You think that long-after-the-fact punishments that require long-term planning would have an effect?
We have evidence that even the most severe punishment of all does not work as a deterrent (example link: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/study-88-criminologists-do-not-...). Or smoking, where knowing how bad it is seems to have little to no effect (even doctors do it).
Even if people did act completely rationally, a dollar earned today is worth much more than dollars lost tomorrow even without inflation. And how many expensive and useless mergers have been performed even when the executives and even the top stock owners knew it was a bad strategy long-term? They just sold their stake and let somebody else deal with the fallout.
So even with complete rationality, detaching punishment from the "crime" (in time) gives people time to get in the harvest and move on before punishment occurs, making it useless as a deterrent (given that, as linked above, it does not even work when people cannot detach themselves from facing the ultimate punishment it's even worse).
We have evidence that even the most severe punishment of all does not work as a deterrent (example link: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/study-88-criminologists-do-not-...). Or smoking, where knowing how bad it is seems to have little to no effect (even doctors do it).
Even if people did act completely rationally, a dollar earned today is worth much more than dollars lost tomorrow even without inflation. And how many expensive and useless mergers have been performed even when the executives and even the top stock owners knew it was a bad strategy long-term? They just sold their stake and let somebody else deal with the fallout.
So even with complete rationality, detaching punishment from the "crime" (in time) gives people time to get in the harvest and move on before punishment occurs, making it useless as a deterrent (given that, as linked above, it does not even work when people cannot detach themselves from facing the ultimate punishment it's even worse).