Book review: Too Big to Jail

This was another project book, read to make myself feel smarter. And like the previous project book, The Big Short, I understood rather little. But hey, I tried.

Too Big to Jail is the answer to the question raised by TBS: Why wasn't anybody really prosecuted in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse? The author answers that, in great detail, full of charts and numbers and statistics. Not much of that sunk in, because of who I am as a person.

But I do still have a couple questions. One related to Shakespeare, also because of who I am as a person.

1) Very few *actual people* were punished. (Despite the fact that a corporation in the US is legally a person - or at least sort of a person - they can't actually be punished like a person, because, well, they're not.)

Which leads me to Henry V, when the king is talking to his soldiers in disguise. One soldier says, "if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us." To which another adds, "But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath/a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and/arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join/together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at/such a place;'" Henry, of course, is not for this because he's the king. He doesn't want to be responsible at the judgment day for the souls of all the soldiers killed in his war. It's rather a hefty load.

But what if he should be responsible? Or more to the point, what if the head of a corporation should be held accountable for the wrongdoings of his employees? Might that encourage stricter oversight and better corporate culture, if those at the top knew they could be liable for the crimes of their corporation?

This plan is not without flaws, of course. May well violate "innocent until proven guilty," for one thing. Also might be the wrong lever to get the desired change, for another. But I think it's worth considering. Personal responsibility, rather than diffuse liability, is always a good motivator.

2) Why in the WORLD are corporate re-offenders not more heavily punished? WHY?

For more of an overview and less of a Shakespeare reference, here's my friend's take on the book.

xo,
Devo