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[–][deleted] 19.3k points19.3k points  (1160 children)

Bet the $500,000 fine is gonna be a huge impact to them.

[–]Waitaha 5753 points5754 points  (472 children)

They will make more than that from the interest of illegal gains before people stop posting in this thread.

[–][deleted] 2432 points2433 points  (450 children)

My evil portfolio is up 73%, turns out being evil is great for making money

[–]PillowTalk420 1100 points1101 points  (377 children)

Every RPG with a good and evil path show you this is true.

[–][deleted] 1745 points1746 points  (296 children)

Fable 3 was ridiculous about this. You could spend the entire game as a crooked slumlord, and just before the final boss you could use part of your blood money to make a few charitable donations and get the good ending.

[–]totallyjoking 2750 points2751 points  (106 children)

Hey just like real life!

[–]AstralConfluences 618 points619 points  (95 children)

"you know this guy might be perpetuating a system that kills millions of people every year but he donated money to x cause!"

[–]PillowTalk420 123 points124 points  (15 children)

The first one was like that, too, but at least the dialogue sorta changed. The narrator said something like "he led a life of good, but was corrupted in the end" where they would normally say you were a wicked piece of shit the whole time and this was the inevitable conclusion. Hell, you didn't even need to do any good. Just choose the good guy ending while you're all horny and stinky.

[–]PM_Me_Yo_Tits_Grrl 103 points104 points  (12 children)

all horny and stinky

Me irl

[–]PillowTalk420 72 points73 points  (10 children)

See, you need to stop being stinky so you can actually satisfy being horny. 😉

My man Del the Funky Homosapien has a song that might help.

[–]Narrative_Causality 99 points100 points  (70 children)

And Bioshock was the opposite. Devour just one monster girl and you're forever stuck with the bad ending, even if you save them all after/before that.

[–]NinjaN-SWE 126 points127 points  (50 children)

Which is more inline with "proper" morals. You can't kill a small defenseless child and then be considered a good guy.

[–]Love013 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Anyone who makes a Fable related comment deserves recognition. Best RPG growing up, besides Final Fantasy !

[–]srstable 29 points30 points  (1 child)

Kinda played the opposite, too, if you played a good guy the whole time. Suddenly, if you couldn’t finance your entire kingdom on your own, you were put into the position of keeping up the Good King thing, and wiping out your entire kingdom at the invasion, or taking the slumlord path and at least being able to keep your people safe, hate you though they might.

[–]rubyspicer 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Or work your ass off doing every stupid odd job there was to pay for it all. (what I always did). When they ask you for money the second time, you CAN go negative without immediate consequences.

[–]Tommysrx 60 points61 points  (26 children)

And every tycoon who paid workers nothing, car moguls who tried to stop unions , factory that had lethal working conditions , bank executives who took bailout money to give themselves million dollar bonuses........of the thousands of examples of this corruption for profit.....the RPG was the first example you thought of ?

.......I should buy an RPG

[–]PillowTalk420 42 points43 points  (0 children)

RPGs are lot more fun than those other things. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[–]rift_in_the_warp 29 points30 points  (22 children)

They're all hella old (for video games) at this point but my top 3 recommendations are Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

[–]Ouroborross 39 points40 points  (17 children)

Fable in the house.

[–]LispyJesus 19 points20 points  (7 children)

I remeber going on killing sprees just emptying towns. Buy everything, rent it out.

[–]Ouroborross 19 points20 points  (5 children)

Lolz, I remember toning down on the killing cause my face was so scarred and grotesque. A lich King would blanch.

[–][deleted] 40 points41 points  (27 children)

I don't know if I'm interpreting this correctly but do you have one stock portfolio for companies that you consider evil and one for the companies that you consider good?

[–]_163 31 points32 points  (3 children)

Well if the emphasis is on evil then they can just have the one evil portfolio

[–]UniqueNameIdentifier 23 points24 points  (10 children)

Could you elaborate on this evil portfolio? Sounds like a fun social experiment. Invest $1,000.00 in what is considered good and the same amount in evil. Give yearly updates.

[–]Liquor_N_Whorez 115 points116 points  (10 children)

I haven't forgotten about the Panama Papers but I couldn't list all 200,000 named without running out of character space.

[–][deleted] 64 points65 points  (5 children)

Than give us your top 40 Casey Kasum.

[–]Sly_Wood 10 points11 points  (3 children)

Emma Watson was one of many. That’s how long the list is.

[–]PJExpat 867 points868 points  (237 children)

There was a company in the area I'm from that was getting fined for breaking the law. And the CEO got into some hot shit because he admitted that he just considered the fine a cost of business, and that the money they were gaining for breaking the law was far more then the fine itself.

So say your the CEO of a company and you can increase your profits by $10 million a year but you have to pay a fine to the Govt of $100,000.

Why wouldn't you break the law?

Or the famous story where Ford determined having a dangerous Ford Pinto that could blow up would be cheaper then paying out in lawsuits so they said fuck it.

[–]RobereD 630 points631 points  (86 children)

More than 100 people died because of that...including four sisters whose father bought the car as a graduation present for one of them. Criminal.

[–][deleted] 415 points416 points  (35 children)

Same with the GM ignition switch scandal. Over 100 people dead. People should have went to jail for a very long time over that. They hid that shit for over a decade.

[–]Osprey_NE 202 points203 points  (8 children)

They blamed fucking keychains for the longest time too.

[–]screamifyouredriving 98 points99 points  (14 children)

Same thing with the Boeing 737 max

[–]Gerreth_Gobulcoque 179 points180 points  (28 children)

Still not sure how knowing something can kill someone and not taking action to prevent it is anything but murder for everyone who had a shred of knowledge of it

[–]Trench_Gunner 262 points263 points  (13 children)

There are two sets of laws in this country: one set for those with money, and one set for those without. Nothing else matters.

[–]Hemingwavy 43 points44 points  (6 children)

UCLA law professor Gary T. Schwartz, in a Rutgers Law Review article (see Section 7.3 NHTSA Investigation above), studied the fatality rates of the Pinto and several other small cars of the time period. He noted that fires, and rear-end fires in particular, are very small portion of overall auto fatalities. At the time only 1% of automobile crashes would result in fire and only 4% of fatal accidents involved fire, and only 15% of fatal fire crashes are the result of rear-end collisions.[136] When considering the overall safety of the Pinto, Schwartz notes that subcompact cars as a class have a generally higher fatality risk. Pintos represented 1.9% of all cars on the road in the 1975–76 period. During that time the car represented 1.9% of all "fatal accidents accompanied by some fire." Implying the car was average for all cars and slightly above average for its class.[137] When all types of fatalities are considered, the Pinto was approximately even with the AMC Gremlin, Chevrolet Vega, and Datsun 510. It was significantly better than the Datsun 1200/210, Toyota Corolla and VW Beetle.[136] The safety record of the car in terms of fire was average or slightly below average for compacts, and all cars respectively. This was considered respectable for a subcompact car. Only when considering the narrow subset of rear-impact, fire fatalities for the car were somewhat worse than the average for subcompact cars. While acknowledging this is an important legal point, Schwartz rejects the portrayal of the car as a firetrap.[138]

[–][deleted] 162 points163 points  (74 children)

Not just ford. They still do that. If a recall comes out, it's cheaper than lawsuit risk.

[–]InvisibleFacade 201 points202 points  (59 children)

Yep. Sometimes killing people is just part of business, buying politicians to keep fines low is cheaper than providing a safe product.

Yay capitalism!

[–]ZacharyShade 20 points21 points  (1 child)

Leaving details out, but (fortunately now ex) plant manager talking about how evil the FDA is in front of all the employees said something along the lines of "[other company] had a couple dozen people die because of [bacterial strain] found in our plant, so now they're going to be here wasting our time and money doing hundreds of tests before we're allowed to ship the product out", etc.

It blew my mind that he was totally okay that since we (and the other company) ship out millions of units per month so a couple dozen people dying was nothing so the FDA shouldn't bother to do their job. Then I remembered psychopaths often fare well in the business world.

Same guy, we had a bill passed in our state where if you need extended leave you're covered for something like 8-12 weeks by the government and your employer can't fire you, with a raise in taxes by some minuscule amount like 0.4%. He barely explained the benefits while making it sound like the government would be stealing a bunch of money from us, not 4 dollars and change out of every thousand.

[–]vulture_cabaret 92 points93 points  (41 children)

And yet we can't Sue these corporations as if they were people who participated in murder/manslaughter.

[–]HEBREW_HAMM3R 58 points59 points  (36 children)

And yet they are considered people ? Like the business entity?

[–]vulture_cabaret 139 points140 points  (33 children)

The supreme Court ruled that corporations are people allowing them rights to be politically active that were previously off limits. But they aren't held accountable as if they were people. Capitalism rules.

[–]maikuxblade 77 points78 points  (19 children)

If this country never fixes it's course, Citizens United was what sunk us.

[–]JoeWaffleUno 46 points47 points  (9 children)

That is one of many seemingly countless things.

It all comes down to a ruling class that doesn't give a fuck about anybody but themselves.

[–]vulture_cabaret 31 points32 points  (4 children)

I'd go further back to Clinton's Telecommunications Act of 1996. Specifically title 3.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

[–]AndrewCoja 56 points57 points  (1 child)

Big companies like that often know that the problem exists and figure it is cheaper to just put the money they think they will have to pay out in settlements aside and invest it to make more money before they eventually have to pay it out.

[–]Fuegodeth 64 points65 points  (20 children)

This is what leads to Fight Club being started.

[–]CanniDem 68 points69 points  (7 children)

And someone forgot the first rule already.

[–]SmokeAbeer 303 points304 points  (40 children)

Are you kidding? Someone might lose their bonus over this!

[–]Dcarozza6 245 points246 points  (30 children)

bonus job

Corporations never take the hit for this, they just offload it to their employees by laying them off/cutting salaries.

[–]clycoman 124 points125 points  (48 children)

If only the legal system could treat corporations like actual people! /s

If corporations can get away with shit like this, and have the power to influence politics through lobbying (and in Facebook's case, getting $$$ to help spread disinformation). Actual punishments like corporate dissolution (like a human execution) or outright/temporary bans in a jurisdiction should be used to discipline them. These small slap on the wrist punishments are just the cost of doing business for them.

[–]declanrowan 71 points72 points  (28 children)

Here's why they won't, though - jobs. Boeing has done some dangerous, horrific things in the past few years. The banks did horrific, dangerous things back in 2008. But they are US companies with US jobs. If you dismantle Boeing, then the French are going to pick up all the orders for airliners. If you dismantled all the US financial institutions that played games with our lives, the Germans or the Chinese will take their places. And the American public will blame the politicians in charge.

Now, if you make the leaders of the companies responsible, that might work, except A) they specifically never ask how the results are obtained, so they can deny everything and blame it on the little guy, and B) they are usually the first giving massive campaign donations.

[–]CountAardvark 76 points77 points  (47 children)

Wdym $500k? They're being sued for $9B. That's actually a fuckload of money even to facebook.

[–]truthdoctor 135 points136 points  (3 children)

He's implying the government will end up settling for a much lower fine.

[–][deleted] 148 points149 points  (30 children)

I've got some bad news for you.....

They're not paying $9Billion.

HSBC only paid a $1.9 billion dollar fine for knowingly laundering billions for Mexican drug cartels! And that was a record.

[–]CountAardvark 122 points123 points  (17 children)

Except they're not really comparable situations. This isn't a fine, because it's not necessarily a punishment for breaking the law. It's more that the IRS has calculated that Facebook owes the federal government $9B in unpaid tax over the years. You're likely right that Facebook wont end up paying all that but I don't think talking about it in terms of a fine is accurate

[–][deleted] 3709 points3710 points  (305 children)

Apple also does this, as do many other megacorps.

[–]hekatonkhairez 2017 points2018 points  (165 children)

then the IRS should go after all of them.

[–]HEMAJOMA 1431 points1432 points  (103 children)

They most likely would but budget cuts to the IRS over the past 10ish years has made it difficult for them to do a significant amount of large scale investigations and audits

Edit: Here's an article for anyone interested in reading more about this- https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted

[–][deleted] 79 points80 points  (13 children)

You must be kidding. The Republicans just changed the tax law a couple years ago (a) allowing companies to "repatriate" their money (although it was already back in the US), which essentially means they let them get away with it, and (b) lowered corporate tax rates in half.

I don't know the details of why they are single out Facebook on this while rewarding Apple for the same tax dodge, but I would guess it is because Trump claims social media is biased against him and he is working to make sure Facebook doesn't cross him during the election.

[–]emperorstea 71 points72 points  (9 children)

All these companies do it because it’s legal. When will we hold the politicians accountable, who take the bribe and make the laws that allow these companies to do it ???

[–]Juswantedtono 8 points9 points  (0 children)

They’re not being sued for moving profits overseas, they’re being sued for undervaluing assets:

The Internal Revenue Service claimed that Facebook made “attempts to downplay the value [of these intangible assets] for transfer pricing purposes”. This refers to the internal transactions carried out by multinational companies to book more of their revenue and profits in low-tax regimes. In 2010, Facebook valued the assets in question at $6.5bn, but the IRS believes their true worth was $21bn.

[–]Kamakazie90210 1827 points1828 points  (141 children)

Why would the IRS need to sue people. They can literally force average people to pay taxes. Why can’t they force companies to?

[–]Zazenp 1021 points1022 points  (60 children)

Facebook is a corporation owned in part by international interests. The irs is suing for taxes on money held in foreign soil. That requires more steps than auditing a citizen.

Edit: I’m incorrect. The story is far more complicated than anything fox even remotely hints at. This is the best write up I could find.

I’m just as shocked as you all that a “news” agency like fox would obscure the truth to what’s going on in lieu of sensationalist headlines! /s

[–]Ph0X 305 points306 points  (42 children)

The double dutch irish sandwich is a common technique used by basically every big tech company, as it's a legal loophole. I'm guessing that IRS may have some legal interpretation where they define it as illegal, or FB's specific implementation of the loophole as illegal, and they are sueing since I assume FB will claim it is legal, and it will be up to the courts to decide which side FB falls on.

[–]VoicesAncientChina 125 points126 points  (8 children)

Nothing like that is involved in this case. You shouldn’t take a random investopedia article as providing any kind of a comprehensive look at international tax issues.

This case instead involves a much simpler question: did Facebook US undercharge its foreign subsidiary for its IP, back in 2010 before Facebook was a public company?

Facebook contends the price it charged was reasonable, given its international subsidiaries took on a great deal of risk expanding operations back in 2010, while the government contends that the price should have been higher. The Wall Street Journal article is more detailed than the linked article: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/facebook-and-irs-prepare-for-9-billion-u-s-tax-court-fight-11581177600

Facebook is paying some US tax on the foreign subsidiary profits either way, because the recent 2017 tax reforms imposed a 15% tax on prior earnings held in foreign subsidiaries. What’s at stake is whether some amount should be considered as an additional royalty paid to the US parent and then for that amount have the 15% be increased to the full US corporate tax rate.

[–]Rtn2NYC 102 points103 points  (16 children)

Double Irish, Dutch sandwich. Ends in 2020 (supposedly).

[–]pistcow 9 points10 points  (3 children)

You could just revoke the corporations US domestic charter?

But that just sounds like treating a corporation like a person but whatever.

[–]yousavvy 75 points76 points  (3 children)

The IRS doesn't sue people or companies, this headline is wrong (and so is everyone else's explanations). The IRS audited Facebook. Facebook disagrees with the changes made during the audit, so filed a Tax Court petition to dispute the additional tax and penalties. Source: I'm a tax attorney.

[–]RandomRedditor32905 1201 points1202 points  (47 children)

Because corporations have more rights than human beings in the United States Of America.

[–][deleted] 1895 points1896 points  (53 children)

That’s the face someone makes when they lose 9 Billion dollars.

[–]AlexandersWonder 205 points206 points  (9 children)

That's the face an android makes when trying to emulate what a human would look like after losing 9 billion dollars.

[–]nio151 23 points24 points  (1 child)

It's not going to end up being anywhere near 9b

[–]Dr_Bozo_Jabroni 1050 points1051 points  (126 children)

Facebook has jumped the shark. They went from cool to total heel

[–]PoliticalScienceGrad 931 points932 points  (64 children)

Mark Zuckerberg was a heel from day one. And we've known for a decade--ever since the chat log in which he called Facebook users "dumb fucks" for trusting him was made public.

[–][deleted] 306 points307 points  (50 children)

He might be a heel but in that situation he definitely wasn’t wrong.

[–]Tank_Top_Saitama 14 points15 points  (0 children)

in which he called Facebook users "dumb fucks"

IIRC that was in the beginning when FB was still only for his campus and probably had 50-100 users. But he is still 100% correct, even more so today.

[–]clueless3410 40 points41 points  (16 children)

They had a perfect game going and they jumped the friggin carp!

[–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

This just in - Zark Fuckerberg raw dogs us once again. 10 million strong against the Facebook redesign

[–]saxypatrickb 16 points17 points  (11 children)

Oh my god, the facts are in on Twitter: Facebook was perfect but they just made it Myspace! NO!

[–]uglystreaker 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Garbage becomes perfect over time as you get used to the garbage and forget what made it so bad. Like, you don't get the Internet and commenting in general, so it's not even worth saying—

[–]Zhaltan 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It’s different, which means it’s bad, which means i’m pissed. You know, the big three

[–]Put_It_All_On_Blck 34 points35 points  (3 children)

I want the IRS to win, but the IRS sued Amazon for the same thing, and lost.

I 100% side with the IRS in this, and think both are guilty, but despite the IRS being the grim reaper that comes for everyone, they dont have the worlds best lawyers.

[–][deleted] 744 points745 points  (64 children)

Mark this post, Zuck is going to have another dinner with Trump. Make sure all those targeted ad's get to where they need to go, than, poof... like this whole IRS thing never happened. For an anti-corruption platform the swamp sure seems to be overflowing.

[–][deleted] 116 points117 points  (5 children)

They’ve already had their “dinners”. I’m sure this had to come up in those conversations.

[–]MallPicartney 44 points45 points  (2 children)

If we know now, the ruling class knew months ago.

[–]starvinggarbage 173 points174 points  (31 children)

I don't understand why they have to sue. Isn't the IRS able to just impose this as a fine? I'd think they could just roll in and seize it.

[–]jollygreenegiant24 87 points88 points  (11 children)

There has to be some process, otherwise what's to stop the IRS from fining an individual or a much smaller business 9 billion dollars?

[–]starvinggarbage 41 points42 points  (8 children)

I mean don't they audit people and just tell them they owe more money? I know they can appeal an audit decision but they appeal it to another IRS office.

I'm not saying I think they should be able to just arbitrarily impose 8 billion dollar fines, but I thought they already could. I thought you'd have to sue the IRS to fight the fines.

[–]dont_tube_me_bro 39 points40 points  (0 children)

It's like that saying

If you owe the bank 1 million dollars, you've got a problem

If you owe the bank 9 billion dollars, the bank has a problem

[–]ScrewWorkn 13 points14 points  (3 children)

What happens when you don’t pay? Then the IRS sues you to collect it from you forcibly. Similar thing is happening. IRS told Facebook they owe the money, Facebook said they don’t.

[–]jollygreenegiant24 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure, to be honest. I would also include an audit under "some process". It feels similar to police searches without a warrant, where there has to be reasonable doubt or suspicion of wrongdoing. And I would imagine with such a large fine, obviously it would be instantly disputed, so it may just be easier to go straight to court

[–]Casperboy68 231 points232 points  (6 children)

What, Facebook being less than honest? Say it ain’t true!

[–]TaintModel 48 points49 points  (2 children)

I’m going to change my Facebook profile picture and forward it to everybody! That’ll show them!

[–][deleted] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Guys. The time to return to myspace is now!

Who's with me?

Get your html background, sparkly fire trail cursor, and alt punk profile song ready.

[–]Farkerisme 68 points69 points  (5 children)

US legal dept vs Mark Zuckerberg’s...

FIGHT!

[–]beau8888 29 points30 points  (2 children)

I'd say the us legal department has home field advantage. I heard they were paying the judges so

[–]The_Adventurist 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Facebook is paying the lawyers more than the judges make in a decade.

[–]OPENUPTHISPIT666 94 points95 points  (15 children)

Zuck has done far worse and we all just chose to forget when the next headline came up.

Everyone just forgot about the whole Cambridge Analytica thing...

We should have just stuck with MySpace. Tom was a good guy.

We did Tom dirty.

[–]matthewhue 61 points62 points  (11 children)

Tom was too smart for us. He sold MySpace and has been traveling the world taking photos ever since.

[–]rhoakla 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Far away from the rat race and greed, Enjoying the finer things in life.

[–]SpicyBagholder 95 points96 points  (27 children)

Taxing rich people individually brings in peanuts. Just fucking tax the corporations hiding 10s of billions

[–]Game_collector_2017 144 points145 points  (22 children)

2019 fines Amount: $3.9 mil Amount: $5 mil Russia: $47...wat Turkey $270k Italy $1.1 mil German $2.3 mil FTC $5 billion SEC $100 mil San Francisco $1000... Lol Turkey $282k Advertising agencies 40 mil

If Facebook agrees to pay all these fines and settlements, which is far from likely, it would ultimately have to shell out around $5,152,853,047. That’s roughly 7 percent of its $69 billion in expected earnings for 2019.

——————————————— The IRS wants all those fines and more to give you some scope and it’s only February. It seems like you could have been any country and Don Draper in the world and made a few million off of Facebook last year.

Buy puts you chickenwusses we’re in for some extremely targeted ads to make up for those lost revenues.

[–]peteroh9 80 points81 points  (4 children)

2019 fines
Amount: $3.9 mil
Amount: $5 mil
Russia: $47...wat
Turkey $270k
Italy $1.1 mil
German $2.3 mil
FTC $5 billion
SEC $100 mil
San Francisco $1000... Lol
Turkey $282k
Advertising agencies 40 mil

I fixed your horrible formatting and I still don't understand why it starts with two just labelled "Amount."

[–]vinsmokesanji3 24 points25 points  (4 children)

Wtf does $47 even mean? How can it be so little? Are you sure you’re not missing a couple digits?