loss, could that improve our situation? As it now is, the gains so far exceed any potential loss that the so-called “fiduciary duty” to shareholders (combined with the ego of most corporate HyPEs⁸) almost mandates adventures in crime.

Additional “capital punishments” could be: first, to automatically fine ALL corporate HyPEs in-the-know (or who should have known) the sum of their yearly salary, benefits, bonuses, and gains for every year of infraction—thus decapitalizing them; second, decapitate them (without severance) from their head positions; and thirdly, ban them for at least ten years from heading any other corporation of moderate to behemoth size.

If our punishments were consistent, capital, and catastrophic, perhaps we could get a grip on this (en)raging epidemic of mammon-mongering, psychopathy, and PWOCs.⁹

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment
2. See more at: http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/#sthash.lODcFrey.dpuf ; http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/
3. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/consumers-blindsided-by-volkswagen-s-emissions-test-rigging-1.3237589?cmp=rss&cid=news-digests-canada-and-world-morning ; see also VW's personal betrayal a sad lesson in business morality: Volkswagen reminds us why profit-motivated companies need tight regulation by Don Pittis, CBC News Posted: Sep 23, 2015 5:00 AM ET at http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/vw-tdi-diesel-morality-1.3238590?cmp=rss&cid=news-digests-canada-and-world-morning
4. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/transalta-could-pay-56m-settlement-for-inflating-alberta-energy-prices-1.3251225?cmp=rss&cid=news-digests-calgary ; see also: http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2014/08/transalta-culpa-again.html
5. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/kpmg-tax-sham-used-by-at-least-25-wealthy-canadians-document-says-1.3249468?cmp=rss&cid=news-digests-canada-and-world-morning
6. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/toshiba-ceo-hisao-tanaka-resigns-over-doctored-accounts-that-inflated-profits-1.3161364?cmp=rss&cid=news-digests-canada-and-world-morning
7. Doctrine and Covenants | Section 93:24 ~ And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come;
8. HyPEs = Highly-Paid Employees (which is what most CEOs, CAOs, CFOs, etc. are since most business has shifted from an owner’s, hands-on paradigm to one of hired managers).
9. PWOC = person without conscience. See: http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2014/12/without-conscience.html ; http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2014/05/a-plague-of-psychopaths.html