@cystic:
So i’m reading this that people who save paying 2 cents a tuna tin by claiming that thier tuna does not have extra fins deserve the same punishment as those who rape and kill, am i correct?
Not the same, a similar.
They should be punished harsher than robbers, burglars etc. These only steal from one person, while the others steal from the public (by avoiding taxes etc forcing the state to collect the taxes where they can not “run away”, the “ordinary citizen”). They undermine the morale (“hey, they can avoid taxes and arenot punished, so then i take the same right for me”). So, they should not be treated like murderers but like enemies of the states, traitors and the like.
- passing on the savings to the customer in order to remain competitive
- using this to expand as a company, or
- passing the savings as profits to shareholders, stockholders, and mutual fund portfolio owners.
@(1): If all other payed the tax, noone would get a competition benefit. But with only some paying it, the criminals only get the benefit.
@(2): Could do that, that would be good for “economy as a whole”, but if you take competition at the heart of that, then the not-cheating ones are the ones suffereing, who can not expand. Again an edge for the criminals i am not willing to give.
@(3): You forgot to mention the rise in the CEOs salary :)…… which, as i cited somewhere else, went up higher than the salaries of the workers. So, the criminally earned benefit would be used not to close the income-gap, but to enlarge it. Poor, working people probably would not profit that much of it. Always a good way to increase social unrests and then suppress it “in the name of peace, law and justice” without adding “of the rich” :) … i know, oversimplified and too short, but please tell me what kind of system is better: with a small income-gap and social peace, or a large income gap and whatever measures it takes to keep the ones at the low end quiet?
I have to tell you, i’ve always believed me to be a capitalist with somewhat of a sociallist conscience. Apparently i’m way out to left field relative to German standards of wrong doing.
Even for german standards i am left-wing…. but you are close to a commie on US standards, which surely am :)
Would we then not put people who commit B&E’s into that category? I mean the cause people to live in fear, they drop property values in entire cities, and they steal property. Surely this is a capital crime as well.
If i knew what B&E is…
but see above: the difference is between direct crimes against the society/community/state or indirect crimes.
Robbers intent to steal stuff from a single person/victim, tax evaders intent to steal from the public/all of us as victims.
The intention is important, otherwise all accidental killings could be accused as murder.
I bet that there are a whole bunch of crimes out there that might qualify as “capital crimes” given just about any criteria, so what makes the ones you’ve selected so appropriate?
Is “enemy of the state”-ship a capital crime? Maybe i just picked the wrong word… i should look up my dictionary at www.leo.org more often…
As for these CEO’s - the punishment should fit the crime. The degree to which they profited should determine the degree to which they are punished. I.e. if a man makes 2 B Euros committing a crime, not only should the full amount be repayed, but he should also pay an extra 2 B euros, even if this requires some kind of indentured service until this is paid in full.
Well, if he paid the extra money ouf of his own box, then i could agree. But at the moment, in germany, the CEOs are not personally liable. That is a problem, because the risk for yourself is close to zero.
If his hubris can be directly determined to cause 10 jobs, …
grins with this many of your upper comments lose a lot of weight and gain only rethorical value :)
then his life work should be finding jobs for these 10 people or paying for them to find work at their previous salary until they do, etc. I believe this would show an appropriate amount of societal repudiation for these crimes,
True, and something i could agree with. Unfortunately, if there is a criminal CEO and a non-criminal one…. then the non-criminal one will more probably lose his company/is forced to fire people to save money etc to make up that unfair adavantage in competition. Is that directly enough? If the criminal CEO avoided taxes, will he have to pay it with the interest the state had to pay because of that lost money?
without equating them with truly evil people - Nazi’s, murderers, lawyers, and smokers.
:)……
Q:what is 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
A: a good beginning