How Fines Became "The Cost of Doing Business" | How Money Works

Sep 29, 2025

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How Fines Became "The Cost of Doing Business"

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In 2012 the Hong Kong, Shanghai Banking Corporation best known simply as HSBC was charged by authorities for aiding and abetting the operations of some of criminal cartels between the US and Mexico.

Corporate personhood is the legal notion that corporations have many of the same legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural flesh and blood people. They can own property, sue and be sued, donate to political campaigns, and even have defended religious beliefs…

… but if a normal person was found laundering money for cartels and the North Korean Nuclear Program, they would be living it up, here in ADX Florence IF THEY WERE LUCKY.

HSBC on the other hand still operates across the world, and their punishment for these crimes would be like a normal person getting a fine for roughly 2 months of their wages…

So if corporations are legally people… why can’t they be arrested?

If companies see fines as “just the cost of doing business” what reasonable punishments are there for organizations that break the law which DOESN’T just end up punishing innocent employees and the wider economy more than it does the people with actual discretion over how these companies act?

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