Regarding the Tuesday letter, “The very word means people”: So a corporation is a person, is it? Well then, I propose we treat it like a person.
When a corporation kills someone, like underground miners rooting out coal, it should be punished like a person. If, through callousness, expedience and greed, you or I let someone die from our malfeasance, we’ll be charged with manslaughter, at the very least. Now as we can’t lock up a corporation, we need to do the next best thing: Strip it of some assets. Take all its cash, maybe. Or its real estate. Perhaps a key operating division.
These assets would be auctioned off to the highest bidders and the proceeds split between Uncle Sam and the employees. Employees who aren’t executives, that is. Nor among the shareholders; shareholders are like pit bull owners — strictly liable for the damage their creatures do to others and never allowed to profit from their own laxity.
Should the corporation purposely kill someone (not unheard of), then the corporation needs to be put to death. Now we can’t hang a corporation as we did Charlie Campbell, but we can revoke its charter and auction off 100 percent of its assets, dissolving it completely.
Further, if corporations are to be people, we should treat them as people tax-wise. For example, like people, corporations should be subject to an Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), making sure they do not skate on their responsibilities. (Boy, just think what that would do for the old deficit!)
I like this idea so much I’m going to sit right down and write my legislative and congressional delegations. In fact, I like it so much I think I’ll send it to the 99 percent folks, too. Maybe they can clean up this arrant nonsense and get things back in balance.
Let the Tea Party howl.
Thomas H. LaBelle
Snohomish
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