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xmprttoday at 8:23 PM4 repliesview on HN

One of the saddest things about modern capitalism is that people stealing from businesses is criminalized and heavily punished but businesses stealing from people (eg. wage theft, illegal contracts, medicare/PPP fraud, and outright stealing like this case) is treated as a civil violation and almost impossible to prosecute.

The only cases of white collar crime I've seen get prosecuted is securities fraud and that's rich people stealing from other rich people.


Replies

bananamogultoday at 9:12 PM

"The only cases of white collar crime I've seen get prosecuted is securities fraud and that's rich people stealing from other rich people."

There are thousands of YouTube videos of people being arrested or being in court on charges of embezzling from their employers, committing fraud, presenting bogus checks at banks, etc.

Hacking is white collar crime. So is mortgage fraud. So is tax evasion and bribery. There are tons of prosecutions of these crimes every year.

A_D_E_P_Ttoday at 8:28 PM

Federal and most state civil courts are pay-to-win, too. They have absolutely nothing to do with justice. The only time "the little guy" wins anything is when the lawyers stand to make a windfall in contingency fees.

(...See, e.g., authors vs. Anthropic. The most prolific author might make somewhere in the low six figures, the average author is gonna make ~$10k, and the lawyers representing the class asked for $300M!)

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charcircuittoday at 8:37 PM

There is an active criminal investigation into this from the Keizer police. Your implication that this is only being treated as a civil matter is false.

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bfkwlfkjftoday at 8:34 PM

> The only cases of white collar crime I've seen get prosecuted is securities fraud and that's rich people stealing from other rich people.

I was trying to popularize the phrase "the only thing which is illegal in America is defrauding investors" but I have no social media presence. Feel free to take it.

Regardless I agree with you on capitalism, but my take on securities fraud is less cynical. In late stage capitalism it makes _perfect sense_ that the only crime is to steal from investors - that's capitalism protecting itself.

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