You may remember some years ago when a Chinese toy maker allegedly used a toxic red paint on toys that infants were prone to put into their mouths.  I happened to be in China shortly afterwards and read the English translation of the Shanghai newspaper about the incident.  It said the CEO was arrested and tried, where it was determined that the CEO had prior knowledge of the harm to children.  Without appeal, he was taken out of the courtroom and executed.  I respected that rule of law.

All during the aftermath of the 2008/9 global financial crisis, I kept hoping I could find an article about some bond salesmen, who making $5 million a year to sell subprime bonds that he knew was trash, (even referring to selling those bonds as “putting lipstick on a pig”), eventually being executed for ruining the retirement of good and decent American workers and the education of the next generation of Americans.  I’m still waiting for some justice.  Apparently, people who knowingly caused genuine harm were not guilty, simply because they worked for a corporation.  Some corporations were executed (think – Lehman) and hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs, but I guess nobody did anything wrong . . .

But, there is hope!  The CEO of a Peanut Corporation of American was just found “guilty on dozens of felony counts, including conspiracy to conceal that many of the company’s products were contaminated with salmonella.  Between 2008 and 2009, nine people died and more than 700 others fell ill after eating peanut butter . . . ”  The 61-year-old man was sentenced to 28 years in prison, where he will receive better health care than many poor people in this country and elsewhere.

It’s too bad our judicial system could not sentence him to 28 years in hell instead!