If that’s “white collar crime” then so is hiring a hitman.
No, it isn’t. If you hire a hitman you can be tried for conspiracy to commit murder. If you approve a system that could be unsafe for an airplane, your company might have to pay a fine. They’re vastly different crimes, even if one results in a lot more deaths.
You’re being rather naive
You watch too many movies.
Sure, those bosses would have a hard time doing violence on other people, personally. But through another person? Nah
They might have the mindset required to hire a hitman. But, they don’t have the connections. They also don’t want to take on the personal liability of doing that. These are almost all finance guys who have MBAs. They wouldn’t make a decision like this on their own, and they wouldn’t be able to talk about it in a board meeting without risking a conspiracy charge.
The MCAS decision is ridiculous, but it exactly the kind of thing they can discuss in a board meeting without risking criminal charges. Even if the meeting had been recorded, the transcript would be boring board-room talk, nothing that they could be indicted for.
They might have the mindset required to hire a hitman. But, they don’t have the connections.
Anyone can find a hitman online, all it takes is 15min to get to know how deep web markets work. They’re by far the least reliable service ofc, but it is sold and there are escrow services as well. How well they work in cases like that is a whole other matter, but I, personally, find it rather ludicrous a suggestion that a high-level Boeing boss who manages the complexities of a job like that (especially when simultaneously playing Jenga with airline safety) wouldn’t be able to figure out how to access a black market.
Especially when they could always hire a person to do that for them. Do they trust anyone at all, with any of their criminal shenanigans? Well surely the co-conspirators at least. These massive, systemic changes that made Boeing go from trusted airline to killing whistleblowers weren’t the actions of one man.
And if there was a group of men, then it’s shared responsibility. Even if they conspire to hire a hitman. It doesn’t feel as much like a violent crime when it’s done in white-collars and agreed on in a fancy hotel suite.
Especially when they could always hire a person to do that for them. Do they trust anyone at all, with any of their criminal shenanigans?
Yes, and that’s the problem. This isn’t the sort of thing an executive would do on their own without talking to other execs about it. If they did that they’d have to trust that the other execs would back them up and not turn them in. And, this is a real, serious crime. This isn’t a crime where the company has to pay a fine. This is a crime where they would personally be liable for conspiracy to commit murder.
These massive, systemic changes that made Boeing go from trusted airline to killing whistleblowers weren’t the actions of one man.
Exactly my point. Those took a whole group of executives discussing their plans openly in meetings. They wouldn’t discuss actually breaking the law in meetings like that. Instead, they’d talk about who they’d have to lobby to get the laws changed how they wanted, what pressure they could put on regulators, what kinds of PR campaigns they’d need to run, etc. Those are things that people might see as dishonest and unethical, but they’re all legal. If someone in the meeting objected to the decisions, they’d have a little debate and then some decision would be made. The other execs wouldn’t have to worry that the conversation would leak and they’d be charged with serious crimes. If the conversation leaked there might be a bit of embarrassment, they’d have to hire a PR firm, and done.
The decisions they made almost certainly cost lives, but even if you had transcripts for those meetings, even an ambitious prosecutor probably couldn’t find any actual crimes being committed. The execs at Boeing almost all have finance backgrounds, so most of the meetings would have been about money, and how much they could save while keeping an “acceptable safety margin” – which we might not think is acceptable, but they’d have the lawyers to argue that it was acceptable.
You don’t go from open discussions about how to increase profits by outsourcing work to discussing how to hire a hitman to kill one of your whistleblowers. That’s suddenly stuff where the people in the room would be chargeable for conspiracy to commit murder.
The Mitchell & Webb parody proves my point. Removing Webb’s character makes it back into a movie scenario. His character shows just how ludicrous those movie scenes really are. At some point when murder is being discussed, someone is going to actually have to check “just to be clear, you mean murder, right?”. Because you’re not going to order to have someone murdered just because the CFO used an ambiguous term.
If I were to link a bunch of drug busts, would it make drug markets any smaller?
Like I said, they’re the most unreliable service, but you really don’t have to be that smart to use one responsibly. It’s not like going on Craigslist looking for a guy who thinks he’s hidden himself by using incognito mode.
“rentahitman.com” lol might as well set up a stand called “we sell meth here mister police man”. I hope you do realise the impossibility of me proving just how many successful hit jobs there have been which no-one was ever caught?
No, see they can all talk about this particular person being a problem, in the board room. Without talking about anything criminal, or even thinking about anything criminal towards him.
But later in the night, a few of those execs are getting drunk in a fancy suite, doing blow. They know what they’ve done vis-a-vis the airline jenga. There’s even evidence against them. They would be stressed. Substance abuse is very common in the business world, as are dark triad personality traits and the occasional psychotic behaviour. (CEO psychopathy prevalence is something fierce compared to the average.)
If there’s enough plausible deniability and shared responsibility, those people rarely do. Even when it’s very clear death was indirectly caused by some of the decision of the leaders, they rarely get into trouble.
Ofc conspiracy to murder is a bit different than cooking the books for instance, but when we’re talking about airline safety, they’re not too dissimilar
Sorry for the second reply, we’re both avid talkers and I’ve already taken half an ambien.
At some point when murder is being discussed, someone is going to actually have to check "just to be clear, you mean murder, right?
With all respect, I disagree. And I’ve been friends with actual murderers. Well a murderer. I mean, I only knew him after his sentence, dk what he did when he did the murdering. Just that I’ve been in circles with a lot of people’s who’ve done various crimes, and unless theyre referring to their trials or sentences or something, they never mention the crime. It’s all euphemisms.
The actual confirmation bit would be online with an escrow service, after finding s reliable one.
unless theyre referring to their trials or sentences or something, they never mention the crime. It’s all euphemisms.
I can imagine that if you’re someone who assumes they’re being bugged all the time. Like, Mafiosi wanting to talk business without actually saying something that could be used in court against them. But, I don’t think that’s the world that Boeing execs live in.
Most low level users are in that group, being so pissed if you ever mention the real name of anything. Before actually good protected comm apps like Wickr, Signal etc, buying drugs was such a hassle. Sometimes two people would meet only to realise that neither of them have drugs, they both want to buy.
I don’t think the execs live in a world where people have to spell out murder if they’re gonna murder someone.
No, it isn’t. If you hire a hitman you can be tried for conspiracy to commit murder. If you approve a system that could be unsafe for an airplane, your company might have to pay a fine. They’re vastly different crimes, even if one results in a lot more deaths.
You watch too many movies.
They might have the mindset required to hire a hitman. But, they don’t have the connections. They also don’t want to take on the personal liability of doing that. These are almost all finance guys who have MBAs. They wouldn’t make a decision like this on their own, and they wouldn’t be able to talk about it in a board meeting without risking a conspiracy charge.
The MCAS decision is ridiculous, but it exactly the kind of thing they can discuss in a board meeting without risking criminal charges. Even if the meeting had been recorded, the transcript would be boring board-room talk, nothing that they could be indicted for.
Anyone can find a hitman online, all it takes is 15min to get to know how deep web markets work. They’re by far the least reliable service ofc, but it is sold and there are escrow services as well. How well they work in cases like that is a whole other matter, but I, personally, find it rather ludicrous a suggestion that a high-level Boeing boss who manages the complexities of a job like that (especially when simultaneously playing Jenga with airline safety) wouldn’t be able to figure out how to access a black market.
Especially when they could always hire a person to do that for them. Do they trust anyone at all, with any of their criminal shenanigans? Well surely the co-conspirators at least. These massive, systemic changes that made Boeing go from trusted airline to killing whistleblowers weren’t the actions of one man.
And if there was a group of men, then it’s shared responsibility. Even if they conspire to hire a hitman. It doesn’t feel as much like a violent crime when it’s done in white-collars and agreed on in a fancy hotel suite.
I imagine it looked something like this, except Webb’s character wasn’t there
Yes, and many people who try are caught in a sting operation by the police.
https://abcnews.go.com/2020/newlywed-thirty-years-murder-sting/story?id=13836957
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RentAHitman.com
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/alleged-hit-man-plotting-nyc-murder-arrested-in-fbi-sting-with-guns-ammo-old-man-mask/4144188/
Yes, and that’s the problem. This isn’t the sort of thing an executive would do on their own without talking to other execs about it. If they did that they’d have to trust that the other execs would back them up and not turn them in. And, this is a real, serious crime. This isn’t a crime where the company has to pay a fine. This is a crime where they would personally be liable for conspiracy to commit murder.
Exactly my point. Those took a whole group of executives discussing their plans openly in meetings. They wouldn’t discuss actually breaking the law in meetings like that. Instead, they’d talk about who they’d have to lobby to get the laws changed how they wanted, what pressure they could put on regulators, what kinds of PR campaigns they’d need to run, etc. Those are things that people might see as dishonest and unethical, but they’re all legal. If someone in the meeting objected to the decisions, they’d have a little debate and then some decision would be made. The other execs wouldn’t have to worry that the conversation would leak and they’d be charged with serious crimes. If the conversation leaked there might be a bit of embarrassment, they’d have to hire a PR firm, and done.
The decisions they made almost certainly cost lives, but even if you had transcripts for those meetings, even an ambitious prosecutor probably couldn’t find any actual crimes being committed. The execs at Boeing almost all have finance backgrounds, so most of the meetings would have been about money, and how much they could save while keeping an “acceptable safety margin” – which we might not think is acceptable, but they’d have the lawyers to argue that it was acceptable.
You don’t go from open discussions about how to increase profits by outsourcing work to discussing how to hire a hitman to kill one of your whistleblowers. That’s suddenly stuff where the people in the room would be chargeable for conspiracy to commit murder.
The Mitchell & Webb parody proves my point. Removing Webb’s character makes it back into a movie scenario. His character shows just how ludicrous those movie scenes really are. At some point when murder is being discussed, someone is going to actually have to check “just to be clear, you mean murder, right?”. Because you’re not going to order to have someone murdered just because the CFO used an ambiguous term.
If I were to link a bunch of drug busts, would it make drug markets any smaller?
Like I said, they’re the most unreliable service, but you really don’t have to be that smart to use one responsibly. It’s not like going on Craigslist looking for a guy who thinks he’s hidden himself by using incognito mode.
“rentahitman.com” lol might as well set up a stand called “we sell meth here mister police man”. I hope you do realise the impossibility of me proving just how many successful hit jobs there have been which no-one was ever caught?
No, see they can all talk about this particular person being a problem, in the board room. Without talking about anything criminal, or even thinking about anything criminal towards him.
But later in the night, a few of those execs are getting drunk in a fancy suite, doing blow. They know what they’ve done vis-a-vis the airline jenga. There’s even evidence against them. They would be stressed. Substance abuse is very common in the business world, as are dark triad personality traits and the occasional psychotic behaviour. (CEO psychopathy prevalence is something fierce compared to the average.)
If there’s enough plausible deniability and shared responsibility, those people rarely do. Even when it’s very clear death was indirectly caused by some of the decision of the leaders, they rarely get into trouble.
Ofc conspiracy to murder is a bit different than cooking the books for instance, but when we’re talking about airline safety, they’re not too dissimilar
Sorry for the second reply, we’re both avid talkers and I’ve already taken half an ambien.
With all respect, I disagree. And I’ve been friends with actual murderers. Well a murderer. I mean, I only knew him after his sentence, dk what he did when he did the murdering. Just that I’ve been in circles with a lot of people’s who’ve done various crimes, and unless theyre referring to their trials or sentences or something, they never mention the crime. It’s all euphemisms.
The actual confirmation bit would be online with an escrow service, after finding s reliable one.
I can imagine that if you’re someone who assumes they’re being bugged all the time. Like, Mafiosi wanting to talk business without actually saying something that could be used in court against them. But, I don’t think that’s the world that Boeing execs live in.
And I think it is.
Most low level users are in that group, being so pissed if you ever mention the real name of anything. Before actually good protected comm apps like Wickr, Signal etc, buying drugs was such a hassle. Sometimes two people would meet only to realise that neither of them have drugs, they both want to buy.
I don’t think the execs live in a world where people have to spell out murder if they’re gonna murder someone.