Comment by gmd63 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gmd63 | Hacker News Reader

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Money grants you the power to influence others' lives. You take that from people illegally, and give it to yourself, you're creating an extreme negative effect on economic efficiency that should not be taken lightly and should be heavily discouraged.

Bill Hwang had settled insider trading charges a decade or so before he caused 30 billion dollars of liquidations after engaging in multiple forms of financial fraud. His insider trading punishment was likely lax and he committed crimes again, causing even more economic damage.

18 years in prison is nowhere near the amount of economic damage he caused. He amassed a net worth of 10-15 billion dollars. That's ten thousand average lifetimes worth of average American work. The punishment should reflect that. The expected value of fraud should be negative so that not even a degenerate gambler would consider it.

Can you explain your views as to why incentives to harm the economy massively via fraud to benefit yourself need to exist?

> Can you explain your views as to why incentives to harm the economy massively via fraud to benefit yourself need to exist?

I never said that I hold that view nor do I believe it.

Between you falsely ascribing views to me I do not hold and/or lying about my words, avoiding answering my question, and your emotional manipulation, it's clear that you're a troll and I don't have any need to respond to you beyond pointing out your logical fallacies.

If you don't support the current punishments, which evidently don't deter the crime, what's your idea of how they should be strengthened to adequately deter financial crime? I'm not trolling.

I'm not OP, but the obvious question here is whether tougher punishments would be more of a deterrent given that this is something that hasn't been true in many other cases going way back.

In particular, there seems to be substantial evidence that, at least past a certain point (and we can argue whether we are at that point or not, but it's not something self-evident either), what matters more is how likely the punishment is to be applied than how harsh it is, so increasing it further doesn't really do anything productive, just provides a public spectacle.

I disagree. Trevor Milton, the Nikola Motors fraudster CEO will be out after a laughable four years. That's a complete joke.

Do you think he wouldn't do what he had done if the punishment for getting caught would've been worse?

When people see Milton getting locked up for four years, it's in no way proportional to the upside of making out with thousands of lifetimes worth of average honest work. If others who had done similar crimes before him had received more severe punishments he may have chosen not to.

That's not to mention the court's complete lack of concern for recidivism. Look at Bill Hwang. Slapped on the wrist for insider trading -> billions of dollars of later economic damage. Likely chance we'll see the same pattern of behavior from Milton. I'm generally for forgiveness and second chances, but not in the realm of steering thousands of lifetimes worth of honest economic influence.

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