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Yeah but what they are going to do is make sure they get those protections back. They aren't going to get better.

Imagine all the outrage from red state conservatives if we attempted this.

Hold them accountable for all the preventable deaths resulting from them screwing around with the economy. 2008 would have seen a ton of them going to prison for the rest of their life.

I don't care for billionaires or the death sentence.

If we revised the system I could be okay with the death sentence in some situations but the way it is now makes absolutely no sense.

USA enters the chat

You can keep the 3 billion and live?

No, as another comment pointed out, that isn't legal. The assets she has from her embezzled money aren't liquid; she doesn't have $12 billion literally sitting in a bank account. These have to be sold off for đồng, and especially if she's forced to quickly sell them off in exchange for her life (somehow another reason why the death penalty is stupid), she'll likely retrieve substantially less than she could otherwise by being able to wait for better opportunities to sell.

She still deserves to be in jail. $12 billion is no small amount, and if she can pay back that $9 billion, or even if she can pay back the entire amount, she still had committed a serious crime and deserves to go to jail.

And don’t even think about her keeping that $3 billion. That’s illegal money that she still needs to pay back.

I fully support it for the rich and powerful just because prisons can't reliably hold them. If they're not put in the ground, they'll worm their way out of consequences eventually.

You're completely right.

However, I feel like I'd make an exception for people who massively contribute to an actual existential threat to humanity. Ie billionaires. All billionaires.

I'm not saying we should kill them. I'm saying we should use the possibility of that being on the table to make them pay their taxes. The entire planet is ruined by billionaires when we could literally everyone have enough to have our basic needs met while having an economy and industry which isn't on track to make the planet uninhabitable for us, seeing as it's the only planet known to support life.

Yes, all life is important. That's why all life should be protected by making sure the planet doesn't become one huge airfryer. If while doing that a few billionaires get guillotined, I'm honestly fine with it. I'd prefer they'd just actually help people instead of being selfish assholes, but if them being selfish assholes is putting everyone else in danger, then the choice is clear, no matter your views on the death penalty. (Which as you say, shouldn't be a thing.)

Revolutions aren't pillow fights.

Why, though? The usual reasoning for abolishing the death penalty is the argument that we might make a mistake and mistakenly sentence innocent people to death. But what about crimes like this, where the crime is entirely on paper, fully documented, and with no risk that you're prosecuting the wrong person?

Edit: I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted with no replies. I'm asking an actual question here, if you disagree why not state your opinion?

Nonsense. I oppose the death penalty for almost all crimes. It's just too easy to render an inaccurate verdict, and you can't undo an execution.

But we don't have any doubt about billionaires. They're verifiably guilty beyond any shadow of a doubt.

I also think they should be able to avoid the death penalty by giving up their wealth and living on minimum wage for a number of years equal to the number of billions they captured and withheld from society.

Seems to be a common mindset among americans. As european I don't understand it.

They defrauded 12 billion, only have to pay 9? Sounds like they just made 3 billion.

So not fundamentally, then.

Seriously. If she was born in the West, she'd be on the cover of Forbes and taking photos next to celebs.

So make it a one time only thing then? Next billionaire you have in the dock will know you can’t be trusted to keep your word (“return the money and your life will be spared“) and so will have zero reason to cooperate.