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.
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.
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".
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.
Absolutely agree, you're preaching to the choir
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.
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.
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.
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.
For the curious, this is factual, not just true. Source: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/homeless-man-vs-corporate-thief/
I misread your sentence as "this is factually not true".
"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.
“Let’s see Paul Allen’s sentence.”
his subtle off-white colouring got him a lighter sentence
Off-white collar crime.
I love that fraudster’s name is actually Paul Allen
i once heard someone say "prison is for people who steal hundreds, not millions". this is an exception that there's even any sentence for the top one.
Homeless guy shoulda stolen $3b instead of just $100 🤷🏻♂️
It is whom your stealing from. Madoff for instance robbed the wrong people, should've robbed proletarians.
Impressive. Very nice. Let's see Paul Allen's sentence.
We finally found evidence of something trickling downwards. Or pouring down, rather.
The first time I saw this picture, I was in middle school. It may well have been my first introduction to politics and started me down the path of leftism in general. Over a decade later and nothing's changed.
Should have used that 100$ to invest in a better lawyer. /s
Let's see him get a reservation at the Dorsia now, the stupid fucking bastard.
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.
Lore accurate Paul Allen
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.
Tbf, sounds kinda like the homeless man wanted to get caught, maybe for the free rent.
You are showing your innocence.
Yeah, that wasn't remorse. That was not wanting to live on the streets and being desperate to have a consistent amount of food.
Yeah. No wonder they threw the book at him.
I mean come on, who is really the one more deserving of punishment here: the fine upstanding job creator who had a small and momentary lapse of judgement, or the clearly bootstrap-deficient monster who – after choosing to be poor – doesn't have the moral fortitude to live on the streets like he should?
Right. Even if we assume that's the case it only explains one guy getting a harsh sentence. It doesn't explain the guy with a way harsher crime not getting a harsh sentence.
Think of it this way. If the other guy had robbed the bank empty, just for the sake of the argument he stole 3 billion, and he didn't turn himself out do you think he should've gotten 40 months?
