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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (41702)	3/8/2010 1:26:27 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Except in the sense of clearly being a violation of a statute or a regulation (and often even in that sense since the applicable law can be unclear), white collar crime is often less clearly crime than blue collar crime. Not every white collar criminal is Bernie Madoff. (Who clearly was a criminal, and on a massive scale), many white collar crimes are more technical violations. Look at Martha Stewart. Insider trading is less of a crime than fraud, and in any case she was never convicted of insider trading. (I'm not necessarily saying she was innocent of crimes, or that she didn't deserve to be convicted of anything, I'm talking about the charges that where actually brought) -------------- reason.com reason.com reason.com

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (41702)	3/8/2010 1:30:45 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Congress and it's lobbyists WANTED the laws to be written very 'loose' for what we call White Collar Crime. They are often loose in the sense of being poorly defined. Then those with support in the enforcement bodies can get off when perhaps they shouldn't while some of those who lack such support might get nailed when they shouldn't or get nailed harder then they should; and others who never get charged with anything are subject to more arbitrary control or influence by government officials, and the fear of being prosecuted without even clearly violating the law. If the regulator's action is to say "stop doing that", than there is some justification (but still problems) with allowing the regulator to make judgment calls. If the regulator's action is a prosecution that can result in heavy fines or prison terms, than the law needs to be clearly laid out ahead of time IMO.