I thought Mr. Ghosn was suspected of having taken 5 billion USD but happily I was wrong it was a mere $40 million USD. Mere chump change. It does seem however that the lower the executive compensation the higher the performance of the automaker. Look Tesla $0, Toyota $2.8 million, Hyundai 4 million.
Given what has happened with Mr. Ghosn do we really think what Nissan did with EVs was anything more than fail convincingly (made more sense when I thought 5 billion was at stake)? I am not saying that Nissan's achievements so far are not impressive- they are way more so than GMs, but I am suggesting it was just more half measure compliance bunk.
Let us add some context to Mr. Ghosn's sitatuation. I think the situation is related to the situations of Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Harvey Weinstein (someone didn't like Fahrenheit 911,) Jeffrey Epstein, Martin Wintercorn, and to the situation of Tony Blair, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Brett Kavenaugh, Jean Macron and Rick Snyder. And I think these can be related to earlier situations with Ken Lay, Charles Keeting, Michael Milken, Martin Shkreli, Dennis Kozlowski, Raj Rajaratnam, Martha Stewart, O.J. Simpson on and on. And while in recent years many of these situations were just loss leaders on justice, there are apparently 40,000 indictments built up over a 10 year period in the US about to be unleashed on white collar crime- probably part of the interest on the part of the GOP in trying to soften the white collar crime terms at the federal level- trying to do an end run.
And I think this all goes back to when Maynard Keynes said in 1930 that the "scarcity problem" or "economic problem" would come to an end. Meaning labor would be obsolete and by extension capital. At that time Keynes felt the result was still a ways off. But around 1970 a group of 2000 plus economists from across the spectrum and Arthur C. Clark and Robert Oppenheimer let every world leader know the result had arrived. What were whip crackers who had long ago been paid off for any at best nominal contribution going to do? Well the answer was clear- go back to the plantation which had only actually ended 20 years prior in the US even as it had been outlawed for a century. You saw the Powell memo decrying the overthrow of the 'free enterprise system' as if freedom for whip crackers was the issue- they wanted a right to exploit (or slavery) what the south always wanted. From the memo and other rhetoric you could distill their number one strategy which was to elevate the position of commercial speech above all else to the point that bribery would become free and accepted speech and allow them to take us back to the plantation or the system prior to capitalism because they preferred that to a system where they as whip crackers would no longer be in charges of people that would actually finally be free. Think of the Exodus story and where that supposedly left the Egyptians and what the Egyptians supposedly wanted out of it but didn't get- they didn't want an exodus of the American people away from soft slavery. No they wanted a bribery based system that would leave them in control. Think if Tyler's crap about democracy granting people a share of the wealth through the vote- meaning they couldn't be coerced by money as a means of control or couldn't be exploited.
But a funny thing about bribery, it is a word describing a conflict of interest so great that the English language itself codifies it as a crime. After all 3/4 of law is about preventing conflicts of interest and almost all of that is money based conflict of interest because if you don't, you have a money as law or a people as property plantation society. What a concept!
You can look back and see the steps unfolding to keep the power behind defunct capitalism in place. Under Nixon, suddenly NPR had sponsors (bribers- to sell lies and misinform the public.) Also came the weakening of the Free Speech Doctrine where the doctrine had commercial speech at the end of the line to protect vital political speech from a bribery based society. Then came came Buckley vs Valejo declaring that money (bribery) was protected free speech- might as well say murder is protected speech. Then under Reagan the Fairness Doctrine was finally abolished. The Fairness doctrine said the public owned the air waves outright and media company profit was not even irrelevant in comparison (in fact no need to have for profit media) but was in fact a threat and therefore the media companies would cover election material for free to prevent bribery based censorship of candidates by sponsors or these companies would immediately lose their licenses. Doctrine also told them that any breach of the firewall between news and entertainment would result in the loss of their licenses. Then under Clinton we got Citizen's United where Clarence Thomas's wife supposedly took a 1 million dollars bribe from the people wanting to push unlimited bribery based elections so that now we have it. US elections don't look any different than the US media which is completely dominated and consolidated into 6 firms where the top 100 positions in each firm generally have people in those positions who have dual citizenship with a certain Mid East state- or essentially full media capture by one foreign sponsor state in particular, a state that used to be child state that has not become a parent state by soft overthrow- don't believe just look up the oath of allegiance to that foreign state that 28 US states by law now require of public employees as a condition of employment and note that a majority of the rest of US states have similar allegiance oaths pending in law- think about the last time we saw such oaths.
As George W. Bush said he wanted to "elevate the value (power) of capital" (because it is/was defunct...) in order to get people to shine shoes and be able to foist things like Vietnam/Iraq on people. And of course we know they foisted low aggregate efficiency (thermo dynamic) defunct petrol (the new cotton) on people through the petrol dollar to help increase the scarcity to raise the value of defunct capital. Problem for them has been the truth matching value of search (even search they've tried to corrupt with sponsorship (bribery in algorithm)- worst concept ever devised,) plus the gross truth has a way of getting out.
So right now we have a US that has been overthrown by a couple Mid East States, Russian and Exxon (fossil fuel corruption.) Anyone think Exxon is more diplomatic or multi dimensional than a dictatorship? The US is not just a bribery based state now it is a treason based state because this situation converts the American people into the wage slaved property of these highest bidders. Even if you aren't big on the tribal notion of nations (and I am not) when you have a money based captive population supported by a bunch of bribery enshrined secrecy it is nothing more than human trafficking operation. And so bribery went where it always goes to wealth in charge or arbitrary might-makes right slavery. Think of people in a cell when the psychopath get a hold of the only loaded gun and is brandishing it against unarmed innocent people.
Now here is the bigger issue. As Aristotle pointed and as Marx concurred the use value of goods is straight forward but the exchange value (money) is problematic because it leads to a parasitic money for the sake of money situation and the resultant society. Pretty soon all the time is sucked out of people's lives and there is no time for anything else but chasing after needs, no time for education or being aware of what would be in personal or public interest, because parasitism has reduced people to zombies and stolen their lives and the lives of their children reducing live to chattel. And it is all justified with hereditary schemes and the worship of wealth and gambling.
The easiest way to think of bribery is not so much as in terms of conflict of interest or undue influence but in terms of theft. Bribery is a theft perpetrated by a group that involves a lie and a secret, it is a conspiracy but not just as in the smaller case as a conspiracy to defraud in the larger or aggregate case its is a conspiracy to enslave. But let us be honest about what capitalism was at its best (constrained democratic socialism in about 1970- US-Norway-Sweden and all others) it was wage slavery or slavery light (Sweden and Norway momentarily transcended but the US didn't.) When an alternative came that gave us better free options than since the start of agriculture, the banks and other money for the sake of money power entities chose to revert back to slavery heavy and totalitarianism.
And this brings us back to a huge fraud coming to light. Petrol is civil rights part II. No one needs this (fossil fuel) obsolete, inferior, irremediable product anymore- haven't needed it for 70 years. Can't put that truth back in the bag. Can't force people to buy it at gun point. So Exxon (and Shell) plus those 3 countries need to get a clue. India and China are going to withdraw their demand and fossil fuel, crap product that is, has already peaked and is in free fall despite all the financial hostage taking its engaged in with derivatives and pensions and bank bail-ins. These people aren't going to be able to socialize the losses, they will absorb those losses as justice demands. They've sunk themselves but then slavery never ends well the bill always comes due because slavery is projective: try to enslave another and you enslave yourself. Money is never an acceptable means of control, money based transactions should always be level playing field. The 10% petroleum mineral needs each nation has in sufficient supply already it is the 1-10 reduction Tony Seba talks about even on that.
