> does the state have a fair claim to €5B of it when the company at most with the most generous possible estimate (and then double it for good measure) used €50M of state services?
replyYes, it does. Quite simply because that's the law, and it's morally right (in principle) because if your business fails then you don't get a bill for 50 million. If "winners" only paid their exact share then these services wouldn't exist.
I explicitly stated (twice) they would (and should) pay more then their exact share. The real cost would likely be in the neighborhood of $500k too (20 SWEs traveling to work doesn't incur much cost, plus the 21/population cost of mainstay services (police, fire, government misc/infra)), never mind the workers are paying taxes on their income too.
replySo $50m would cover their true societal cost (I'll multiply it by 10 for you, call it $5m) 10x over.
Its extremely difficult to build a clearly logical structure where a company that made a wildly successful product needs to hand half the value to the government. It's very easy to do if we hand wave with ambiguous terms like "right thing to do" and "morally obligated".