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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

Fines don't scale. The Australian mining company, fined a thousand bucks for every native rock drawing they destroy? They counted them up, paid the fine, and blasted a road through. All gone.

Fines becomes a business calculation. Not a deterrent, not if it matters to the big corporation. Which at some scale, it will become cost-effective.

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I once saw a meme of a quote somewhere that said "if the only penalty for a crime is a fine, then it's only a deterrent for poor people" or something to that effect.

I suppose it scales upward infinitely.

Fines should be percentage of stock price. Applied to the owners of stock. Next time there is dividend or stock is transacted fine is collected. Still limits the liability to price of stock, but fully incentives stock owners to make sure the leadership will do their best to avoid fines.

A "fine" or "tax" is not necessarly regulation, in that it can be avoided, as in paid for by other actions, or gamed. Regulation should be though of as an input to cause a result in a scenario. Work backwards from the desired result, accounting for gaming the system, to attempt a regulation action. Of course, politicians are motivated only to provide something, not to make it effective.

That's why, in Finland, the income of the offender is used to determine the fine (including for speeding). The largest fines for speeding are over 100.€. This is a very effective way to deter the bad behavior by rich people.

> Fines don't scale. The Australian mining company

There's the problem. Australia doesn't scale... not the fines.

In Australia, there are a lot of rules, a lot of fines but not much to gain.

Is this a specific jab at something? I don't understand you comment, please elaborate.

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