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In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time

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Re: In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time

#41

Post by kenster07 »

tedunangst wrote: post #35
kenster07 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China, financial fraud is punishable by death. It is at once crude and effective. The subprime bubble may never have ever occurred if the perpetrators knew they would literally be risking their lives.

It is only effective against people the party doesn't like. State sanctioned fraud is less frequently punished.

Though the death penalty is too extreme, once one accepts that financial fraud literally destroys lives, one must also concede that financial fraud calls for an equally harsh punishment.

Re: In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time

#43

Post by ktizo »

rprasad wrote: post #12
ck2 wrote: post #5

In the USA they just buy the way out of the system - I mean look at all the people in prison for the default swaps and banking scandals. Oh wait, there aren't any.

That is because prison is not the punishment for most of those offenses. Before you say shit about the U.S. judicial system, you should learn something about it. SEC and FTC violations are civil offenses . The punishment for civil offenses are fines . Plenty of firms and higher-ups have paid fines. Jail time only applies in cases where deliberate fraud is proven to have occurred. We all know that the finance guys wer…

In that case why can jaywalkers be charged with the crime of reckless endangerment in the US without anyone killed, or hurt?

Reckless endangerment in Nevada occurs when someone allegedly "neglects any duty imposed by law in willful or wanton disregard of the safety of persons or property." So if a police officer believes that you were deliberately jaywalking in a careless way that could hurt someone else, you may face reckless endangerment charges.

If no death or substantial bodily harm results from an alleged act of reckless endangerment in Nevada, the charge will be a gross misdemeanor carrying up to $2,000 in fines and/or up to one year in jail.

http://www.shouselaw.com/nevada/jaywalking.html

Re: In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time

#44

Post by jlgreco »

Jd wrote: post #7
ck2 wrote: post #5

In the USA they just buy the way out of the system - I mean look at all the people in prison for the default swaps and banking scandals. Oh wait, there aren't any.

There are various tiers in the intelligence of criminals. Tier 1: Get caught. Go to jail. Tier 2: Get caught. "Fix" the legal progress in your favor. Don't go to jail. Tier 3: Bribe the people doing the enforcement. Don't get caught, because there is no one to catch you. Tier 4: Bribe the people doing the law writing. Don't get caught, because you aren't doing anything "wrong" (technically speaking). Tier 5: Buy out…

The problem of course occurs when the press is affiliated with companies involved in Tier 5.

Re: In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time

#45

Post by tedunangst »

KoulMomo wrote: post #34
tedunangst wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Bernie Madoff's sentence lie on or off the line connecting your two datapoints?

Bernie Madoff's mistake is that he screwed over other rich people.

I like (as in don't like) how that's the excuse for every counter example. Just like how Martha Stewart only went to jail because she didn't play golf with the right people.

Re: In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time

#46

Post by r00fus »

stfu wrote: post #38
Karunamon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We all know that the finance guys were too reckless in their pursuit of profits. But recklessness is not a crime (and indeed, the only crime in the U.S. system for which "recklessness" is relevant is manslaughter/murder). Perhaps this is a facet of law that people should lobby to get changed. The kind of wanton disregard shown by the finanical sector during the recent meltdown damn well should be a crime, if it isn'…

In my opinion rechlessness is necessary to bring society forward. This behavior induces change to the system and breaks the status quo. Sure, this has often bad consequences, but daring to break the status quo should be generally rewarded, and only regulated in cases where the negative impact on society gets too extreme/long term.

Fine. Except the "recklessness" was given AAA status by ratings agency, making it difficult to properly assess risk.

Risky investments guised as Safe should very well be illegal - it's fraud.

Re: In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time

#47

Post by jonathanyc »

stfu wrote: post #36
maximveksler wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving the type of response this submit is getting, which is subjective to your POV. Are you disappointed simply because this was posted to HN ?

Most likely the top comment that tries to impose as a fact that the US and Chinese legal system are equally unfair. Stating these kind of absolute, unproven, personal statements as absolute facts is (was?) frowned upon around here.

The top comment is to the US as the article is to China. No one is saying the systems are equally unfair.

Calm down.

Re: In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time

#48

Post by Karunamon »

stfu wrote: post #38
Karunamon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We all know that the finance guys were too reckless in their pursuit of profits. But recklessness is not a crime (and indeed, the only crime in the U.S. system for which "recklessness" is relevant is manslaughter/murder). Perhaps this is a facet of law that people should lobby to get changed. The kind of wanton disregard shown by the finanical sector during the recent meltdown damn well should be a crime, if it isn'…

In my opinion rechlessness is necessary to bring society forward. This behavior induces change to the system and breaks the status quo. Sure, this has often bad consequences, but daring to break the status quo should be generally rewarded, and only regulated in cases where the negative impact on society gets too extreme/long term.

As a general rule of thumb? Sure. When you're gambling with other people's money (and lives to a point)? No.

Re: In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time

#49

Post by pooriaazimi »

stfu wrote: post #38
Karunamon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We all know that the finance guys were too reckless in their pursuit of profits. But recklessness is not a crime (and indeed, the only crime in the U.S. system for which "recklessness" is relevant is manslaughter/murder). Perhaps this is a facet of law that people should lobby to get changed. The kind of wanton disregard shown by the finanical sector during the recent meltdown damn well should be a crime, if it isn'…

In my opinion rechlessness is necessary to bring society forward. This behavior induces change to the system and breaks the status quo. Sure, this has often bad consequences, but daring to break the status quo should be generally rewarded, and only regulated in cases where the negative impact on society gets too extreme/long term.

Do whatever the hell you want with your own money (set fire to it, if you feel like it), but if you're trusted with other people's money, you shouldn't be "reckless". It's not a video game that you can return to last "saved" point before your ridiculous adventures if they prove to be wrong.

Re: In China, the rich and powerful can hire body doubles to do their prison time

#50

Post by Jd »

jlgreco wrote: post #44
Jd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are various tiers in the intelligence of criminals. Tier 1: Get caught. Go to jail. Tier 2: Get caught. "Fix" the legal progress in your favor. Don't go to jail. Tier 3: Bribe the people doing the enforcement. Don't get caught, because there is no one to catch you. Tier 4: Bribe the people doing the law writing. Don't get caught, because you aren't doing anything "wrong" (technically speaking). Tier 5: Buy out…

The problem of course occurs when the press is affiliated with companies involved in Tier 5.

We have a weird situation in the US right now in that lots of information is available via the alternative press, etc., but none of it seems to matter during election time, in which the major parties and major media vehicles seem to be the only important aspects in pushing past the 50% mark, which is the defining feature of our democracy.

Thankfully we have the ability to operate presses fairly freely, but these little presses don't seem to matter all that much when it comes to fending off the thieves. I'm not quite sure what the solution is, but I suspect it involves a large number of people working together to build a system that is better than the current one.

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