Oh I’m sure there would be insurance for that, but it would be expensive. It would dramatically reduce the amount of overall investment in the nation. That is a very bad thing, it would slow down the rate of our economy and innovation. Don’t get me wrong, the current setup where companies treat your data like an asset and then lose it and nothing happens is broken. There need to be stiff penalties for it. Corporate death penalty even, especially with an ending of all too big to fail. I’m talking penalties scary to the point that whatever profit could be made from your personal information isn’t worth the risk of having it, companies are scared to collect info. This would especially be true if there is negligence involved, like when companies put their databases on open S3 buckets. Companies should be scared shitless of that. But destroying our system of investment is not the answer.

Because it would greatly increase the cost and risk of investment. Think not just for billionaires, but for anybody. Imagine somebody buys a couple tens of thousands of dollars of a stock as part of their retirement, that company does something bad, and now not only do they lose their investment but they lose the rest of their retirement also.

I am all for wiping out shareholders, especially big ones, when a company does something super stupid. There should be an incentive for shareholders to hold companies they invest in accountable.

But suggesting that company owners become personally liable for the actions of those companies, especially when those equity owners have little or no control over the decisions of the company, that is a recipe for disaster.

Disagree. Breaking the corporate veil would have a whole lot of unintended consequences and would basically kill investment as a concept. I agree we need to do more about corporations that violate the law with impunity and get wrist slaps. I don’t think that’s it.

Yup. We need more of the corporate death penalty. And when corporations are so big that ‘killing’ them would harm the economy, I argue we’re back to too big to fail. Maybe the answer is giant fines, and if the company can’t pay, wipe out the largest shareholders and then resell the stock over time. Make people’s personal information a giant hot potato that nobody wants to be holding.

I agree. Even at $120 each. 120 times tens of millions is serious fucking cash. We need to have a couple of big companies go bankrupt over this shit. Then maybe they will start taking it seriously. Perhaps at that point maintaining personal data on people will be seen as a liability rather than an asset. And that’s what we really need.