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A death sentence for a young Chinese businesswoman chills entrepreneurs

economist.com

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Re: A death sentence for a young Chinese businesswoman chills entrepreneurs

#31

Post by adamt »

will_critchlow wrote: post #28
ww520 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Angel investing in US has the requirement of being Accredited Investors by law, so no you can't just angel investing willy nilly but follows the law (or "official system"). The comparable scale of punishment is another story; on the other hand a few people would wish Madoff was tried in a Chinese court for defaulting people.

Really? Is there anything similar in the UK? I don't believe there is - but I generally tend to believe there is less red tape around entrepreneurial activities in the US than the UK (we run businesses in both places).

In the uk angel investment is only typically allowed by high net worth or sophisticates investors (definitions below).

High Net Worth Investors

have an income in excess of GBP 100,000 per annum and/or have net assets (excluding primary residence) in excess of GBP 250,000 Sophisticated Investors

have made at least 2 investments in an unlisted company in the last 2 years have worked in the private equity sector or in the provision of finance for SMEs or have been in the last 2 years a director of a company with a turnover of at least GBP 1 million have been a member of an angel network or syndicate for the last 6 months

Re: A death sentence for a young Chinese businesswoman chills entrepreneurs

#32

Post by stretchwithme »

olalonde wrote: post #25
drinian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, a death sentence?

The problem in China is that the expectation to get caught for any crime at all is very low. The population is huge and it's very easy to get away with tax evasion, financial frauds, etc. Since the expectation to get caught is low, they make up with very harsh sentences.

I think its more than just a population issue. The legal system is not quite as developed as it could be.

For example, the courts don't have a working appeals process. People can appeal, but they have to go to Beijing to plead their case. And the central government punishes the provinces when too many people from their province do this.

So what do the provinces do? Why, they kidnap people in Beijing, of course.

They seem to keep track of people when they try to get justice, but not who's ripping them off.

If they are smart, those in charge would make reforming this situation a top priority. They have a lot of internal dissent. Improving the legal system would help.

Of course, that's probably a very tall order.

Re: A death sentence for a young Chinese businesswoman chills entrepreneurs

#34

Post by dublinclontarf »

Chocobean wrote: post #24
jerf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nevertheless the Economist made it sound that she was only persecuted for accepting financing from unofficial sources, not that she was doing anything improper with the financing." I can't agree with that. I read only the Economist article before coming to the comments here, and I managed to figure out that she was being charged with active fraud. I figured it out from things like mentioning a promise of an 80% retu…

IIRC, financial fraud that makes the country (e.g., from its citizens/organizations) lose a lot of money is a capital offense in China. And also everything you own will be confiscated to pay back to the country. (If you ignore the "China is Evil" bit for a minute) It kind of makes sense: you steal money from a country, maybe go to jail for a bit, leave the country, reunited with all your stolen money. Not so good.

Yeah, but they're going to execute her.You get that? She going to die.

Re: A death sentence for a young Chinese businesswoman chills entrepreneurs

#35

Post by dublinclontarf »

cheez wrote: post #22

Hey guys, try and follow the laws of the country in which you live. Even if you think it's unjust, you can't change it if you're dead.

What if the laws make criminals of ordinary, innocent things. This is pretty much the case in China(and many countries actually) its impossible to live without commiting some kind of crime. Thats how they get you.

Re: A death sentence for a young Chinese businesswoman chills entrepreneurs

#36

Post by malmros »

bilbo0s wrote: post #6

I don't know. 80% returns? Really? She was able to get 80% returns? GUARANTEED? This lady kind of sounds like a potential Madoff who got caught early. Yes, she may be totally innocent. That is one of many possibilities. Having mentioned that... man... 80%? guaranteed? Trading Futures? Maybe the punishment is a bit harsh, but it really does seem she was not totally on the up and up. And secondly, what kind of a person…

Mr/Ms bilboOs... seems your tax return has some discrepancies... possibly serious discrepancies. On another somewhat related topic... Did you say that Ms Wu assured you of... what was that? an 80% return on your investment? That might account for the discrepancy in your return. We can take care of that for you...

Re: A death sentence for a young Chinese businesswoman chills entrepreneurs

#37

Post by PakG1 »

cglee wrote: post #21
Ygor wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It raises a valid question: How to find reliable sources for stories such as this? Is it even possible, concerning the usual secrecy of similar processes?

Chinese forums, if you know where to look. But you have to learn to read Chinese, or find some one/way to translate.

That raises a whole new problem though, which is distinguishing signal from noise, truth from fiction. That's hard, even in North America when some crazy rumour races through Twitter and the media starts reporting on it accidentally as true. It has happened a couple of times. :(

Re: A death sentence for a young Chinese businesswoman chills entrepreneurs

#38

Post by cstross »

dublinclontarf wrote: post #34
Chocobean wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, financial fraud that makes the country (e.g., from its citizens/organizations) lose a lot of money is a capital offense in China. And also everything you own will be confiscated to pay back to the country. (If you ignore the "China is Evil" bit for a minute) It kind of makes sense: you steal money from a country, maybe go to jail for a bit, leave the country, reunited with all your stolen money. Not so good.

Yeah, but they're going to execute her.You get that? She going to die.

Playing devil's advocate here -- I'm totally opposed to the death penalty. However ...

From the government's point of view, why should crimes of violence like murder or aggravated sexual assault warrant a harsh punishment, but economic crimes that affect vastly greater numbers of people receive more lenient treatment?

Given that we can approximate a lifetime's productive labour to, say, $1M, a fraud involving multiple millions in stolen money amounts to alienating multiple life's worth of work. Steal $500M and you've done the equivalent of wiping out five hundred lifetimes' work.

If your perspective is that the judicial system exists to punish crimes against the state, then a $500M fraud is considerably worse than the actions of a serial killer.

(That's not the judicial theory we run on here in Scotland, but it's rather closer to the way things work in one-party states.)

Re: A death sentence for a young Chinese businesswoman chills entrepreneurs

#39

Post by _delirium »

stretchwithme wrote: post #30
Pinckney wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is execution different than 150 years in prison, aside from the chance to be exonerated later? Madoff's life is just about as thoroughly destroyed as Wu's. They will both die in prison. I dislike capital punishment for several reasons, in particular the greater potential to be applied falsely, but I do not feel that Madoff's sentence is substantially less harsh.

I think the convicted can answer this question better than I. They almost always prefer to keep living.

It'd be interesting to see numbers on how many people serving a life sentence would choose to commit suicide if materials for a painless suicide were readily available. Prisons actively attempt to keep people from doing so, and it's apparently frequent enough to be a major problem at some prisons.
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