08-08-2023, 10:49 AM
The general trend in America (and most of the world, I imagine), is that the wealthy and powerful do not face meaningful punishments for their abuses of power.
You saw it with the 2008 financial crisis where basically no one served any time despite destroying our economy with knowingly reckless and dishonest manipulation of the system. You see it with the aforementioned STOCK act, where at least 78 members of Congress have violated it in some way and, in some cases, only having to pay a fine as low as $200...And even then, those fines can be waived by the Congress ethics committees.
https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-stock-act-violations-senate-house-trading-2021-9
And I can only imagine how many rich and powerful people are cheating on their taxes in some way and see no consequences for it.
It's why stories like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Deshaun Watson and Donald Trump being arrested/being punished are such big stories. These people are generally immune from consequences, even when it's obvious that they're guilty because they are usually able to buy off the right people (often times the victims) or just hide behind the shroud of plausible deniability.
I don't want to be a doomer, but holding rich and powerful people accountable is extraordinarily difficult and unless they are actually punished when they do violate laws, you're only encouraging them to continue doing it. And paying a 400 dollar fine for not reporting a transaction that was worth $350,000 is nothing.
To many corporations and businesses where violating a law or regulation is just a fine, the fines are seen as the cost of doing business (and that's only if they get caught).
https://medium.com/thing-a-day/huge-government-fines-are-just-the-cost-of-business-14d3ef10bc63
"If the punishment for a crime is merely a fine, then that crime only exists for the lower class."
You saw it with the 2008 financial crisis where basically no one served any time despite destroying our economy with knowingly reckless and dishonest manipulation of the system. You see it with the aforementioned STOCK act, where at least 78 members of Congress have violated it in some way and, in some cases, only having to pay a fine as low as $200...And even then, those fines can be waived by the Congress ethics committees.
https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-stock-act-violations-senate-house-trading-2021-9
And I can only imagine how many rich and powerful people are cheating on their taxes in some way and see no consequences for it.
It's why stories like Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Deshaun Watson and Donald Trump being arrested/being punished are such big stories. These people are generally immune from consequences, even when it's obvious that they're guilty because they are usually able to buy off the right people (often times the victims) or just hide behind the shroud of plausible deniability.
I don't want to be a doomer, but holding rich and powerful people accountable is extraordinarily difficult and unless they are actually punished when they do violate laws, you're only encouraging them to continue doing it. And paying a 400 dollar fine for not reporting a transaction that was worth $350,000 is nothing.
To many corporations and businesses where violating a law or regulation is just a fine, the fines are seen as the cost of doing business (and that's only if they get caught).
https://medium.com/thing-a-day/huge-government-fines-are-just-the-cost-of-business-14d3ef10bc63
"If the punishment for a crime is merely a fine, then that crime only exists for the lower class."
![[Image: oN5QAdY.png]](https://i.imgur.com/oN5QAdY.png)
