Coincidence?

Having done my bit for the community three days ago (see reference 1), I find this morning that someone has finished the job properly. Is it the council or some nearby householder shamed into action? Is it a coincidence?

Action clocked, I resumed pondering about the knotty question raised in the latest issue of the NYRB of whether it is right to charge corporations with criminal offences. They are already like persons in that they can be liable to pay tax, so why not go the whole hog and make them liable to face a jury of their peers? Or at least of humans.

It seems that, unlike us Europeans who like to charge the man rather than the corporation, the US authorities think about charging the corporation quite often, with a lot of the article in question being about the way that corporations so-charged seem to get away with token punishment, carrying on with whatever it was more or less regardless. Punishment usually being monetary as it is hard to put a corporation in prison - although one can think of suitable analogs to sitting in the stocks or standing in pillory. Perhaps a good & entertaining trashing in prime time television advertisements, paid for by the delinquent corporation?

Arguments include whether it is fair to charge the man for doing something that his corporation has instructed him to do. An argument which we do not allow here in the case of lorry drivers (or cruise ship captains for that matter): it is up to the lorry driver to be lawful, not his employer. Also the extent to which it is fair to punish innocent share holders and employees for the sins of management. To which I might respond that shareholders are the owners and do have responsibilities. And if we kick them, they might well kick their board, possibly out. The catch being that shareholders are often a fairly passive lot and are content to go along with whatever their board says.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/decision-time.html.