First off, no it doesn't. Their profit for 2022 is $18 billion. This is less than half of one year of profit even, again spread out over 25 years. During which inflation + revenue growth will further dilute it. They even have $23 billion cash on hand. [1] I'd also add income is a regularly gamed metric for tax avoidance purposes.

But really the whole point here is that without painful penalties, there is no deterrence whatsoever. Seeing 'megacorp knowingly sold asbestos tainted product for decades' is not even going to elicit a 'omg I can't believe it' from anybody not born yesterday. Nor will the fact that they faced a civil penalty that was but the mildest of prods on the wrist, and 0 criminal penalties. We seemingly have a government completely incapable of holding large corporations accountable for their actions. And that is seriously not normal, nor acceptable.

[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/JNJ/johnson-johnso...

But j&j is a conglomerate business, so using their entire business profit is not right to check what percentage loss the fine is.

If you only consider the profit from the talc business, how much is the fine compared to profit?

If I gave 40,000 people cancer as an individual and killed several thousands of people as a result, I wouldn't lose 3 years of disposal income. I would lose all of it, forever, as I sit and rot in prison for the rest of my life.

This is the sort of punishment we need for corporations.

They should pierce the corporate veil and go after any individuals who had personal involvement in the matter while being fully aware of what the consequences of their actions were. That way, the livelihood of other employees who have no say in the matter is not affected, and only those who directly participated are held accountable.

I agree with this and that included people who have retired. Find the people that knew and make them pay with jail time and a financial punishment

Which specific criminal law do you think they have violated? Please provide a citation to applicable state or federal criminal code. What they did was shitty, but I'm skeptical whether it would be possible for prosecutors to win a criminal conviction.

If you can give 40,000 people cancer and not break a law, maybe it's the law that needs to change.

Sounds good. Have you contacted your elected officials with a proposal for such a law?

Negligent homicide,?

Maybe make a new law

The way that negligent homicide is defined it would be impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a particular person's fatal cancer was directly caused by talc. A strong probability isn't sufficient for a criminal conviction.

Some new law would likely be needed. How could such a law be written in a manner that satisfies the vagueness doctrine?

Laws don't need to be perfect and many are vague for whatever reason but that's why there's trials.

This is a serious problem if you want to wait until a perfect law is written it won't be solved.

Also, can you provide a some other solution?

You're really missing the point. Criminal laws must satisfy the vagueness doctrine or else all convictions will be thrown out on appeal. There are literally centuries of case law in this. So your comment makes no sense and displays a lack of understanding about the basics of the criminal justice system.

I did miss the point. I thought "vagueness doctrine" was just a term invented here because it kinda sounds like it. You know, a catch all to deter people who want to make rules or regulations.

Considering laws exist for many types of actions it should be possible to make one in which knowingly producing and distributing any product for any price that you know to cause harm, and that harm is not made of aware of to the public in an obvious way, should be held liable for any damages that occur from the use of that product as indicated by the instructions

This includes people that approve of the actions and/or responsible for the subordinates involved in the production/approval of said products, in the company/subsidiary/any related entity, as long as that person was provided with the information or access to information that would allow them to ascertain the risk with a reasonable amount of accuracy. However, it shan't be required to show that person actually consumed or understood that information if it was expected that they do so.

The punishment must be but can not be limited to monetary fines which can not be purged through bankruptcy. <something about jail here>

etc etc.

40,000 people got cancer from talc? Please link the research paper that shows that.

Everybody thinks personal injury lawyers are slimy but then quotes their “data” like it was proven fact.

Let's consider, for a moment, that they paid nine billion (with a B) as a settlement because they thought that it would be cheaper than the outcome of fully litigating it. Which is to say, $9B was the cheaper option.

Regardless of the numbers, for that to be true, you've got to be pretty convinced you've fucked up really hard.

No, you just have to be convinced that there's a pretty good chance that a jury can be convinced that you need to pay for what you did.

Clearly J&J was convinced

What do you think the lawsuit was about? You think J&J is being forced to pay the measly 8.9 billion just because they want this to go away? 40,000 people got cancer that we know of. People should be in jail.

Where is this figure given? I can't see it (may have skipped over it accidentally)

It is the number of members in the class.

Which would just be people that got a relevant cancer that also used the product - that signed up to be part of the class.

People get cancer all the time. It’s very, very hard to prove a causal relationship.

Assumably this is why there’s a trial. J&J is willing to pay $9B to avoid one; this leads me to believe that they think they have a significant risk of having cancer be linked to their product.

40,000 people claimed it did and followed through with legal action. Sure, maybe only a percentage of them actually got it from talc. But globally, what percent of people who did get cancer from talc actually sue? Also likely a low percentage.

Maybe none?

Lawyers don't create the data.

No, but they certainly take weak data and argue why it's strong.

And they make a ton of money doing it.

And? That has nothing to do with what I'm replying to. Your just making another complaint.

That's not how the system works. It would be very difficult to convict you as an individual of a felony that would send you to prison. The burden of proof in criminal cases is much higher.

Even if you were found liable in civil court you wouldn't lose all of your income forever. You would be able to declare personal bankruptcy and clear the debt.

>>Even if you were found liable in civil court you wouldn't lose all of your income forever. You would be able to declare personal bankruptcy and clear the debt.

I guess it depends.

From the net:

"Instances in which a court ordered judgment won’t be overridden by bankruptcy include debts related to:

Student loans

Any debt owed to the government, including taxes and fines

Court ordered awards related to criminal proceedings"

None of that is relevant. This case is not a criminal proceeding. Civil court judgments can generally be cleared in bankruptcy.

If Google Voice killed people then yeah, that'd be fair.

I would imagine Google as a corporation would be more careful about giving people cancer. “We are too big for accountability” has been a bad idea every time it has been used in America.

More importantly, Google's competitors would also be more careful about it too.

Kill a giant after it steps on people and other giants will learn to tiptoe.

The only way to kill a giant is to have an even bigger giant. What then, if the biggest giant is now the one killing people?

Ideally a combination of intracompetitive federal agencies that form a legal Voltron when required.

Gulliver's Travels says otherwise.

It's an analogy, trying to take it too far will get silly.

Imagine if google was knowingly killing people with google voice for decades

“Three years of profit” over 25 years, not accounting for inflation.

Perhaps the first comment was too harsh but let’s not be overly generous.

> “Three years of profit” over 25 years, not accounting for inflation

It looks like an $8.9bn settlement after $7.4bn in litigation expenses [1]. I would guess that is a substantial portion of J&J's total profits from talc-based products, inflation adjusted. Were that product an independent company, this would have bankrupted it. That's decent deterrence.

[1] https://njbiz.com/jj-offers-8-9b-to-settle-claims-talc-produ...

If they spent such an inordinate amount trying to escape, that is not part of deterrence, it is a gamble that big boys can take and they took and it didn't go as well. That gamble, or at least a good part of 7 billion, is their own fault and doing and not an external punishment, and importantly, doesn't absolve the final punishment, not even morally. Even more crucial, that money went to the dirtiest type of rich law firms (it is kind of an offence on its own!) and not to settling the damages at all.

> spent such an inordinate amount trying to escape, that is not part of deterrence, it is a gamble that big boys can take

You’re claiming a tougher penalty would be fought less vigorously?

No, but it is always a moral decision somewhere to fight vigorously, and it is money thrown not at making things right. Oh but it is always done, it is routine, etc. Well? If a company is built to act, on behalf of board, as selfish as actually spending as much with lawyers (of course, because they want to make their point and hope to set a precedent that says: executives, do not refrain to do evil for a good buck! we can deal with that crapp later--and should we as a society find it okay that corporate america works like that, or can work like that?) as the amount they were finally charged, then we can reason that if they spent that much (almost the full penalty amount!) on a gamble, then the amount is not really a worthy punishment at all! Seen another way, almost as much cash flowed to faceless lawyer gentry as to making up for the thousands who had cancer! And is this supposed to be a healthcare company today? J&J laughs at the face of law-abiding society who is apparently powerless to deter, that is my thinking.

If you screw up you should stand up and take responsibility over that screw up. Not shy away and try to claim innocence. Honestly there should be a punishment on top of the actual penalty for a company that is proven to have intentionally done something like this.

If you know you screwed up and instead of taking ownership you play the blame game, if you lose the lawsuit, you should be responsible not just for the actual damages but also you should be required to payout 100% of your own lawyer fees to the defendant as well.

I’m not happy with a company causing provable harm with criminal negligence simply being deterred from doing it again. No, I want justice, I want them to be punished, because I want to see justice. I want all their profits taken away from them, and possibly even more.

I’m not even convinced this is actually a good deterrence. Companies have been criminally negligent since the birth of capitalism. They have caused immeasurable harm in multiple schemes in many ill guided attempts of making more and more money. These companies have gotten several fines, some CEOs have even been imprisoned, others have been forced into bankruptcy, and yet we see companies being criminally negligent, causing more harm, starting new malicious schemes, again and again. If these fines are supposed to be a deterrence, they are obviously not working.

I agree that we should find a better deterrence, but can we cool it with blaming “capitalism”? Is socialism some new drug that will suddenly eradicate selfishness? Has there ever been a documented case of a society that went socialist and no one did anything selfish? The problem isn’t the system, it’s the people.

There is no amount of “process improvement” that is gonna change basic human nature.

I never blamed capitalism for this. I merely stated that this happens under capitalism, and it keeps happening, even when the justice system is applied in an effort of deterrence.

Now I do believe that capitalism is a bad system that should be abolished. However I am aware that that isn’t going to happen any time soon. In the meantime I’ll settle for companies and CEOs being held responsible for the crimes they commit under the influence of the profit motive. I’d also be happy if we would do something to abolish the class of ultra-wealthy, or at the very least strip them off their influence over our democracy.

You are explicitly blaming capitalism for this, as you seem to imply some other system wouldn't allow for human greed and selfishness, but my point was that those are natural human traits and every single societal system ever conceived must deal with them. There is no system that can be created that will somehow magically remove those traits.

If you wanna abolish capitalism, what system do you think should take it's place that wouldn't have human selfishness?

Just to be clear:

> I merely stated that this happens under capitalism, and it keeps happening, even when the justice system is applied in an effort of deterrence.

is an explicit accusation against capitalism in exclusion of some other system.

As I said, above, humans have been negligent since time immemorial. People put in charge of companies in socialist systems are also criminally negligent, usually though there are even fewer consequences for them.

If you base it off profit, I can just adjust any companies profit down to zero with a shell company.

The overall point holds, but this is more like 0.75 years of profit, or less ($424B market cap x 2.76% dividend yield is a basic calculation, but there's all sorts of accounting reasons why this might underestimate actual profit).

How much goes to lawyers?

Wouldn't a company like J&J have lawyers on retainer? If so, then their salary is already factored into their baseline annual costs.

> An annual filing with the SEC shows that J&J paid $7.4 billion in litigation expenses between 2020 and 2021, with the majority spent on legal costs related to talc claims.

https://njbiz.com/jj-offers-8-9b-to-settle-claims-talc-produ...

This is in addition to the settlement deal discussed here.

Isn't the biggest lawyer payout likely going to the plaintiffs' laywers?

They would likely engage outside counsel for something like this.

They've had a boost in recent years from COVID vaccines which will not be material over the coming years.

Well, you know I really like your username!

Profit is an accounting illusion. Use free cash flow to see reality.