proving people know something is always harder than knowing people know something.
a big issue with our system i think is that white collar crime is intentionally hard to prosecute, and mostly people don’t care to try.
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I’ll put it this way: If the building does suffer catastrophic failure, Hamburger will be in a better position if he was on the record saying “this building is unsafe and should be vacated and demolished” prior to the collapse instead of being on the record saying “this building is perfectly safe and we should continue selling luxury apartments there.”
If hundreds or thousands of people die based on his recommendations then he’s going to be in deep, deep shit. Especially if it appears that his recommendations were motivated by personal financial interests.
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Do you suppose a cost-benefit judgement is in effect, as in, will it cost us more to take it down or to let it fall?
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A cost benefit, absolutely, that cost benefit absolutely not. Falling would always be more expensive because it would involve the demo costs for all of the other damaged structures, their downtime costs, and a stack of human lives. A much more likely analysis is if they can make it someone else’s problem before collapse, whether through sale or subsidy.
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In the end there shall be a little of both.
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Do you wish to definitely lose everything now while having your name reviled by parties on both sides, or do you wish to maybe lose everything in 3 years from now when (assuming you haven’t moved to a non-extradition country) you’ll be able to hide partially behind the huge spectre of disaster and large corporate liability umbrella policies and make cursory appearances at a few investigatory panels while flanked by lawyers someone else is paying for?
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If it was me, I think I’d be more worried about the potential of having hundreds or thousands of deaths on my conscience than the short-term impact to my finances and reputation.
Besides, it’s not like anyone is buying his “everything is fine!” story anyway. His credibility could hardly be worse if he finally admitted that the building clearly has serious problems.
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When it comes to professional negligence that leads to deaths a person can be directly sued, not just the company they work for. I would’ve stopped the project but I have common sense
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No one suggested he’s a rational actor. I think his actions to date bear this out.
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