Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 523 posts

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#11

Post by MattDamonSpace »

mittensc wrote: post #10
TrackerFF wrote: post #8

I sometimes see people "celebrate" this, with the rationale that China is cracking down on white-collar crimes and handing out sentences unheard of in the west. But, are these sort of things just examples of selective prosecution? Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing, if they were to be caught doing the same?

You can ask the same about inner circle of current US leadership It will have the same answer, no who would be able to prosecute them and how? who would even investigate them

Yeah but that’s bad right

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#12

Post by mittensc »

MattDamonSpace wrote: post #11
mittensc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can ask the same about inner circle of current US leadership It will have the same answer, no who would be able to prosecute them and how? who would even investigate them

Yeah but that’s bad right

of course

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#13

Post by lonely_wanderer »

onion2k wrote: post #5

I don't really understand the mentality of people who do this sort of criminal activity. If he'd stopped after, say, $5m and just retired he'd probably have managed to get away with it. Continuing to such a ridiculous degree through sheer greed led him to a death sentence. That's just plain stupid.

In for a penny, in for a pound. Unless you are extremely crafty, you don’t get to retire from this sort of criminality. Everyone who enabled you wants more and you have a semi-permanent metaphorical sword hanging over your head.

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#14

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

TrackerFF wrote: post #8

I sometimes see people "celebrate" this, with the rationale that China is cracking down on white-collar crimes and handing out sentences unheard of in the west. But, are these sort of things just examples of selective prosecution? Would the inner circle members of CCP leadership realistically face the same prosecution and sentencing, if they were to be caught doing the same?

You're trying to approach from the wrong side

it's not a question of "prosecute this one or the other person" - it's the choice between "prosecute this one or nobody"

thus celebration that at least something got done

Re: China sentences official to death for taking $325M in bribes

#16

Post by jjk166 »

onion2k wrote: post #5

I don't really understand the mentality of people who do this sort of criminal activity. If he'd stopped after, say, $5m and just retired he'd probably have managed to get away with it. Continuing to such a ridiculous degree through sheer greed led him to a death sentence. That's just plain stupid.

It's the wielding of power which is intoxicating, the monetary amount just illustrates how many decisions he could personally influence.
Post reply on HN