Here's some good news.
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Willmeister
Newcomer
Why rob a liquor store and risk jail, when you can swindle old people over the telephone, or hire some shady accountants a la Enron?
Blue Collar crime has never really been an issue. It's white collar crime that costs society much much more than men in ski masks.
Blue Collar crime has never really been an issue. It's white collar crime that costs society much much more than men in ski masks.
Yes because rapist, murderers and kidnappers arent really that bad. Its the accountants, lawyers, and ceo's that will really screw you.Willmeister said:
later,
epic
EXACTLY!
Believe me, lawyers are the worst. They harrass you and try and rape you for money so bad.
Will makes a very good point. White collar crimes are a far larger cost to society than blue collar crimes. Enron is just 1 example.
Believe me, lawyers are the worst. They harrass you and try and rape you for money so bad.
Will makes a very good point. White collar crimes are a far larger cost to society than blue collar crimes. Enron is just 1 example.
epicstruggle said:Yes because rapist, murderers and kidnappers arent really that bad. Its the accountants, lawyers, and ceo's that will really screw you.Willmeister said:
later,
epic
Dr. Ffreeze
Regular
All,
I was just mussing over this and had a thought. White collar crime costs much more money than blue collar crimes. Some blue collar crimes end up with people dead.
White Collar: Enron
Lost $1,000,000,000 (made up number as I don't know correct figure)
Blue Collar: Gas Station Robbery
Lost $523
2 workers killed
Which is a greater cost to society? If anyone could say that White Collar is more costly, what does that say about our society that says large sums of money > loss of a small number of human life?
Just a thought,
Dr. Ffreeze
I was just mussing over this and had a thought. White collar crime costs much more money than blue collar crimes. Some blue collar crimes end up with people dead.
White Collar: Enron
Lost $1,000,000,000 (made up number as I don't know correct figure)
Blue Collar: Gas Station Robbery
Lost $523
2 workers killed
Which is a greater cost to society? If anyone could say that White Collar is more costly, what does that say about our society that says large sums of money > loss of a small number of human life?
Just a thought,
Dr. Ffreeze
Willmeister said:
Puh-lease. Do you have any brain cells? First of all, I'd say that the effect of having LOST YOUR LIFE OR FAMILY is far worse than losing your Enron stock. When people die, the repercussions are far and wide. What's the cost of the 2000+ people who died in the WTC? Highly educated people with millions spent on their development and experience, now vaporized, expertise that has to be replaced.
. Secondly, the Justice Department estimates that the annual cost of "violent crime" is $420 BILLION or about $4500 per worker, which dwarfs Enron+Tyco+WorldCom+GlobalCenter+etc.
In fact, if you want to talk white collar crime, the vast majority of it is committed by blue collar individuals, we're talking about insurnance fraud, check fraud, credit fraud, con games, embezzeling your employer, tax cheating, intellectual property theft, spam, phony products (the entire health food supplement industry), etc
I'm sure you want to demonize CEOs and the wealthy, when in reality, the "Catch Me If you Can" fraudsters (see Spielberg movie) are responsible for the bulk of the losses and corruption in the system.
Willmeister
Newcomer
Democoder, you seemed as obsessed to defend monied classes as you seem to intone that I have some desire to slander these same monied classes. Are we both wrong?
I find it humourous, bordering on sheer stupidity mind you, on how you compare blue-collar workers stealing some staplers from the shop floor to the fraud perpetrated by Mr. Ebbers at Worldcom. It's truly baffling. Really, it is. You haven't worked in a transnational have you (like I have)?
Now, I never mentioned CEOs anywhere did I? Mr. Ebbers or Mr. Lay are the exceptions, not the rule. That's why they ended up in front of news cameras. "White Collar Crime" is primarily a middle-management phenomena, not an upper- or lower one. And that's why it's so costly. It goes unnoticed. White collar crime will even go unpunished internally in the company, because the burden of proof often is never achieved for conviction. Believe it or not, banks actually have a lot of embezzlement that's never made public, especially in the USA, where if the perception gets out that depositer's money is unsafe, a public bank will absorb the costs somewhere in the balance sheet to avoid the public finding out. It's even done with the blessing of the FDIC. Thing is, can you blame the banks for not going public? I don't, though the idea of embezzlers getting away scott free does bother me. So, I guess this is a good example of 'pick your poison'.
A certain degree of power, the ability to control the flow of information but balanced with the ability to go unnoticed in the flow. It may have been the responsiblity of the board at Arthur Andersen to control their accountants, you can't expect them to be on top of ever detail their subordinates are doing. Subordinates knew that, and they also knew no questions would be raised either. I remember listening to one speaker talking about this issue and he brought up a good description.
A modern bureaucracy is like a pyramid that comes to a point at the top. The higher you go up in the pyramid, the easier it is for White Collar crime. If someone at the top decides to embezzle or defraud, the chances are very high that all those below will find out, and not all of them can be trusted to keep quiet. Chances are you'd get busted. If you're at the bottom, the chances you can actually make out with any substantial assets are slim since you have less control, and everyone above you could possibly see. The optimal place for White Collar Crime is middle management. There were other reasons given why the middle was the place to be but it was a few years back...
White Collar doesn't come with a social stigma either. These crimes usually are so complex, and intertwined with legitimate endeavours, first, make it difficult to uncover, then even harder to convict. You swipe the handbag from an old lady, you go to jail. You swindle her over the telephone, you might get time. You gut her pension fund, you get a slap on the wrist. It's the same in the end isn't it though? An old lady was robbed.
I find it humourous, bordering on sheer stupidity mind you, on how you compare blue-collar workers stealing some staplers from the shop floor to the fraud perpetrated by Mr. Ebbers at Worldcom. It's truly baffling. Really, it is. You haven't worked in a transnational have you (like I have)?
Now, I never mentioned CEOs anywhere did I? Mr. Ebbers or Mr. Lay are the exceptions, not the rule. That's why they ended up in front of news cameras. "White Collar Crime" is primarily a middle-management phenomena, not an upper- or lower one. And that's why it's so costly. It goes unnoticed. White collar crime will even go unpunished internally in the company, because the burden of proof often is never achieved for conviction. Believe it or not, banks actually have a lot of embezzlement that's never made public, especially in the USA, where if the perception gets out that depositer's money is unsafe, a public bank will absorb the costs somewhere in the balance sheet to avoid the public finding out. It's even done with the blessing of the FDIC. Thing is, can you blame the banks for not going public? I don't, though the idea of embezzlers getting away scott free does bother me. So, I guess this is a good example of 'pick your poison'.
A certain degree of power, the ability to control the flow of information but balanced with the ability to go unnoticed in the flow. It may have been the responsiblity of the board at Arthur Andersen to control their accountants, you can't expect them to be on top of ever detail their subordinates are doing. Subordinates knew that, and they also knew no questions would be raised either. I remember listening to one speaker talking about this issue and he brought up a good description.
A modern bureaucracy is like a pyramid that comes to a point at the top. The higher you go up in the pyramid, the easier it is for White Collar crime. If someone at the top decides to embezzle or defraud, the chances are very high that all those below will find out, and not all of them can be trusted to keep quiet. Chances are you'd get busted. If you're at the bottom, the chances you can actually make out with any substantial assets are slim since you have less control, and everyone above you could possibly see. The optimal place for White Collar Crime is middle management. There were other reasons given why the middle was the place to be but it was a few years back...
White Collar doesn't come with a social stigma either. These crimes usually are so complex, and intertwined with legitimate endeavours, first, make it difficult to uncover, then even harder to convict. You swipe the handbag from an old lady, you go to jail. You swindle her over the telephone, you might get time. You gut her pension fund, you get a slap on the wrist. It's the same in the end isn't it though? An old lady was robbed.
Ahh, if only all blue collar crimes were so simple and violentless. However the rule is that the old lady had a pretty good chance (during the said robbery) to be stabbed, punched, beate, shot, or pushed down where she would have likely broken a hip or two. Now which crime should be punished more severly?Willmeister said:
Also if some people are stupid enough to give money over the phone to telemarketers, I dont know if that should be a crime.
A solution to the pension fall issue is to remove it from the control of your company and into either your control were you put it in the stock market, or companies who would specialize in pension funds.
just my 2 cents,
epic
Willmeister
Newcomer
So, we should punish a criminal for crimes he/she may have committed? Is this the next stage in Bush's Premptive doctrine? I deliberately went out of my way and used 'swipe', not 'mug'. Nice of you to not notice (or have selective blindness).
I think those who are educated should get twice the sentence of a high-school dropout, but that never, ever happens. We just have to look locally at the Raymond Shalala case locally to see that. A lawyer attempts to import over 6 metric tonnes of cocaine into Canada, gets caught and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He actually appealled his sentence since he was going to spend a horribly long six-months in prison. There are stoners in prison who got longer sentences for much, much smaller amounts (infinitesimal in comparisson, in fact).
Dr. Ffreeze
Regular
Willmeister,
Willmeister wrote:
In response to:
DemoCoder wrote:
Will, I don't see where DemoCoder was talking about stealing staplers. He was talking about violent crime. How did you jump from Demo talking about violent crime to accusing him talking about stealing staplers?
Or did I miss something?
Dr. Ffreeze
Willmeister wrote:
In response to:
DemoCoder wrote:
Will, I don't see where DemoCoder was talking about stealing staplers. He was talking about violent crime. How did you jump from Demo talking about violent crime to accusing him talking about stealing staplers?
Or did I miss something?
Dr. Ffreeze
Dr. Ffreeze
Regular
Willmeister,
I see no reason for education to increase a sentence, however I do believe that education should not lessen the punishment either. Just hold people accountable for their actions, regardless of wealth or education.
Why does this happen? What are judges thinking? (or was this a jury?) Where is common sense?
Dr. Ffreeze
I see no reason for education to increase a sentence, however I do believe that education should not lessen the punishment either. Just hold people accountable for their actions, regardless of wealth or education.
Why does this happen? What are judges thinking? (or was this a jury?) Where is common sense?
Dr. Ffreeze
#1 you brought up Enron, not me, I only pointed out that most so-called "white collar" crime is a function of people who rather don't have much money
#2 Violent offenders should get the maximum penalty, regardless of education level. Violence has the highest cost to society.
#3 What many of the so-called "corporate criminals" did is not morally equivalent to what middle class white collar criminals do, or even intellectual property pirates.
These companies are accused to falsifying reports and hiding debt, failing to report bad news, a crime of information withholding. This led the stock price to be higher than it should have been. It is not a direct "theft" of anything. It's a crime of information manipulation. They didn't take payment, and not render service or product.
Now compare this to a white collar criminal you'll see on TV, who calls up old widows, pretends to be a broker, takes their entire retirement, and disappears. Or mail scams where "companies" advertise a product, take payments, then never ship anything and disappear with the money.
There is a big difference between securities fraud and con-games.
#4 A couple of bad CEOs might destroy a few dozen billion in paper value, and a run of the mill criminal might steal a much smaller amount, but there were 11 million crimes committed, including 3 million violent theft/assaults/robberties and 100,000 rapes. I ask you, what has a longer lasting economic cost: someone swindling you out of a few thousand in stock, or being RAPED or ASSAULTED, an experience that can affect you for the rest of your life and deeply alter your psychology.
#5 the millions of people stealing from work, are far more damaging. They drive up the cost of business, which means less profit, less investment, less taxes paid (income stolen is not reported, unlike if the company had the extra money to pay the employee more), etc etc
#6 Far more damaging than Enron's hiding of debt is their manipulation of the energy markets. This is the real "scam".
#7 while very newsworthy, and headline grabbing, millions of people silently steal and embezzle, and millions more are victimized by violent crime everyday. It might please you to focus on a few fat cats, but they are not the primary problem. If you truly believe that violent crime is not extremely costly, you have you priorities screwed up. Maybe if you move from that ghosttown you live in to a real city and experience some crime first hand, you'll change your attitude.
#2 Violent offenders should get the maximum penalty, regardless of education level. Violence has the highest cost to society.
#3 What many of the so-called "corporate criminals" did is not morally equivalent to what middle class white collar criminals do, or even intellectual property pirates.
These companies are accused to falsifying reports and hiding debt, failing to report bad news, a crime of information withholding. This led the stock price to be higher than it should have been. It is not a direct "theft" of anything. It's a crime of information manipulation. They didn't take payment, and not render service or product.
Now compare this to a white collar criminal you'll see on TV, who calls up old widows, pretends to be a broker, takes their entire retirement, and disappears. Or mail scams where "companies" advertise a product, take payments, then never ship anything and disappear with the money.
There is a big difference between securities fraud and con-games.
#4 A couple of bad CEOs might destroy a few dozen billion in paper value, and a run of the mill criminal might steal a much smaller amount, but there were 11 million crimes committed, including 3 million violent theft/assaults/robberties and 100,000 rapes. I ask you, what has a longer lasting economic cost: someone swindling you out of a few thousand in stock, or being RAPED or ASSAULTED, an experience that can affect you for the rest of your life and deeply alter your psychology.
#5 the millions of people stealing from work, are far more damaging. They drive up the cost of business, which means less profit, less investment, less taxes paid (income stolen is not reported, unlike if the company had the extra money to pay the employee more), etc etc
#6 Far more damaging than Enron's hiding of debt is their manipulation of the energy markets. This is the real "scam".
#7 while very newsworthy, and headline grabbing, millions of people silently steal and embezzle, and millions more are victimized by violent crime everyday. It might please you to focus on a few fat cats, but they are not the primary problem. If you truly believe that violent crime is not extremely costly, you have you priorities screwed up. Maybe if you move from that ghosttown you live in to a real city and experience some crime first hand, you'll change your attitude.