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Comment by opportune | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't really seem fair that a company can return profits to its shareholders for many years while being environmentally negligent, then once it actually has to respond to environmental issues, it can just goes out of business. One, those profits are basically ill-gotten gains, and two, you are encouraging this kind of behavior by letting the people who received the profits keep them.

I'm not sure how to implement this, especially in a way that's fair, but if the company is unable to cover the environmental damage itself I think those profits out to be paying for the damage before taxpayers.

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The usual solution in other industries is to require all companies in the industry to pay a percentage of revenues into a common insurance fund. Then there would be a pool of money to pay for cleanup even after bankruptcy.

Insurance is a pretty dirty word right now. Especially when they are for-profit insurance companies.

US healthcare is a great example of insurance companies causing so much complexity that people willingly chose death over going bankrupt.

If the (sunk-cost) common insurance pool pays for it, where's the incentive not to pollute? We're right back where we started with a tragedy of the commons.

For the proper incentive structure, you have to treat the money the way we treat all proceeds of crime - it's forfeit. If you buy a stolen bike, you don't get to keep it when the police come knocking. Ignorance of the crime doesn't earn you the item - it simply means you don't go to jail.

The solution is clear: prison. The CEO knew that the company caused huge environmental damage, but lied about it. I don't think it could be simpler than that.

Of course the CEO won't go to prison, as he has too much power for that.

The limited liability business concept is extremely damaging because it removes accountability for externalities and bad behavior. I myself and an owner of a limited liability company so ending this Would not be to my benefit. However the benefit has society would be massive. Shareholders and owners and directors and managers should all be held personally financially liable and there should not be a time limit to this liability. The government should be able to claw back all of the profits that Taylor energy generated.

Indeed doesn't seem fair, but that's the point for a Limited Liability Company. Who is in their right mind grant mining rights to a company that can't cover the consequences?

No one does. The mining rights are stolen by corrupt governments and then given away to cronies.

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