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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsName The Last Billionaire Arrested
Not one single billionaire has committed a single crime in America, right?
If they did I am sure they would be arrested, right?
Right?
They need to change the name of the Justice Department.
How about the "Justice Inflicted On The Poor Only Department" or the "Scot Free Department".
Right?
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imanamerican63
(16,175 posts)
PaulX2
(2,032 posts)He works for billionaire Russians. Not the same thing.
imanamerican63
(16,175 posts)
PaulX2
(2,032 posts)How much jail time will he do? Any guesses?
Eliot Rosewater
(34,285 posts)PaulX2
(2,032 posts)From the primary on. And go after Supreme Court Scum who urinated on the founding fathers graves by voting for Citizens United.
George Washington would have had them hung.
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)We are despicable creatures easily bought off.
Igel
(37,535 posts)Google tells me (and since when does Google lie?).
That's a small sample. Most are white, so if you get 1 murder per year per 100,000 people, you'd expect a murder every 180 years. But if we include their families, that would come down to a murder every 20 years or so. I suspect it's less because there are other ways of getting rid of somebody.
Many of the billionaires are surrounded by lawyers and most of their acts are intensely private. Remember that one difference in minority and white drug use in the US that leads to higher incarceration rates is where the drugs are used: Use them on the street corner, get high in public or in the alley, you're more likely to be busted than if you and your buddies are in the upstairs play room of a 2500 sq foot house on a cul de sac. A lot of things that happen in private are illegal are never brought to the authorities' attention.
Similarly with a lot of violent crime. If you are involved in something and have a lot of money, you can buy silence from your victim; or, if the victim is in the family, the abused might see a real fiscal incentive to just not say anything. "Let's see, if I go public the stock will tank and we'll lose $300 million, half of which is mine. No, that broken cheekbone is worth the $."
That the public defender "offices" are scandalous is well known. Billionaires have lawyers. They do better than the public defenders.
Notice that we haven't gotten to corruption and connections yet.
Then there's the claim that many crimes are out of desperation--whether drug-related robberies or poverty-induced burglaries. "Sorry, your honor, I needed to rob that house because I was strung out on drugs and my $500 million trust fund wasn't enough" makes absolutely no sense. Then there's the old honor-based crimes, "You said what about my girl? I'm going to bust your face!" That gets old quick, but among the elite that's handled differently.
Others are technical violations. No license? More scrutiny, leading to something else discovered. Nobody's killed "because their tail light wasn't working," but a non-working tail light can certainly lead to circumstances in which something you do can be misconstrued. Or where what you do isn't misconstrued but done out of panic or while trying to flee. Got money? Lots of that kind of problem go away.
And we're still not at corruption and connections.
Then there's butt-covering to the max. If a billionaire that has control over a business has underlings who make bad decisions, (1) they made the decision based on expectations and not necessarily direct orders, so the billionaire isn't responsible; (2) incorporation provides an entity that can be sued that's different from the person of the investor.
Now, verging on connections, there's prosecutorial discretion. If you believe that the person acted in good faith, if it was an accident or oversight not likely to be repeated, you're more likely to not prosecute. Look at the DA. Look at some punk's file photo and background. Look at the billionaire's file photo and background, which usually includes a lot of "good works". This isn't corruption. This is, "I'm like them and I'm in solidarity with them, I empathize with them more easily, so you know, I'll let them off the hook."
Cobalt Violet
(9,976 posts)Can't think of anyone.
Tom Rinaldo
(23,187 posts)By the late 1980s, Madoff was making in the vicinity of $100 million a year. He would become chairman of the Nasdaq in 1990, and also served in 1991 and 1993.
He launched the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison and forced to forfeit $170 billion in 2009. His three homes and yacht were auctioned off by the U.S. Marshals. He resides at the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in North Carolina, where he is prisoner #61727-054. (See also, Bernie Madoff Runs a Hot Chocolate Monopoly in Prison.)
Again, I don't know if his personal assets ever reached 1 Billion dollars however.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)to search and find out one way or the other.
Some folks have come up with fairly recent anecdotes. Given there are only 500-600 billionaires in the US the fact that half a dozen or so recent examples have been given seems also to be problematic for the point you are trying to make.
Ilsa
(64,362 posts)
ProudLib72
(17,984 posts)I really wanted him to be on the list.
Caliman73
(11,767 posts)His net worth was over 800 million, but point taken. Justice, like almost everything else in the United States, is a commodity. The more resources you have, the more likely you can buy your way out of problems.
fescuerescue
(4,475 posts)
DFW
(60,181 posts)How many need to be arrested before it's "OK?"
Do all criminals worth a "mere" $100 million get second class status?
Wealth per se should not be a get-out-of-jail-free card, but nor is lesser wealth a reason for immunity from prosecution.
