Dan Gillmore responded to my comments about corporate corrupting on his blog:
If financial corruption is this deep in the system, rational investors — the people without whom markets will collapse — will get out and stay out. And if that happens, the economy will go into a depression.
As I said, some of these slime who've ripped off their investors, employees and communities must go to jail. Then we need laws, with teeth, that deal with this situation.
George W. Bush said today he was outraged to hear of WorldCom's fraud. Nice to hear this sentiment — but come on.
Here's my response:
Here's the thing. Everyone I know assumes that the
Enron people will do minimal time and pay substantial — but not
destructive — fines. Further, they assume that Enron's crooks have their
money squirreled away in secret accounts. No matter how they're
punished, their children will go to Ivy League schools without debt
while the children of the shareholders and taxpayers they raped will be
lucky to have a roof over their heads. No matter how they're punished,
they'll someday walk out of minimum-security white-collar jail and put
on a suit worth more than everything in my apartment put together and go
out for a meal worth twice as much on their private Caribbean island
while the people they screwed go hungry.What's justice for these people? What's an effective deterrent? Life in
prison? 50 years? Penury? Scarlet letters?
