Not defending politicians. Just pointing out that if you want to regulate against all mistakes or fraud, then you end up over-regulated. If you chop the heads off the people doing things, you soon end up with nobody doing anything. Looking at software startups shows the value of failure (the EU tends to be more conservative, and that hasn’t worked out greatly for them), and it has been interesting watching the software culture spread to hardware (SpaceX).

In the J&J case, there seems to be a paucity of facts showing harm, so punishing up the chain seems particularly egregious.

> Do voters get money and privilege

Are you in the US? Do you work in software? I would suspect a large majority of the world probably considers that you personally have buckets of money and privilege.

I am not a citizen of the US, and I can list many ways that non-citizens (of the USA) are treated poorly, even in allied countries like New Zealand. Not complaining, we get other privileges. I am pointing out that every person’s reality depends on where they are standing in the world.

Addendum: “The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero”, “crime is a policy choice”, “there are still arbitrarily severe options to control crime from where you are, from ‘increase the police budget’ to ‘ban alcohol totally’ to ‘implement an Orwellian dystopia.’.” https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/optimal-amount-of-fra...

I just noticed this which seemed very relevant: “In classic Soviet style, a number of officials who had little to do with the tragedy were either punished or fired, including the director of U.P.I. and the chairman of its sports club, the local Communist Party secretary, the chairmen of two workers’ unions, and a union inspector.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/17/has-an-old-sov...