CORPORATE RIGHTS

Here is something I don't get: corporations are people according to the supreme court in Citizens United and can therefore donate however much money they want, anonymously if they choose, to the political candidate of their choice. They can also dictate the terms of employment based on their own religious beliefs again according to the supreme court in the Hobby Lobby case ruled on yesterday.  Correspondingly, if one was to listen to the corporate spokespeople carefully their most important responsibility is to their shareholders by generating  the greatest profits possible.

Then why when they commit a crime, such as BNP Paribas did by doing deals with Iran and other blacklisted companies, did no one go to jail and, since they agreed to pay a whopping $8.9 billion in fines, which is a lot of money did not one executive lose their job?

The hypocrisy in corporate governance is unbelievable. Should a company be forced to pay a fine due to unlawful activities several executives should be terminated, without cause and done so without the golden parachutes they all enjoy. And, if they are found guilty they should have to admit to it and someone should be convicted of the crime and do time in jail.

Then we could view them as persons and they could operate like all other persons do. They would take responsibility for their actions and pay the consequences when their choices or decisions are against the law. I suspect if the loss of livelihood and/or jail time were on the table there would be a lot less shenanigans going on in corporate America.