Remember - they didn’t throw Martin Skhreli into rich-guy’s prison because he caused thousands of people to die by raising the prices on lifesaving medicines out of reach of poor folk… no, no, no, they threw him into rich guy’s prison because he embezzled some of his fellow rich parasites’ money.
The way it looks is the way it is.
Fuck the poor, get rich
Fuck the rich, go to prison.
I might get in trouble for this, but if I ever see Skhreli in person, I’ll do my best to make sure his nose lays flat across his cheek. He’s a garbage being that’s less than rats
Make sure to use a blunt instrument - you don’t want to be touching that toxic thing with your bare hands.
I’ve been told a sock full of oranges doesn’t leave a bruise
It costs what $30k a year to keep someone in prison? Great use to taxpayer money for that $100 theft.
It unironically is a great use of money, if it wasn’t they wouldn’t do it. Prison Labor is basically slavery, and just as absurdly profitable, plus private prisons make more money with more inmates and can lobby as such.
Well, mainly it’s about funnelling taxpayer money into the hands of the prison industrial complex cause most states don’t go quite so hard on the prison labor
It’s a positive feedback loop built off of human suffering. Private Prisons lobby for more slave labor, making the Capitalist State more money, while the Prison Industrial Complex gets more money for imprisoning more people, and more slave labor to sell cheap commodities.
A great use of money to whom is the question. Varies wildly depending on your perspective.
Sure, but money exists to benefit the ones holding Capital. The system itself supports and reinforces profit above all else, as such, it’s a great use of money for Capitalists.
If you mean that it’s unethical and negative for the health of society, of course, I agree entirely. We can’t solve this problem outright without transitioning to Socialism.
Oooofff… So close until you replaced liberal cult ideology with tankie cult ideology.
I would advise you to read some books (like actual books, not a YouTube video essay about a book) about socialism because it seems to be something very different than you think.
Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/homeless-man-vs-corporate-thief/
It’s true, but note that Allan received a reduced sentence for testifying against the actual mastermind of the fraud, who got 30 years.
So him defrauding millions of times more than what that 15-year sentence guy stole is less bad because the fraudster also snitched on an even bigger fraudster?
I think that isn’t an issue. The issue is the clearly disproportionate punishment of 15 years for 100 dollars.
A few years for fraud especially you helped the catch more fraudsters is fine.
15 years for something that won’t cover a night out is fucking wrong.
In most circumstances the dollar amount does matter. The titles are cherry picked. The 100 dollar theft wasnt from a convenience store, he robbed a bank. Is your argument that it was such a bad bank robbery that we shouldnt punish the guy? What about criminal history?
Dramatizing the facts does not help make the point, it makes it less resilient. The situation is already lopsided if we just take the simple facts of what happened, but the titles of these articles are not that.
Trying t8 defend the US justice system is a bold fucking move.
You do knowing about three strikes laws and mandatory minimums right?
There are people serving life sentences for stealing food while most white collar crime, even when convicted, don’t get much jailtime at all. Usually fines, or parole or house-arrest in their mansions.
Sometimes a non-violent felony also counts as a third strike, which thus would result in a disproportionate penalty., Three-strikes laws have thus also been criticized for imposing disproportionate penalties and focusing too much on street crime rather than white-collar crime.
The US manufactures crimes so it can legally enslave the poor people. Because slavery is still legal in the US, as long as the slaves are convicted criminals.
That’s genuinely propping up a significant portion of the US economy; slave labour from prisons which are filled up with all kinds of excuses.
The wealthy ‘make mistakes’, the poor go to jail
Pretending you don’t understand this is the reality of the situation is making me question your humanity.
Well you just keep on pushing people away with your exaggerations. My second favorite part is where you assume any critique must mean I support the current system.
Read better. I said this is already a great example of inequality without obfuscating details. Since it stands on its own merits, any efforts to exaggerate either way is reducing the effectiveness of your message. Honesty is important.
Read more and stop licking the boots of your oppressors.
Why We Let White-Collar Criminals Get Away With Their Crimes
How white collar criminals get away with it
Is white-collar crime treated more leniently in the US?
How They Got Away with It: White Collar Criminals and the Financial Meltdown
Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Crime, and Criminal Justice
“Cherrypicking”
Are we really defending headlines in articles now?They always are missing nuance, as a rule. All I said was its important not to exaggerate. After reading all the details its still absurd.
I’m saying headlines like that can push people away as much as it can grab them. I generally dont like headlines that are designed to invoke a certain emotional response.
I dont want to discuss how this makes people feel, I want to discuss the details and why things are the way they are, so we can go about trying to fix them.
And you can save the links, although I do enjoy the reading, cause like I said I already agree with your position: its not just or fair or equal or any of that.
Twice as long as the homeless man, yes.
The difference in dollars and impact though, and considering who turned themselves in… It’s still an egregious sentence for $100.
you can’t easily or directly compare the monetary value of violent vs non-violent crime. Robbery is not about the money from a severity perspective. Any robbery will be much more heavily punished than a theft of the same monetary value due to the violence or threat of violence agaist the person or people.
If you stick a gun in someones face and ask them for one cent, you still should be going to jail for a decent amount of time - way more than shoplifting a 500 dollar tv.
15 years does seem a lot though, you might have expected them to at least wave the weapon around, or put it direct to someones head, or put a knife to the throat - that doesn’t seem to be the case here. but if it were less than 5 , I’d think they’d got off lightly for robbery.
The homeless guy should have shoplifted food from grocery store - not gone and threatened someones life.
That’s certainly quite the interpretation of what happened when Roy Brown went into the bank, said “this is a stickup” with no weapon, was handed three stacks of bills, took a single $100 bill, handed the rest back and said “Sorry, I’m homeless”.
In other words, not remotely what you described.
Goodbye.
It wasn’t the amount - It was the “who” that the homeless person robbed. He didn’t steal from a local liquor store or 7/11. He robbed from a bank. And bank robbery, since the time there have been banks to rob from, has always carried certain heavy punishments. And the punishments are well known to even a homeless person. And very often the judge gets no choice or leeway in the sentencing.
And the punishments are well known to even a homeless person.
The bootlicking condescension is strong here.
And TB&W also stole from banks through fraud.
The judge isn’t the issue being called out, the laws and associated punishments are.
So… yes. And my point stands.
40 months is slightly less the six years in the same way my pay check is slightly less than my CEOs
Yeah… Really bending the definition of “slightly” there. It would be far more accurate to day “slightly more than three years”.
“Let’s see Paul Allen’s sentence.”
I love that fraudster’s name is actually Paul Allen
his subtle off-white colouring got him a lighter sentence
Off-white collar crime.
For the curious, this is factual, not just true. Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/homeless-man-vs-corporate-thief/
“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.” - George Carlin
The homeless man understands the actual value of money which is why he felt remorse.
It is whom your stealing from. Madoff for instance robbed the wrong people, should’ve robbed proletarians.
Impressive. Very nice. Let’s see Paul Allen’s sentence.
Lore accurate Paul Allen
End Stage Capitalism: “Laws for thee (the poor), not for me (the wealthy).”
That’s regular Capitalism, end-stage is when Capitalism reaches out internationally to dominate less developed countries with predatory loans (like from the IMF) and exporting Capital to produce goods for far lower wages than you would domestically.
Are you trying to imply that the US doesn’t already do this? They’ve overthrown democratically elected governments all over the latin americas (and other places, like hawaii) and imposed more fascist ones for access to their raw materials. Sure it’s not exactly using loans to do that, but the real end-game is fascism anyways once markets are fully saturated and there are no more ways to generate capital.
Are you trying to imply that the US doesn’t already do this?
No, the exact opposite. We are at End-Stage Capitalism, there’s not much left for it to go.
Tbf, sounds kinda like the homeless man wanted to get caught, maybe for the free rent.
You are showing your innocence.
While a 15 year sentence is definitely too high, it’s important to acknowledge that there is a difference between a bank robbery and fraud.
Yeah, the difference is one’s an honest, victimless crime.
Neither of the crimes is honest nor victimless.
homeless man
He honestly needed money
banks make their money by preying on the poor, and are insured against theft
Victimless
I think the issue with the homeless guys it was possible armed robbery and he probably had priors, so its not an insanely long sentence for what he did.
Someone posted the snopes. It calls into question a bunch of assumptions you’re making.
Calling things into question doesnt mean much. Stories like these 99% of the time are misleading.
yeah priors, i bet this wasn’t the first time he was hungry that piece of shit. these fucking poors always going like “I’m hungry, I’m hungry” like open your fridge dude. mine’s always full of food and I’m not robbing banks to eat. easy life.
Strawman
not a strawman, I’m saying in a corrupt system that leaves people penniless and homeless and then punishes them for daring to fend for themselves, “priors” doesn’t mean shit. it just means the guy was probably forced to do this before because people usually get hungry more than once in a lifetime.
they gave him piles of money and he only took 100 bucks because he was literally just hungry. that’s not a bad guy, that’s a guy desperately trying to stay barely alive.
You have a cartoonish understanding of crime and economics. The system doesnt get people to this point, they system just steals from everyone and makes us poorer, it doesnt make you do crime. You can blame how he was raised on this, and I would bet there is a long string of things this guy has done that are bad.
the fact that you say this stuff and tell me I have a cartoonish understanding of crime is just fabulous. no notes.
Thank you!
The guy turned himself in he felt so bad for stealing $100 from a bank. I don’t think that’s a sign of a bad dude raised poorly.
But the fact he got 15 years for it is a sign that he hasnt led a good life up until then. These stories are all the same, when you look into it a little, the guy has a history of things, or the whole thing is misleading.
they system just steals from everyone and makes us poorer, it doesnt make you do crime.
Ah yes the free choice of humbly accepting being robbed and starving to death. Very popular among understanders of crime and economics.
How many people starve to death in the US each year due to lack of access to food?
