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Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

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Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#131

Post by wpietri »

themitigating wrote: post #118
vorpalhex wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being raped, assaulted or having a family member murdered is worse than losing money. Money can be repaid. You can't be unraped.

Rape and murder are extreme crimes and of course no financial loss is equal to them but there are other violent crimes that have less of an impact compared to losing money. You might be thinking about someone stealing a person's TV but what about their life savings. What about a corporation that goes bankrupt because of financial misdeeds and people lose their jobs? My dad lost his job in the mid 90s and the effects…

I agree with your conclusion. Google News has correctly decided I'm interested in Ponzi schemes, so it shows me articles at least weekly about newly discovered large ones. A very common element is people retired or on their way who have lost everything. I'd much rather get a punch in the snoot than to spend years slowly dying of stress, poor nutrition, and patchy medical care.

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#132

Post by wpietri »

chrischen wrote: post #77
wpietri wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Financial crimes deserve a financial penalty. Nah. Financial crimes cause real harm. And financial penalties frequently aren't sufficient disincentive. Imagine that I have no assets but am a good talker. So I go out an launch an "investment fund" that is just a Ponzi scheme. Let's suppose I take in $50m, pocket $10m, and spend the rest on "investment returns" and appearing to run a real business. I live high on the…

I’d imagine the penalty at least involves returning any stolen money, but a garnishment on future income and additional IRS scrutiny should do it. I actually think jail time isn’t enough a disincentive without the financial penalty because otherwise it can just be a cost of doing business. For example there was a chronic thief in SF that stole peoples’ laptops from cafes. She was jailed multiple times but because the…

Oh, yeah, I totally agree that there should be financial penalties larger than the ill-gotten gains. I'm just saying that isn't enough.

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#133

Post by Scoundreller »

prvit wrote: post #116
Scoundreller wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Want to fly a plane into a building? Anyone can get a pilots license, there are no background checks. You can just rent a plane and pull off “the next 9/11”, no amount of terminal security can solve this. Yes, those are concerns.

How are “The staff at the charter jet terminal” supposed to address this? Those are the people GP called “criminally clueless”, suggesting that the lack of pre-departure controls for private jets will cause the next 9/11.

Fire the criminally clueless and replace their setup with the security that’s setup for every other airport terminal.

And if you need a background check for a HAM radio license, it makes sense to have a background check for pilot licenses.

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#134

Post by Cupertino95014 »

kubatyszko wrote: post #127
wfleming wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He had essentially zero chance of being acquitted I think GP was referring to the fact that Japan has an over 99% conviction rate. Even if we presume that Japan has unusually high quality prosecutors and judges, that rate is so high that I think it’s reasonable to presume a fair number of innocent people are getting convicted (which happens lots of places, of course, but Japan’s conviction rate is still unusual).

The 99% rate is NOT because the system (prosecutors, judges) is "good", the rate is so high because system is structured to bully anyone arrested to admit to the crimes. You're basically coerced into confession, whether or not you did it.

There's a simple way to test this:

What percentage of convictions are accompanied by confessions?

I don't know the answer to that, actually.

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#135

Post by trhway »

prvit wrote: post #113
trhway wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws, including custom checks, passport checks, etc. are for regular people. There was even a recent program on NPR how different is the life of super-wealthy. And while super-wealthy is a totally different game, even upper middle class money already distort the reality in a much more comfortable way. I'm watching a case in Santa Clara of an NVIDIA director, a Russian immigrant, who 2 years ago being drunk and speedi…

> Laws, including custom checks, passport checks, etc. are for regular people. There was even a recent program on NPR how different is the life of super-wealthy. Customs checks hardly affect regular people. Security checks are an optional service you can pay for, but probably won’t bother if it’s your own plane and isn’t full of hundreds of random people. Rich people still have passport checks, they just pay the gove…

What kind of due process you get depends on your money, and that is bad. In particular people rot in jail for months and years on much smaller bails until they just take the plea deal.

And about passport checks I repeated the NPR as I have no first hand experience with private jet :)

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#136

Post by yomkippur »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #108
orf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s ridiculous. A crime is a crime, and stealing money - be it physically or on paper - has real repercussions to real people. It deserves more than a financial penalty.

>A crime is a crime This is most certainly false. A crime is a violation of a law. Laws are passed by groups of people, not handed down by some infinitely wise and just being. For example, in many African nations, it is illegal to be gay. Would someone imprisoned for the "crime" of being gay be justified in escaping? Would Julian Assange be justified in escaping his dungeon for exposing the crimes of the US governmen…

I can't believe you would actually try this dead end argument. Let me guess, if somebody robs you tonight, they didn't commit a crime, they just violated a law that were passed by a group of people that punishes the impoverished who justified their actions.

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#138

Post by candiodari »

wpietri wrote: post #132
chrischen wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d imagine the penalty at least involves returning any stolen money, but a garnishment on future income and additional IRS scrutiny should do it. I actually think jail time isn’t enough a disincentive without the financial penalty because otherwise it can just be a cost of doing business. For example there was a chronic thief in SF that stole peoples’ laptops from cafes. She was jailed multiple times but because the…

Oh, yeah, I totally agree that there should be financial penalties larger than the ill-gotten gains. I'm just saying that isn't enough.

There's a legal expression (it's in French originally) that says

"You can't get blood from a stone"

This effectively means financial crimes can never be repaid in full, and frequently only small percentages get repaid. It also means the government can never hope to actually do anything to help other than punishment.

Going after financial crimes to protect victims ... just doesn't work.

Somehow this is enormously at odds with people's expectation of justice, and people either just can't or refuse to believe that's really how it works.

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#139

Post by JumpCrisscross »

vorpalhex wrote: post #96
wpietri wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Financial crimes deserve a financial penalty. Nah. Financial crimes cause real harm. And financial penalties frequently aren't sufficient disincentive. Imagine that I have no assets but am a good talker. So I go out an launch an "investment fund" that is just a Ponzi scheme. Let's suppose I take in $50m, pocket $10m, and spend the rest on "investment returns" and appearing to run a real business. I live high on the…

Being raped, assaulted or having a family member murdered is worse than losing money. Money can be repaid. You can't be unraped.

> Being raped, assaulted or having a family member murdered is worse than losing money

Violent and financial/corruption crimes are in categories to themselves.

The former for obvious reasons. The latter, because they corrode the institutions that make civilization work. Let financial crime--specifically corruption--run rampant and you'll lose more lives to riots, civil war or worse than to murder.

It's no secret that car factories in peacetime make good tanks in war. Also, in peacetime, they employ many voters and their families. Ghosn was an immensely powerful man. He used his influence for personal enrichment. Enrichment his family collaborated to defend. Kings' courtiers had strict punishments for disloyalty for a reason. Much of that was personal. But some tied to the integrity of the state.

We cannot excuse multimillionaires from running from the law while claiming to have a just society just because they had good PR. Ghosn, and his family [1], must be held accountable.

[1] his son, Anthony Ghosn, facilitated the escape [a] as did his daughter, Maya Ghosn, who is profiled in the article

[a] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nissan-ghosn-taylor-bail-...

Re: Carlos Ghosn’s Brazen Escape from Japan

#140

Post by CamperBob2 »

prvit wrote: post #116
Scoundreller wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Want to fly a plane into a building? Anyone can get a pilots license, there are no background checks. You can just rent a plane and pull off “the next 9/11”, no amount of terminal security can solve this. Yes, those are concerns.

How are “The staff at the charter jet terminal” supposed to address this? Those are the people GP called “criminally clueless”, suggesting that the lack of pre-departure controls for private jets will cause the next 9/11.

I'm not saying that private charter flights should get the whole TSA treatment. They certainly shouldn't.

I'm just saying, when you run into some people who claim to be classical musicians but who don't look or behave anything like any musicians you've ever heard of, who are travelling on an unusual schedule with unusual luggage, who ask a lot of oddly-specific questions about security, who seem overly concerned with whether or not a large crate will get X-rayed, and who offer you large quantities of cash for unclear reasons, it's worth at least a quick ping to airport security.

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