Texas has issued the largest fine in the state's history to the peanut company blamed in the salmonella outbreak: $14.6 million. [AP]
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$14.6 million? Pfft, that's just peanuts to them.
Everything's bigger in Texas.
Way to balance your state budget!
Fine a bankrupt company.
Like passing the death sentence on a corpse.
Total waste of time. Why not fine the nullwits running the company directly.
They're the ones who were padding their bottom line by not keeping sanitary plants. They were probably paying themselves handsomely while ordering people to not do the basic steps that would have prevented debts.
In the business world nothing will "pour encourager les autres" like seeing a former executive sent to jail while his assets are seized and distributed to the families that he is responsible for killing.
change debts to deaths
I'm curious to how this plant produced and shipped food for four years without authorization to do so. It took a major outbreak for anyone to get tipped off?
Maybe if they were caught, fined, and stopped years ago then they wouldn't have had the opportunity to ship sick food.
Is there any evidence of foul play? you guys are nuts. Honest to god nuts. Radical extremist hungry for blood. You have no idea how this happened or the circumstances.
You assume bad rich people injected bacteria into their food. THAT'S GOOD FOR BUSINESS.
The class welfare in gross, and you'll lose. If you don't produce, you won't win. So you can spend the rest of your life out there hating people who made money making the things you eat, or you could get off your butt and become rich yourself.
@Bladefist: Blade, it's been widely reported that they shipped product after their own testing showed it was contaminated:
[www.associatedcontent.com]
This calls for jailtime, not an uncollectible fine on a bankrupt company.
@Bladefist: Satire? They proved they knowingly shipped salmonella-tainted product. People DIED because they put their own profits above people's lives.
Which was a little bit of irony, since their attempt to save a buck ended up destroying their company.
Like people already commented, what's the true effect fining a bankrupt company and not punishing the decision makers? Although the Chinese government went to the extreme executing those who were responsible for melamine milk scandal, I think they sent a very effective message.
@The_IT_Crone: Yea I just got owned because I haven't been following this story.
However - while some of my points no longer make sense here, they aren't totally invalidated because they apply in many cases.
@Bladefist: Well, bless you for admitting an error. You'll never make it as a politician (that's a compliment).
@JRB:
According to [en.wikipedia.org]
"Peanut Corporation of America had 90 employees and did $25 million in sales in 2008."
But it does not say what their net revenue was.
@Bladefist: Not class warfare. I'd like to see everyone that knew about the tainted product going out the door, that could have stopped it, to put tried for murder. I'm not talking about the people on the line, running the machines, I mean the manager that let this stuff out the door. If they can prove the owner or president or whoever the "big cheese" is knew or demanded this happen, he/she/it should be on trial too.
Fines don't give this justice, even if they are in the millions, that just shows you can screw people over and buy your way out of it.
Leave it to big government to regulate business. What ever happened to free market capitalism? Doesn't this kinda go against Texan ideals?
Is that all? Silly me, I'd thought Texas had the death penalty for multiple murders.
@TerribleDecade: Yes, this doesn't seem to follow the spirit of the Texas Tort Reform movement.
Which is the problem with pro-tort-reformers: when somebody else gets hurt, it's okay to cap damages; when *I* get hurt, though, there is going to be hell to pay.
If I knowingly sold people food I knew might kill them, I would be in prison for manslaughter at the very least. I am not understanding why nothing has been done to the man who made the decision to send out food he knew was contaminated. Why isn't he in jail for manslaughter? I don't understand the system.
@starrion: No point in going after the company people on a personal level as they are most likely going to end up in the slammer and not have a dime anyway.
@Bladefist: Wow, kneejerk GOP BS much? I know you tend to do that normally, but it is unfortunate that you decided to go off the deep end on the particular story where you were so astoundingly wrong..
@NightSteel: there's no way they're going to get that - they should have just asked for $121bn, then Texas can help bail out AIG too.
I dislike class warfare because in many cases, the people who "made it" worked their butts off for it.
This case is different. By shopping the testing around, this executive showed that he didn't care who he got sick. Other executives will be watching what happens to him.
Good luck collecting, Texas. You know slimeballs who run an operation like that have already stashed their cash somewhere.