• blindsight@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      Not quite so simple. Converting to USD:

      TD has a 5.37% dividend yield, a market cap of 134.46B, and $8.498B in profit.

      Doing the math, their earnings are 6.32% of capitalization. They have less than 1% slack in their earnings yield after dividends. That works out to about $1¼B per year in free cashflow. So a $2B fine is roughly 2 years of capital accumulation; a big setback for sure!

      • jadero@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        Counterpoint: a very large fraction of the population is one unexpected bill away from insolvency. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to impose a similar fear on corporations for actual criminal activity.

        Yes, that’s me saying that a corporation breaking the law should have to legitimately consider closing it’s doors. In some cases, forced closure should be part of the actual penalty.

        • blindsight@beehaw.org
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          8 months ago

          I don’t see that as a counterpoint. I think it’s reasonable that banks (and corporations, in general) are fined significantly for regulatory violations.

          With regulatory capture, most regulations are weak to begin with. And if they don’t have teeth, then they’re entirely pointless.

          Two years of free cashflow is a good fine for serious violations of ethics/regulations, imho. I don’t think they’re getting off lightly with that, though; it’s a significant enough fine that they’re incentivized to do better and, even better, acts as a warning shot across the entire industry.

          • jadero@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            My (counter) point was that much lesser crimes committed by an individual would have completely destroyed the life of the perpetrator and probably their family. Yet high fives all around when a corporation has to put up with a couple of years of lost growth just because a number is too big for an individual to properly comprehend.

  • n3m37h@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    A fine that doesn’t hurt the bottom line of the company is just cost of business, I’m for people to see the inside of a solitary confinement cell

  • Yezzey@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Isn’t there a law that says if a company is caught breaking the law you don’t have to pay them?

  • psvrh@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    If you want to make this stick, don’t let them deduct it as a loss on their taxes and really don’t let them pass it on as an increase in fees.

    The latter is especially important, because if they raise it, the others will to, and they’ll be, ah, making bank the next year.

    You know what else would be nice? Criminally charging the people responsible.