Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

HandsyBread t1_jacpvtf wrote

Reply to comment by somereallyfungi in As crews remove contaminated soil and liquid from Ohio toxic train wreck site, concerns emerge about where it's going. by ILikeTalkn2Myself

It’s more likely then not that most people who have any money invested into an index fund, 401k, retirement savings account owns some of the company.

1

somereallyfungi t1_jacrm30 wrote

There is a silver lining to this distribution, though. Norfolk could be driven to bankruptcy without a significant hit to most portfolios. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually solve the problem at hand. But, the punishment could be so severe as to actually be a deterrent for cost cutting.

2

HandsyBread t1_jactqpm wrote

This accident will not bankrupt Norfolk, let’s assume they had to purchase in full every single house (which won’t happen) you would be looking at $250M-1B at most, and then let’s say the total clean up cost was $1-2B. And let’s add another $500M-1B for other misc legal fees, damages, political bribes, etc. the total damage your looking at is $2-3B maybe $4B if they are able to squeeze them for every possible thing and the courts slap on additional fines. Heck even if they needed to give $1M per person to cover life long health costs, and other personal damages that would tack on other $4-5B at most.

That would just mean that they would take a loss of profits for 1-2 years. This won’t bankrupt the company or get close to bankrupting the company. And that outcome is likely to never happen, we would never see a company held responsible to this degree, but even if we did they would still be fine in the long run.

6

Squire_II t1_jadbf54 wrote

> That would just mean that they would take a loss of profits for 1-2 years.

5 billion isn't even a year of profit. They're spending more than that on stock buybacks and shareholder dividends this year.

10