How White-collar Crime Works

And since you put the two of us a couple of microphones in an ice cold can of refreshing Laquais mineral water together, you have something called Stuff you Should Know. It's a podcast. It's a podcast. I'm looking to see who makes this actually. Oh no, I thought I was gonna say, like Coca Cola and small let No, it's a Sundance beverage company. Oh yeah, they're huge for Minnesota. I think that's perfect. That is a perfect sponsor for stuff.

You know, a little guy that's producing a great product. Agreed. Uh So, Chuck, I've got an intro today. Stop criticizing me. Um. So. Very recently, a trio of Brits economists, British economists, they're like walking saltines. Very exciting. Um. But anyway, these guys did something pretty cool. They studied bank robberies, and their study was published in a journal called Significance. It's actually

kind of a cool journal. It takes statistics and applies it to real world stuff, so it's an interesting statistics journal. If there is such a thing, um, And if there is, this is it. And what these guys found was that bank robbery is actually a really terrible way to make a living. Yes, I would agree with that morally, economically

it's a terrible way to make a living too, the right. Yes, they looked at they looked at a lot of variables, like the number of people involved, and they found that the bigger the gang, the more um, the bigger the hall I guess. But it also meant that's one extra mouth to divide up amongst unless you're like one of those bankrupers that just kills everybody afterward. Yeah, you don't want to get in bed with one of those guys like Ben Affleck, or like in Heat, when there are

a lot of killing afterward. In Heat and in the town ben Affleck's a recent heist movie, a lot of killing going on. I was gonna let that one walk by, but you brought it up twice. I enjoyed it. Um. Oh really uh and okay, So anyway, Um, there's a lot of variables involved. But what they found is, no matter what, in the u K, you can make off with about thirty one graham. That's not bad, per yes, and on average that's what that's what the take was.

So in the UK it's not so bad. Um. But at the same time, thirty one grand, what are you gonna do with that? Yeah? I mean, if you want to live the high life, you gotta rob like four or five banks a year easy, right or right? Okay or um. If you're in the US, you have to rob it more than that. So the UK suffers about a hundred and six bank robbers a year. In the US there's twelve thousand, and of those twelve thousand, the average take is like four grand. They only have how

many a year. That's they have really stiff, stiff gun laws, and I think that probably determs bank robbery because you kind of have a gun or a note in your pocket and that says something. Well, these guys figured out that the presence of a firearm increased your take um. But anyway, so forty bucks that's not much at all now, and about a third of bank robberies I guess in both countries yield nothing zero zero. So it's a lot of hard work, a lot of risk, for very little gain.

The real money is in white collar crime. Oh yes, you want to make some cash quick, maybe one good heist. It's gonna set you up for the rest of your life and even if you're caught. Even if you're caught, the chances are you will have a mild, if any penalty leviaging against you. White collars the way to go. Yeah, we're talking guys who um tell people that they are financial investors and get friends and family and uh parents of the little league that they coach to give them

nine hundred grand. Um. There's other guys who just have little penny stock companies that pump up their um stock prospects called stock touting, and um dump all of their shares. UM. That's investor fraud. They make hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. It's where the real money is, and historically speaking, it has really low risk even if you're called. All right, so we're endorsing white collar crime. We're not endorsing it. I was being facetious. I thought you met

up with white collar crime in no. No. As a matter of fact, it's going down. The times are definitely changing. There's a big struggle going on right now is to figuring out the just the right amount of punishment with white collar crime, because there's a lot of factors involved. It's a lot different from blue collar crime e g. Stealing a car, robbing a bank. There's a lot of

differences that differentiated. Let's separate the two, um And one of those now is the the sentencing forum is probably stiffer, which is a total reversal from how it used to be before. And they've also closed a lot of the club beds down that got so much press. Yes, well they've they've changed them. They're still there, they just are changed. Well, a lot of more shut down like period. Yeah, just

to ship them to real federal penitentiary penitentiaries. Penitentiaries. Uh. That reminded me of a word that will definitely be hearing at some point in this podcast. It's oh yeah, because that's definitely white collar. Part of the problem with white collar crime, Josh, as you know from reading this is that uh um, it's hard to come up with an exact definition of what constitutes it. So that's why they have a hard time getting great statistics on punishment

and finds levied and how many of they're catching. But I'm gonna go with non violent crime that typically involves and you have to sit things like typically because it's kind of all over the map. Typically involves um deceit and fraud given by a perpetrator because of their occupation. Yeah, And for that reason, a lot of times it's called occupational um crime. Yeah. Uh. And if you look at it through that view, which is a very broad view of white collar crime, it's not just the exacts and

the three thousand dollar suits who are perpetrating this. It's the guy who's stealing pencils from work, Yeah, or violent especially somebody asked him if you did it, and he says no, And it's because you are You're You're granted this opportunity through your occupation. I would call that petty theft. It's but I'm saying, like a very very broad definition

of white collar crime that that definitely counts. But for the most part, when you think of white collar you think about the CEO as you think about investor fraud, embezzlement, that kind of stuff exactly. Uh, feds have been after in the United States, uh, in earnest since nineteen seventy four, as far as a a dedicated division the FBI. Yeah, and that's because the NIX and I read and then uh, despite that, about three hundred billion dollars a year. And

that's a pretty rough estimates, the two estimate. So let's talk about a few ways you can commit white color crime. Yeah, because the definition you gave us like beautiful, it's pretty good. Um, and there are some that just like I said, investment fraud or embezzlement or just prototypical white collar crime. Insider trading is one that's a big one which falls under securities fraud, right Uh yeah, I mean it's a type of securities fraud. So basically insider trading. We've I swear

we've done something on this. I don't think so it must have been in our Fenian Freddie presentation then and then we studied a lot of this stuff. Yeah, and I thought we'd done a podcast and I guess not. But insider trading is essentially like, um, let's say that you and I find out that Discovery had an awesome quarter, and so we go and buy a bunch of Discovery stock for nothing, and then it just shoots through the

roof after the stock price comes out. That's inside of trading. Sure, that's using private knowledge about a publicly traded company for your own game. That's a no no we to other people. That would count as well. And then Stewart, yeah, that they took part and then they would be UH insider

traders as well, exactly. And it works the opposite way as well, Like if you find out that there's a lot of terrible information, terrible information is going to make your stock drop that you sell before that information becomes public, you're in trouble, big trouble. Securities fraud, which UM insider trading is kind of like that UM, but it is also manipulated and cooking the book keeper that term of

your own company too. Maybe undervalue UM a stock before it goes public or I mean, there's all different variations, but it basically involves manipulating numbers in a dishonest way, right, that pumping up scheme where it's stocked outing. There's that's all securities fraud. UM and then there's anti trust violations for another good one that this has been kind of

big lately. So, um, Google is supposedly hogging the YouTube metadata, which is preventing Microsoft from making a decent app for it. Yeah and um and Google's like, well, it's proprietary or whatever. And I was like, no, you gotta kind of have to share that. That's they're alleging an antitrust violation. Companies kind of police one another with that. And then also price fixing is a big one, which is like the

opposite of companies policing one another. It's collusion between companies and like Apple and book publishers, um fixing the prices of e books allegedly has been going on. Yeah, yeah, man, it's going on all over the place. That it's it's a dirty, dirty, dirty world bribery one of the oldest tricks in the book. Um. Obviously that's involves some sort of a payoff or a kickback in exchange for uh

whatever information. Um, I get the bid, my company gets your bid with this government job, and I get a little kickback or I give you a little kickback rather um, any kind of maybe favorable decision that can influence your company. Yeah, a little little grease in the palm going on. Here's three high quality frozen steaks. Please consider it, and you say consider granted. And within each of these steaks is a one million dollar bill. It's not even an it

doesn't even exist. What frozen steaks with money in a million dollar bill? Okay, we know about frozen deutsch marks. Somebody sent us a dollar. By the way, I want the dollar. We'll we'll give you fifty cents, right, I guess it's thirty three in the third we gotta give Jerry or cut. Don't go there, we'll talk about it later. Embezzlement Office Space. Everyone's seen the movie Office Space, that little program they had to like shave a sin or

something off of a transaction. That's embezzlement. They were given the opportunity through trust, with books, with accounting, they basically add access to the money and skim them off the top. Which we have done a podcast on schemes um So basically all of the those are all the stars. There's also other ones like m espionage, industrial espionage, corporate SPI, white collar. Remember the lady who tried to sell Pepsi's

secret to coke? Yeah, that was pretty hackney. No Coke's secret to PEPSI because she was like, wait right here she was, and they went and called the cops. She didn't do a real good job, but she was surprised. UM. Environmental law violations like dumping toxic waste. Yeah, covering that up like Aaron Brockovich style. UM. One of the things they point out in here, which is when it comes to things like your little office space scheme that you just touted. UM. A lot of times, it's difficult to

imagine victims. Like in office space, they think no one's gonna miss a penny. Is a huge company, So you commit these crimes without realizing that someone has hurt somewhere down the line. If you dump your stock, your company stock that you know is about the tank. And I'm not saying it's understandable, but if you've like worked your whole career investing in this company with your four own k you know it's about to tank, You're like, man, I need to sell this or else I'm done for.

My family's done for. You don't think about the people buying the stock, they're the victims. No, It's absolutely true, And I mean, like you are being pawned. You're pawning your problem off on somebody else. But I think you paint a really really excellent scenario, Like you can in some cases feel bad for the white collar criminal um, especially if it's just some average Joe who's worried about is for a one case um or in the case of Enron, you don't feel bad for the upper dudes.

You feel bad for everyone in that company that got defrauded, right, But they were strictly victims. They didn't they didn't turn around and like try to dump the stocks. But that that's a very visible case of like screwing over your own employees. But you make a good point, like even if the even if the criminal is sympathetic, there still is a victim, even if it's just some amorphous trader they'll never meet, even if the victim is some like

hedge fund manager. It's really tough. There's like a really weird spectrum here. There's like I don't know if it's a Bell curve or like the UV spectrum, who knows. But there's sympathies like placed in different spot sympathies and anti antipathies placed along this this depending on who did what and what they gained from it and what their motives were agreed, because you gotta also have credit card fraud and computer and mail fraud and counterfeiting and things

like that, like you know the Nigerian email scams. That's white collar. But and they're in the same boat as like ken Ley and Jeff Skillings exactly same scummy crooks. Or let's say you commit a little credit card fraud and you or bankruptcy fraud and you're dislike, does it be easy way to get out of my debts? Or I just say someone stole my credit card. It's very easy there to not envision a a victim because it's

it's Chase Manhattan Bank, and like they're gonna notice. But what happens is they raise the rates on you and me, and all of a sudden, everyone across the board is paying more money for stuff. Yes, that is that is true. That is very true, and that is I think everybody should probably. I think a good companion piece that occurred to me is to go listen to our wide corporations have the same rights as you. One of the fundamental flaws of UM corporate policy is that you serve your

shareholders first. Like you need to adhere to the law, but really, ultimately, like anything you can do to serve your shareholders is your mandate as a as a corporate governor. Um that includes keeping the profit margin as high as possible, which you're not gonna go to your your shareholders and be like, hey, we're making enough money. We took kind of a hit, but we're still making a ton of profit,

so we'll just take a little hit this year. No, it's where we took a hit, so we're gonna fire people. However you reconcile that, I mean, that's your own personal beliefs, like what what you feel about that? But that is reality as far as business goes, Right, there's fraud, there's adjustments to the fraud, absorbing the fraud, and it's the corporation trying to get as lean as possible. Yeah, they're

not going to take the hit for that. They're not gonna say, oh, well, a bunch of people defaulted on their credit cards this year. I guess we'll just have a bad year. And I know in reality that's how it works, but it's I just find it disingenuous to be like, well, everybody suffers, you know, like people lose their jobs because of thought. It's like there's a there's a point b in there that that has to be held accountable to some degree. Well, which is your own

freaking ethical code of conduct? And like, how about not doing that because it's the wrong thing to do. No, but I'm saying, like there's an institution that's absorbing the hit and then turn around firing this poor guy. Yeah, exactly. It's just it's tough because I came across a word when they were describing white collar crime giving a definition of it, and they said, victims colon diffuse. You don't meet the person that the victim passes along the hit

to other people. It's a big it's nebulous. And even if they're raised rates by like a quarter of a percentage point, or you're paying an extra two dollars as a consumer a year, it's like it's still not right. Yeah, you know, it's not right all over the place. So where did this come from? Uh, Josh, it came It sounds like it came from a cold wool delivery boy. I want to know more about this. Was this dude just cold or did he really steal a lot of wool?

So you're talking about the carriers. The Carrier's case of fourteen seventy three, it's the first um white collar trial, yes, um and and it resulted in the first white collar law in fifteenth century England. And this wool transporter was given a bunch of wool and said, hey, take this wool to this person, and it was his job. So he decided to instead just keep the wool for himself

for his own use. So he looked into this more. Yeah, I thought he might have been like cold on his journey and said, you know, I'm gonna keep some of this wool. Now, he kept some of the wool. He I think he kept all of it, but somebody gave it to him. He's like, thanks, chump, and he was. But the key is, and this is something that has has woven into the history of white collar crime. What

he did was not illegal at the time. The law that was enacted as a result of the Carrier's case was they were saying, Okay, this isn't this isn't illegal, but it's obviously there's a huge problem with this, so we're going to create a law right that outlaws this act so people can't do it anymore. Good point, and basically that's what happened. Well, that's kind of what happens with every law. I guess, someone commits it first and then someone says, hey, maybe we shouldn't do that. Yeah, yeah,

I guess. But in this case, especially like uh, the Industrial Revolution in the West, obviously you started getting these larger corporations and all of a sudden, things like monopolies and price fixing and employee uh safety and all these things come into effect for the first time. So that's sort of when it was really born, and when they started saying, hey, we need to look at something called

to trust. Yeah. Again, like monopolies were not illegal, but when a company bought up all of its competitors and said, oh, suddenly the price for your groceries like through the roof,

where else you gonna go, it wasn't illegal. But the the people of the world started screaming and governments finally responded, And it was really the US that first had the real first solid response in the Sherman Anti Trust Act in like the eighteen seventies maybe I think nine, named for John Senator John Sherman, Ohio Republican dude Chairman of the Senate's Finance Senate to Finance Committee, which I didn't

know they even had way back then. I forgot didn't either, but I mean it seems like a basic committee there. So this is interesting. And that it was voted on. It won by vote of in the Senate one in the House by two forty two to zero, so there was one dude that didn't vote for it. And then I think twenty five years later when they came up with the Clayton Anti Trust Actor, really put some punch into the Sherman Act. It was two seventy seven to

seventy four and forty six to sixteen. So in that twenty four years it sounds like maybe things got slightly corrupt here and there. Well it wasn't that it was that. Well, maybe it was, but there was also some real problems with the Sherman Act. It was really vague. It basically said like now from here fourth all um anti competitive corporate measures are illegal, and then it left it to the courts to decide what was what, and the courts weren't really in the mood to enforce it, so it

went largely unenforced. Although American Tobacco Company and Standard Oil like two of the biggest companies in the country were dissolved under the Sherman Act, Standard Oil big time. Imagine that. Like imagine going to a company now and saying like, hey, Apple, you're just too big, so we're gonna dissolve you into thirty one companies. We have all these federal regulators here and they're gonna come in and look at everything, and

that dissolve you into different companies. Sorry, that's what they did. Okay, even still it didn't have enough tea, so they came up with the Clayton Anty Trust Act, and then that one really spelled things out, like, um, you couldn't do price discrimination anymore, which if you were black in America during the Gym Crow era, price discrimination was mind boggling. Oh yeah, you walk into a store if you're allowed in there to begin with, and they'll just make up

whatever price they want. It's it was really I'm reading this, um consumers in an America book, and it's at this point now is really just this blemish on American history. I mean, like slavery wasn't bad enough to like have slavery light through the Jim Crow era. It's just disgusting. Um, Okay, so there was no price discrimination allegedly, corporate mergers were outlawed. Yeah, um.

And then interlocking boards where you have like competitive companies but the same people on the board of each Right, you can't have that. And then also elusive contracts where it's like hey, home Depot, you can sell our um weed whackers, but you can't tell anybody else's those contracts are out right. They do stuff like that now though, right,

maybe not exclusively, but they carry lives. They do not limited number of brands, corporate mergers, interlocking boards, exclusive contracts, all that stuff one a way, it all got chipped away. It's just I mean this, this, this act is like not in forts anymore. Basically, Well, that's one things that bugs me about like grocery or actually the big box

hardware stores. Grocery shopping. You you only have access to what they who they have partnered with, right, whether it's your potato chip that you want or your weed whacker that you want. It's true, and most of the big box stores also have exclusive contracts the other way. It's like, yeah, we'll sell your weed whacker, but you can't sell it no one else can. So it's like a real gamble, I understand, like sign on to one of these giant corporations. Well,

that's one in the Walmart effect. That was one of the things I think they used to. It's like a tent company or an awning company, and like this mom and pop awning company all of a sudden gets a Walmart contract and they're like, sweet, they answered all our prayers. They ordered like thirty thousand and these they ordered thirty thousand, They opened up like three new buildings. Hi are all

these employees. And then the next year they come back and say, we want thirty thousand more, but we're gonna pay you about less. And you've already bought the buildings and even you know, invested in the in the materials and the people, and all of a sudden you're screwed. You know one thing that I've long thought and I'm gonna totally take flak for this, but I still think it's worth saying, like you here, like, well, that's just business.

I feel that any any institution where like morally reprehensible acts can just be you know, off handedly dismissed as a matter of course of that institution is inherently fought. There's an inherent problem with it. Yeah, that's not okay, Like we don't just go, well, that's just murder, you know,

or well that's just stealing, you know, Welcome to earth. Human. No, we have moral and legal guidelines that we follow, and business and corporations have so so long stood outside of these things that it's just it always bugs me when it's just like, what are you gonna do? Yeah, I don't like that. So sorry, I'm off my soap I agree completely. Well, I'm off of my Tide brand soapbox. Well said, um. So, things are kicking along here in

the industrial West. Corporations are getting larger, and all of a sudden, these crimes start happening, and something called a muckraker in the nineteenth than early twentieth century comes about. And I didn't realize a muckraker was exclusively a journalist. Yeah, it's for an investigative journalist. I thought it would was anyone raking muck um. But it's specifically a journalist who basically early on said you know what, there's bad stuff going on see and I'm gonna expose your Oh really,

and he wrote the Jungle Change. Of course, I mean the FDA basically came about because of that investigation that he conducted. Well, muckrakers raked a lot of muck and caused a lot of problems in these companies. And um, one of the things that came about because of the muckraking were, you know, things like the Clayton Act that's exactly right, exposing all this stuff exactly and things like that,

the A Federal Regulations consumer protections. The muckrakers basically stirred up public sentiment like hey, don't be idiots, like this stuff's going on, and a lot of people said, well, it's not illegal. And then unfortunately there were guys like um E. A. Ross who was a criminologist and a sociologist, and he started really kind of looking into this and said, hey man, these people might not be criminal, but let's

all them criminal OIDs. Like that was the coining the coin for people who, especially in business, carried out these terrible acts that weren't illegal. He argued that even though it's not illegal, they're causing ill and these people are still responsible for him. So make a law that outlaws at dummies. And he inspired a guy named E. H. Sutherland. Okay, he came before Sutherland. Yeah, he was at the Ross was working at the time of the muckrakers, and then

Sutherland came about twenty years later. Yeah. Southerland coined the term actually white collar crime in nineteen thirty nine, and he was a criminologist and sociologist, and he pretty much he had a broader definition that basically it was the high society and not the lower class at all committing these crimes, which nowadays he can't really say that because anyone can get a stock tip commit in. You know, it happens all the time across all spectrums of the

class system. But Sutherland's point was, and he wrote a

book called white Collar Crime, UM. His point was that there was a huge bias in the United States, UM where the where law enforcement in the courts leaned heavily on the working class crimes and just basically ignored the crimes of the upper class and said this is not okay, Like, um, if a guy is gonna steal a thousand dollars from a cash register with no gun or anything like that, Like there are other factors, but let's just say a guy steals a thousand dollars from a cash register and

he's poor, and a guy steals a thousand dollars from an investor and he's rich. That's they should be treated equally, and they're not. And that's what Sutherland's point was. And he was sup first dude to really bring this to light, wasn't he. Yeah, well, Ross kind of started to, but Sutherland was very well received. It was well received in certain corners, but there were also certain flaws pointed out

by people over the years. Um One of the things mentioned the articles said that he failed to distinguish illegal crime from deviant mere deviant behavior, like apparently his his whole premise was like you're into donkeys, you're a white collar criminal exactly. And the other thing I mentioned too was that he pretty much said it was anyone like any upper class nonviolent crime, right, And that's definitely evolved, and I think fairly. I think you can be working class,

you can be business class if you like. That's a big, big part of white collar crimes definition is your opportunity arises because of the trust that's granted to you through your occupation. Yeah, even if you're a lower level employee, you still may have access. Like the lady who wanted to sell the Coke secret. She wasn't like a CEO. No,

she was an admin I believe, Yeah, exactly. Um, so there's a there's one thing that that like you said, they like to shoot a hole in Sutherland's theory that or they say his definition is too broad because he

did include behavior that's not illegal. But it's a very legitimate point to say, you kind of have to because if not, then we wouldn't have had the Sherman an Anti Trust Act, we wouldn't have had the Clayton next, we wouldn't have had um, you know, the FDA, all of these things that uh that the carrier's case, he would have gotten off scott free, and what he did was not illegal. So it has to evolve over time. Agreed, Okay, and it has agreed. So let's talk about, um, I

guess the impacts of today's modern white color CRME. I was like man that was suspensible all of a sudden. Um. Yeah. We've talked about a few of these about it seemingly not having a victim. But what happens is, um, you rip off a huge corporation, the race of prices. There's another ripple effect. You talked about cutting jobs to meet you know, the needs of the investors if it's a

publicly traded company. Um, when there's stock fraud committed insider scandals like Enron are going to ripple out throughout the stock market cause, like you know, basically cause people to be unsure and have no faith in the stock market all the sudden. Yeah that's dangerous. Yeah, I think about all the people who just lost everything. Oh my god, I get Yeah, I get just as angry, if not more angry at something like that than you know, something

like heinous crime. Yeah, that's an equal Yeah, they're both scumbags. Okay. Um, so you said, like in seventy four the FBI first started they that's when they've created this white color Kime division.

So apparently like yes, and it was a response like this University of Michigan survey that they conducted between nineteen fifty eight, I think in nineteen seventy three, they found that, um, people who said that they trust the federal government went from seventy three to thirty seven percent between nineteen fifty eight and nineteen seventy three. Yeah, flo flopped. I could

see that over that time period. The sixties. Yeah, one of the big ones was just like fraud and corruption at high levels, and so the FBI created this white collar crime thing. One of the other things that differentiates white collar crime from regular working class crime is the police's ability to police it. Right, you walk into a room and there's some guy weighing out cocaine, he's a criminal. You walk into a room and there's some guy on

a computer doing a pump and dump scheme. Who knows that average cop isn't equipped to detect this kind of crime. And as a matter of fact, even very very well trained cops aren't typically equipped to detect this kind of crime. One of the hallmarks of white collar crime is that it's very difficult to prove. It's very difficult to uncover, and it's also difficult to prosecute. Yeah, and there's no uh, smoking gun, there's no paper trail, or there may be

a paper trail, but it's probably electronified. Sure, so it's a little harder to follow. You gotta really, you know, you gotta have people that know what they're doing. And that's why the FBI created that division, And I guess they're doing a good job, but it's kind of hard. Well, the Justice Department has been going after white collar crime lately under Obama pretty hard here there. Um, and then the Sarbanes Oxley Act definitely step things up, and some

say too much. Yeah, I mean I've had to comply with this at various uh when I worked in the film as Is production, companies had to like to jump through way more hoops of paperwork because the Sarbanes Oxley do you want to talk to you want to tell them? Well, it's it was in two thousand two, and it was to improve corporate governance, which is basically accountability between corporation

and the stakeholders. What it amounted to was a lot more paperwork, essentially more proving of numbers and showing numbers and jumping through hoops. It was a direct reaction from of the fallout of Enron, from the fallout of en On and Tycho and like all the other companies around that time. Um. But one of the other things that did chuckers was, um A quadrupled sentences in a lot of cases for white collar crime. So now you have guys like Bernie made Off getting a hundred and fifty years.

There's a guy named Sholem Weiss who was involved in like the breakup of some insurance company. He got eight hundred and forty five years. He gets out in twenty seven fifty four. I don't think he's gonna see that. I don't either, But I mean a guy named rich Harkness got a hundred years for thirty nine million dollar ponzi scheme like these and all of this is like post Sarbanes Oxley, except Sholm Wisse, which is really saying something. But but I mean, like, so now now sentences are

like quadruple. It's like, well, wait a minute, maybe maybe this is a little too much like just retribution on the rich. It is, and that's kind of I think why a lot of people are having a hard time feeling bad. Are ridiculously wealthy people who were hucksters and frauds, or people who built people out of their retirement accounts.

It's tough to feel sorry for him. But legally speaking, it's like, well, wait a minute, um, you were worried about the guy who stole a thousand dollars out of it till being treated differently from the guy who stole a thousand dollars from an investor. Now it's flip floped.

How is that any better. One of the arguments for these kind of things is that these people are traditionally and historically have been treated differently because they look like the judges that are sentencing them, and so judges historically like really have taken it easy on them. Um, let's go ahead and just call them white dudes, Okay, but they also have been Um, you can make the case

that they are usually first time offenders, they're usually family people. Um, that's that's something that the judges put out there, like, well, this is a family man, he's not much of a flight risk, he's probably never going to do this again of the society. Yes, he didn't use a weapon, which is a huge, huge differentiation, and so sentences have typically

typically been light. But um, you can you can also kind of say, well, you know where where it feels like we haven't quite felt it out, Like we've traditionally ignored white collar crime. Now we're really sticking it to him. Well, it's that whole argument with prison. Is it like punishment for a crime done or is it rehabilitating a person

who has a problem with crime? Well, within eight hundred and forty five years sentence, it's making an example out of that person, because since you can't police it, another way to prevent it is to send a message through the courts, like you do this man, you're going to prison for a long time. Yeah. I don't know if that's such a deterrent though for some of these people.

I don't know. I mean, I think about it. Twenty years in a in a federal penn You say Club fed is not around any longer, um, And I mean this, this is like twenty actual years. Um. Some guy named Thomas Peters recently got fifty years and he will spend forty years in jail. And he's fifty two, and he will probably die in prison. Now that's a big deal with somebody who's like, well, maybe I shouldn't do this insider track, Maybe I should let this fifty grands just

walk by because it's not really worth it. Well something like that. I'm talking about the ones who are getting rich by the tens of millions of dollars. What I want to see is that these people don't get out of prison and still have all those millions of dollars like hidden in different foreign accounts and offshore islands and ah. Like. The financial part is what really bugs me. I meant to,

I didn't get a chance. I meant to look up and see if any of the en Ron victims and employees where ever repaid or if they were just s O L. I'm under the distinct impression they were s ol because the company was in such bad shape that even dissolving it. And I think I think they some people did get money, but I don't think it was

anything approaching what they lost. Well, whoever commits these crimes gets out of jail and they have two pennies to rub together, then those two pennies more than they should have. I think, Well, that's the thing. Like, so, the government started prosecuting under the Rico Act, which is the same thing they bust up mafia organizations with UM and they've

been fighting white collar crime with that. And one of the things about the Rico Act as it allows states and individuals who are harmed to sue for up to three times the damages. Yeah, but even then all they have to do is say, yeah, I don't have that money. You kid me. Well, it's true, can't pay it. No,

it's true. But like UM in the made Off case, the guy who's who was assigned to basically get money back for investors has gotten I don't remember how much made off fleece, but let's say it was eight billion. The guys managed to like get like six billion back. Yeah, he's done a really good job of getting the money back. And that's just a that's that's an example. It's not a figure, but it's it's something pretty significant. You're still

gonna get email. I'm looking forward to the ones. But it's like, hey man, we don't listen to you for free to hear your opinion about class. All right, let's move on to other countries. Um, things are different all over the world. Um. Obviously, when it comes to big business and business dealings. Uh. Western Europe has followed right behind the US, UH most wholeheartedly with laws to prevent corruption.

Eastern Europe's coming on board a little slower. Um. But then you go into other countries like in Western Africa, and it may be customary to Greece palms to get a deal going, or in India where apparently, if you're a truck driver, you're gonna have to bribe people to keep your rig on the road. And that's just how it is there, right, And not only is it customary. It's frequently legal, yeah, Russia. Yeah, bribes all over the place. If you want to land contract, you might have to

bribe somebody. So if you're a multinational corporation, it's tough to do this headquarter in America. Yeah, you have like a real problem facing you. Especially, like I said, the UM Justice Department under Obama has been prosecuting white color crimes and going big time after UM people under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which says if you're an American company, you can't engage in bribes, even if it's legal in that country. Yeah. But what's the point, like why hamstring

American business abroad? Exactly? UM? And to help this out, actually, there has been a unified committee called the UM company I'm sorry committee called Transparency International, and they are out to get rid of corruption and to unify business business ethics all over the world. Right, And that's the that's the reason that you hamstring American business because it's basically saying, hey, uh, we can take the hit in the hopes of pressing the rest of the world into the same clean up

their act. Competitive laws we have here in the States that work very well. It's so good luck to them. Yeah, that's it, man, I got nothing else. No, we should we should play this one out with um the talking heads big business agreed. Okay, Um, so Chuck, let's see. Uh. If people want to learn more about white collar crime, I would strongly advise them to go read this article by Jay McGrath of John And there's a Simpsons reference

in it. It's a way to go, Jane. Um. You can type in white collar crime in the search part how stuff works dot com, which friend oh brings up listener. Ma'am, that's right, Josh, I'm gonna call this, uh hot off. The press is good cause I'm okay, Chuck and Josh and Jerry. I want to say thank you for all the hours of listening. My brother Chase and I've been listeners nearly as long because you have been making them.

There was even one New Year's Day where all we would do was listen to your hangover podcast on UP. I don't think. I don't know if that's good for hangover. Uh. It's funny and informative, and I always feel like calling my brother after listening to the latest episode. I'm writing you because it's recently his birthday. He's the best brother in the world and downright awesome human being. It would mean a lot to me if you could tell the

stuff you should know listeners about his latest project. When his friend Jim survived cancer, he told Chase that he gained strength in the music he loved. Over two years, two hundred, twenty six hundred tracks, two hundred tracks, that's a weird way to put it. What would that be? Two would that be? Wait? How many two hundred? Dred would it? Or dred? No? Plus two hundred, twenty hundred nearly two hundred artists persons insane, No, she's not. Over

two years, two hundred tracks. Nearly two hundred artists from other countries all over the world have allowed them to share that message. They are releasing their second compilation disc Electronic Saviors colon Industrial Music to Cure cancer. So it's these artists compilations are putting together apparently two tracks. Uh. They're a registered US charity and all proceeds go to cancer research. And if you want, if you're into electronic music and if you want to support cancer research, you

can go to www. Dot Electronic Saviors dot com. And that is something Chase has got going and his sister Laura Dudley. UH is a big fan of her bro He sounds like a swell guy. I'm all for it. Cancer. We had to promote a good cause, chuckers. We try to do that. Um. Yeah, we always want to hear about good causes. So you can get in touch with us. Let us know about yours. We'll try our best to let everybody else know about it, especially if people can

support it. Agreed. Um, let's see also enjoy Little Talking Heads, Big Business from the live album Stop Making Sense released to nine eight four. We're sure it's up on iTunes, Amazon and elsewhere. Um. You can get in touch with us at s Y s K podcast on Twitter. Uh, you can go to Facebook dot com slash stuff you should Know, and you can send us a regular old email by wrapping it up, spanking it on the bottom, and sending it off to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com.

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