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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

#61

Post by bilbo0s »

rbanffy wrote: post #45
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.

The law is only just if applied equally. I would have less problems if Chinese authorities prosecuted everyone involved in fraud. Discretionary application of the law is a worst-case-scenario.

Happens everywhere.

20 year old black guy walking down street gets stopped by cops. Cops find one joint. Punishment: 5 years... he'll serve between 24 and 36 months if he's smart and stays out of trouble inside.

20 year old white guy walking down street gets stopped by cops. (I know, I know, it probably wouldn't happen. Just suspend reality for a moment. You know. Humor me). Again, cops find one joint. DA declines to prosecute. 20 year old white guy is referred to drug treatment options.

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

#62

Post by rbanffy »

bilbo0s wrote: post #61
rbanffy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law is only just if applied equally. I would have less problems if Chinese authorities prosecuted everyone involved in fraud. Discretionary application of the law is a worst-case-scenario.

Happens everywhere. 20 year old black guy walking down street gets stopped by cops. Cops find one joint. Punishment: 5 years... he'll serve between 24 and 36 months if he's smart and stays out of trouble inside. 20 year old white guy walking down street gets stopped by cops. (I know, I know, it probably wouldn't happen. Just suspend reality for a moment. You know. Humor me). Again, cops find one joint. DA declines to…

> Happens everywhere.

That doesn't make Chinese law enforcement any more just.

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

#63

Post by Dylan16807 »

varjag wrote: post #51
cstross wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 multipl…

Your point makes perfect sense if one is of opinion that human life can be pegged to monetary value at some exchange rate. And this is indeed the founding assumption at which many totalitarian regimes operate.

Don't forget that taking enough money from enough people will kill some of them. So you can decide purely on deaths caused without caring about money amounts, but your numbers will be less accurate.

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

#64

Post by rbanffy »

GregBuchholz wrote: post #49
rbanffy wrote: post #42

What strikes me as odd is that she pleaded guilty and helped broaden the investigations and still got a death penalty. This pretty much removes any incentive for a guilty plea and for helping an investigation. I think it's fairly reasonable to consider whether she is facing capital punishment for financial fraud or for having helped broaden the investigation in the wrong direction.

>and still got a death penalty. The death penalty alone is better than execution of you and your kids, or better than torture and execution, etc..

I don't think those are options under the Chinese penal code.

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

#65

Post by GregBuchholz »

rbanffy wrote: post #64
GregBuchholz wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and still got a death penalty. The death penalty alone is better than execution of you and your kids, or better than torture and execution, etc..

I don't think those are options under the Chinese penal code.

  I'd be surprised if there wasn't some form of prosecutetorial discression that couldn't overlook your children's involvment in your business dealings.  Think of Madoff's kids.

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

#66

Post by pan69 »

pan69 wrote: post #2

China. So close, yet so far away.

Off-topic:

The new comment system where votes next to comment aren't shown anymore is quite interesting. Over the course of a day my comment received about 10 up-votes and now an equal amount of down-votes.

My comment was the first to comment made on this post and in the first two hours or so my comment received all it's up-votes. Then, slowly over the next 24 hours it began to sink.

I think the reason my comment received the down votes is because over time more elaborate comments where made that made my comment look more and more insignificant and out of place.

Now I don't think my comment was great and deserved any up-votes what so ever, but it's interesting to see how not showing the votes next to a comment makes such a huge difference and I don't believe my comment would have been down-voted if the 10 up-votes would have been shown next to it.

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

#67

Post by cglee »

aptsurdist wrote: post #54
cglee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Google translate is certainly a good start to help with this problem. Thanks google. http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN|en|http%3A%2F%2Fbaike.bai...

Doubtful. You think Chinese readers can understand HN conversations with Google Translate? Especially when commenters are trying to be subtle to dance around censors?

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

#68

Post by cglee »

PakG1 wrote: post #37
cglee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. :(

You'll need to participate a lot and then you can start to get a sense on who to trust. Or at least who is sensationalistic, who's logical, etc.

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

#69

Post by varjag »

brazzy wrote: post #60
varjag wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point makes perfect sense if one is of opinion that human life can be pegged to monetary value at some exchange rate. And this is indeed the founding assumption at which many totalitarian regimes operate.

Your point makes perfect sense if one is of opinion that human life can be pegged to monetary value at some exchange rate. If you hold any other opinion, you are fooling yourself. A lot of people will go to great length to deny it, but if you think about it unprejudiced, you'll have to accept it. There are just too many instances where spending amount X of money can save a life and people make the conscious decision…

> If you hold any other opinion, you are fooling yourself. A lot of people will go to great length to deny it, but if you think about it unprejudiced, you'll have to accept it.

Now this is a promising beginning. Put that Randian tone aside if you want to be taken seriously.

> There are just too many instances where spending amount X of money can save a life and people make the conscious decision not to do so because X is more than they can or want to afford.

We're not talking about saving someone's life in varying circumstances. We are talking about cut-off figure that makes e.g. financial crime punishable by death. Those societies that practice it, tend to be totalitarian, with the conversion rate to e.g. RMBs or Soviet Roubles written down in criminal law.

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

#70

Post by rms »

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.

If quantum suicide is real, you and I will hear of her death but she will only find herself in realities where the Communist Party indefinitely delays her death sentence.
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