The Bailout

[ZiprHead]

Legally speaking, a corporation is a person. They should get the $1,200 everybody else is getting.

 

[fromderinside]

Let's all sing the Holly Hobby song shall we.

 

[KeepTalking]

Legally speaking, a corporation is a person. They should get the $1,200 everybody else is getting.

Is the inverse true as well? Are people corporations? If so, I think we have hit upon a solution for the corporations getting more of the bailout than people.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The company I work for has gotten bigger over the years. We are now not a 'small company', but we are quite small compared to the massive conglomerates like AECOM (which bought URS) and CH2M Hill, who were actually bought by Jacobs. The big boys keep buying each other up. But we are above 500 employees, so we need to somehow get money from the big boy trough.

 

[Elixir]

The company I work for has gotten bigger over the years. We are now not a 'small company', but we are quite small compared to the massive conglomerates like AECOM (which bought URS) and CH2M Hill, who were actually bought by Jacobs. The big boys keep buying each other up. But we are above 500 employees, so we need to somehow get money from the big boy trough.

"Small Business" designations are so slimy... when our last startup started bidding federal contracts, we were underbid on a small business set-aside contract (<100k) by a company with a name that sounded like a mom&pop shop on the east coast. I had never heard of them, but since they were a competitor operating in our space I started looking them up. Yes, they were under 500 employees. In fact they were under 50 employees. But as I dug further, I found that in the trailing 12 months they had been awarded well over 3 billion dollars in federal contracts. Then I found that high government ex-officials and ex-military officers - not drill Seargents, but fucking Generals - sat on their board. I lodged a protest on the grounds that no matter how few "employees" they had (they had a bazillion subcontractors), there was no way they were a "small" business. Eventually they withdrew their bid. A couple of years later that same Company became a top-tier customer of our Company and remains so today. But if I looked hard enough, I'd bet they're still representing themselves as "small business" when an attractive opportunity presents itself. There is no (or was no) hard and fast dollar level that disqualifies an entity from defining themselves as such.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Let's all sing the Holly Hobby song shall we.

Well, there are thousands of companies who could fail very shortly if they aren't given something to keep them afloat. I'd prefer that the bailout to companies would be more targeted. But regardless, cheaper to keep workers employed than going into unemployment lines.

 

[Bomb#20]

Legally speaking, a corporation is a person. They should get the $1,200 everybody else is getting.

Legally speaking, "a corporation is a person" is lawyers' technical jargon for "You can sue a corporation without having to figure out who all the shareholders are and drag them individually into court". It does not signify, and was never designed to signify, metaphysical personhood.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Legally speaking, a corporation is a person. They should get the $1,200 everybody else is getting.

Legally speaking, "a corporation is a person" is lawyers' technical jargon for "You can sue a corporation without having to figure out who all the shareholders are and drag them individually into court". It does not signify, and was never designed to signify, metaphysical personhood.

Yea, it would be an absolute attorney wet dream if they could sue every passive investor for crimes committed by managers at a typical publically traded company.

 

[fromderinside]

Let's all sing the Holly Hobby song shall we.

Well, there are thousands of companies who could fail very shortly if they aren't given something to keep them afloat. I'd prefer that the bailout to companies would be more targeted. But regardless, cheaper to keep workers employed than going into unemployment lines.

Yes Harry Bosch, I've read - I expect most of us have - how EU is attacking the problem. Works for more workers than in US and keeps 'capacity' in place. Unfortunately here in the good old U s of A we have a different perspective of what is meant by democratic socialism. Here we value profit more than workers so we'd rather prop up companies than give 'handouts' to workers. This attitude seems to even be part of democratic party orthodoxy.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Let's all sing the Holly Hobby song shall we.

Well, there are thousands of companies who could fail very shortly if they aren't given something to keep them afloat. I'd prefer that the bailout to companies would be more targeted. But regardless, cheaper to keep workers employed than going into unemployment lines.

Yes Harry Bosch, I've read - I expect most of us have - how EU is attacking the problem. Works for more workers than in US and keeps 'capacity' in place. Unfortunately here in the good old U s of A we have a different perspective of what is meant by democratic socialism. Here we value profit more than workers so we'd rather prop up companies than give 'handouts' to workers. This attitude seems to even be part of democratic party orthodoxy.

Buddy: I value workers. I just don't want my 98 year old grandmother thrown in jail for having having the bad luck of have some of her meager retirement net egg invested in Amazon if an Amazon driver hurts someone.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why do so many people obsess on whether "a corporation is a person"?

The only difference between the crybaby corporate-bashers who use this language and the corporations they hate is that they wish they had the same power those corporations have so they could use it to enrich themselves at everyone else's expense and squash everyone who gets in their way.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Why do so many people obsess on whether "a corporation is a person"?

Because the Bill of Rights reserves the ability of government to meddle in the lives of individuals (citizens). SCOTUS in contemporary decisions decided corporations are also protected from said meddling, despite the concept of corporation not existing in the Constitution.

 

[Bomb#20]

Why do so many people obsess on whether "a corporation is a person"?

Because the Bill of Rights reserves the ability of government to meddle in the lives of individuals (citizens). SCOTUS in contemporary decisions decided corporations are also protected from said meddling, despite the concept of corporation not existing in the Constitution.

But the SCOTUS did not make those decisions on the grounds that "a corporation is a person". "A corporation is a person" is just a boogeyman that religious zealots use to spread disinformation about their opponents.

If you're talking about the First Amendment, when a government meddles in the lives of individuals for saying something the government does not want heard, it does it by jailing or fining those individuals. If you are advocating that governments be allowed to meddle in the activities of corporations for saying something the government does not want heard, how do you propose they do so? By jailing or fining corporations? How do you figure a government can punish "corporate speech", except by jailing or fining an individual because he or some other individual said something the government does not want heard?

 

[laughing dog]

Why do so many people obsess on whether "a corporation is a person"?

Because the Bill of Rights reserves the ability of government to meddle in the lives of individuals (citizens). SCOTUS in contemporary decisions decided corporations are also protected from said meddling, despite the concept of corporation not existing in the Constitution.

But the SCOTUS did not make those decisions on the grounds that "a corporation is a person". "A corporation is a person" is just a boogeyman that religious zealots use to spread disinformation about their opponents.

If you're talking about the First Amendment, when a government meddles in the lives of individuals for saying something the government does not want heard, it does it by jailing or fining those individuals. If you are advocating that governments be allowed to meddle in the activities of corporations for saying something the government does not want heard, how do you propose they do so? By jailing or fining corporations? How do you figure a government can punish "corporate speech", except by jailing or fining an individual because he or some other individual said something the government does not want heard?

Fining the corporation comes to mind. Revoking or modifying the corporate charter to remove one or more of its privileges also comes to mind.

 

[Harry Bosch]

But the SCOTUS did not make those decisions on the grounds that "a corporation is a person". "A corporation is a person" is just a boogeyman that religious zealots use to spread disinformation about their opponents.

If you're talking about the First Amendment, when a government meddles in the lives of individuals for saying something the government does not want heard, it does it by jailing or fining those individuals. If you are advocating that governments be allowed to meddle in the activities of corporations for saying something the government does not want heard, how do you propose they do so? By jailing or fining corporations? How do you figure a government can punish "corporate speech", except by jailing or fining an individual because he or some other individual said something the government does not want heard?

Fining the corporation comes to mind. Revoking or modifying the corporate charter to remove one or more of its privileges also comes to mind.

What privileges would you remove from corporate charters?

 

[laughing dog]

But the SCOTUS did not make those decisions on the grounds that "a corporation is a person". "A corporation is a person" is just a boogeyman that religious zealots use to spread disinformation about their opponents.

If you're talking about the First Amendment, when a government meddles in the lives of individuals for saying something the government does not want heard, it does it by jailing or fining those individuals. If you are advocating that governments be allowed to meddle in the activities of corporations for saying something the government does not want heard, how do you propose they do so? By jailing or fining corporations? How do you figure a government can punish "corporate speech", except by jailing or fining an individual because he or some other individual said something the government does not want heard?

Fining the corporation comes to mind. Revoking or modifying the corporate charter to remove one or more of its privileges also comes to mind.

What privileges would you remove from corporate charters?

I haven’t given that much thought because I was making the point that corporations can be punished. Maybe progressively reduce the limited liability depending on the number if transgressions.

 

[Bomb#20]

How do you figure a government can punish "corporate speech", except by jailing or fining an individual because he or some other individual said something the government does not want heard?

Fining the corporation comes to mind.

And when our government eminent domains your house, you'll be okay with it when we skip the "just compensation" step, because your house is not a person so it has no Fifth Amendment right to be compensated?

A corporation is the property of shareholders. When you fine it, you are fining the shareholders. If you do it because of prohibited "corporate speech", that counts as fining an individual because her employee said something the government does not want heard.

Revoking or modifying the corporate charter to remove one or more of its privileges also comes to mind.

What privileges would you remove from corporate charters?

I haven’t given that much thought because I was making the point that corporations can be punished. Maybe progressively reduce the limited liability depending on the number if transgressions.

An interesting proposal. So does that mean that if Congress enacts a law specifying that Simon & Schuster will lose its limited liability privilege if it goes ahead with publishing the Quran, there's no constitutional issue since Congress is only punishing a corporation and the First Amendment guarantees rights only to people?

 

[Harry Bosch]

What privileges would you remove from corporate charters?

I haven’t given that much thought because I was making the point that corporations can be punished. Maybe progressively reduce the limited liability depending on the number if transgressions.

Well, I'm not an attorney, but the word "liability" more pertains to a debt than a transgression. IOW, limited liability means that an owner in an LLC can only be lose her investment in the LLC if the LLC dosn't pay the bill, for example. The vendor can't go after the owner for what the LLC can't pay. Sometimes, a vendor or a bank will require an owner to provide a personal guaranty to get around this issue by the way. But if an officer breaks the law (which I assume is what you mean by transgression?), limited liability won't protect the officer. If the LLC breaks a law (environmental dumping for example); limited liability won't protect the officer who made that decision either.

 

[laughing dog]

And when our government eminent domains your house, you'll be okay with it when we skip the "just compensation" step, because your house is not a person so it has no Fifth Amendment right to be compensated?

A corporation is the property of shareholders. When you fine it, you are fining the shareholders. If you do it because of prohibited "corporate speech", that counts as fining an individual because her employee said something the government does not want heard.

Corporations are fined for a variety of reasons that pass Constitutional muster.

More importantly, you asked how a corporation could be punished, and I gave an example.

I also find your characterization that "the government does not want heard" to be misleading for two reasons. Government represents "the people". So any law that is passed is presumably represents "the people. Moreover, this hypothetical fine is for what is said not for what is heard. So in these examples, a more accurate description is "the people does not want said".

Revoking or modifying the corporate charter to remove one or more of its privileges also comes to mind.

What privileges would you remove from corporate charters?

I haven’t given that much thought because I was making the point that corporations can be punished. Maybe progressively reduce the limited liability depending on the number if transgressions.

An interesting proposal. So does that mean that if Congress enacts a law specifying that Simon & Schuster will lose its limited liability privilege if it goes ahead with publishing the Quran, there's no constitutional issue since Congress is only punishing a corporation and the First Amendment guarantees rights only to people?

I would think so, but then again, I am not a constitutional lawyer. I do know that corporations are granted privileges (not rights) by the states, and states can withdraw those privileges. I do not know whether there is a constitutional right to not have privileges revoked.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Legally speaking, a corporation is a person. They should get the $1,200 everybody else is getting.

Legally speaking, "a corporation is a person" is lawyers' technical jargon for "You can sue a corporation without having to figure out who all the shareholders are and drag them individually into court". It does not signify, and was never designed to signify, metaphysical personhood.

Allow me to introduce you to 'Citizens United'.....

Apparently, lots of other people in this thread either haven't heard, or pretend to not have heard, of this SCOTUS decision.