Andrew Yang wants to throw CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg in jail
washingtonexaminer.com
Andrew Yang, the 44 year-old tech entrepreneur running for president with a platform of unique policy ideas, has called for jailing failed CEOs and shareholders, including potentially Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg.
“Here’s an idea for a dramatic rule,” Yang wrote in his book The War on Normal People, published last April and set for paperback release next month. “[F]or every $100 million a company is fined by the Department of Justice or bailed out by the federal government, both its CEO and its largest individual shareholder will spend one month in jail.”
Yang, who until recently was not taken seriously by election analysts, has seen his unique policy positions make him popular with an Internet following that has pushed him to the debate stage. His big business accountability law, which he calls the “Market Abuse Act,” would expose many of the biggest names in business to prison sentences if enforced broadly.
In 2008, Wells Fargo took $25 billion in bailout money from the federal government, which would translate into roughly a 20-year sentence for Buffett, who owns the largest individual share of Wells Fargo stock through his company Berkshire Hathaway. If a 20-year sentence was not enough, Buffett would have had another 20-month sentence tacked on when Wells Fargo paid over $2 billion in fines to the DOJ.
In addition to Buffett, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg would also be at risk for jail time. Facebook is under investigation from the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and FBI for its role in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Former FTC and Justice Department officials said Facebook could be facing hefty fines of potentially over a billion dollars.
Under Yang’s proposal, if the DOJ is the one leveling the fines, Zuckerberg, who is both the CEO and controlling shareholder of Facebook, would be spending months, if not years, in prison.
