When you consider what Mary McCarty did to possibly get sentenced to up to five years of jail time, can you really compare it to what Stewart Parnell, the owner of Peanut Corporation who knowingly shipped out peanut-butter with Salmonella that sickened 600 people and linked to 9 deaths? And what about Bernie Madoff’s crime? The SEC, equally as guilty in this matter for not getting off its butt to investigate, was informed about him and his Hedge Fund near the end of 2005 and did NOTHING. Madoff wiped out $50 billion worth of wealth that affected people all over the globe. And now we know that his wife tried to hide $15 million right before Bernie was arrested. Doesn’t she deserve to be jailed?
We have banks, that after getting bailout money, went on junkets to Las Vegas and paid themselves bonuses for failure. Merrill Lynch allocated bonuses for its top executives in December in the amount of $3.6 BILLION dollars, just days before it was merged into Bank of America.
Greed and gall comes in all degrees. Because one person takes that free trip or that discounted hotel room and does not disclose or votes in a way that he or a family member will profit, does it make it less dishonest? Less fraudulent? Less criminal? Less transparent?
These “entitlements” always start with the little things and soon, after getting away with dishonesty over and over again, it escalates to what happened above. Each time you commit an illegal or dishonest act, it gets easier. It brings down companies and government officials with a lot of the criminal activity entwined and millions of people get hurt or wiped out.
The FBI is now shifting its focus away from counter-terrorism to concentrate on corporate crime. We know that they are active here in Palm Beach County, still investigating local officials and their ties to corruption and companies that came before them for votes. If there is any crime more deserving of investigation, it is this financial mess, the worst since 1929. A lot of people need to go to jail.
I hope that they do come to Lake Worth. There have been many political decisions that have cost the taxpayers dearly and some that made absolutely no sense at all.
