http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-12/18/content_920158...
Businesswoman gets death sentence for defrauding investors out of tens of millions of dollars vs. Businesswoman gets death sentence for fundraising
Is it even possible, concerning the usual secrecy of similar processes?
The Chinese source states: "The money was used for Wu's personal consumption and in paying back the loans and operation costs of her company, said the court."
Now this is a quote from the court which is something that should have been available to the Economist. Nevertheless the Economist made it sound that she was only persecuted for accepting financing from unofficial sources, not that she was doing anything improper with the financing.
A death sentence for running a ponzi scheme sounds like a bit much (but then again I am against most death sentences) but it is a lot less unjust than a death sentence for only accepting financing from unofficial sources, which is what the Economist makes it sound like.
I can't agree with that. I read only the Economist article before coming to the comments here, and I managed to figure out that she was being charged with active fraud. I figured it out from things like mentioning a promise of an 80% return on investment, or possibly lending out money she received at usurious interest rates.
I think you may be missing the point of the last paragraph, which is that the plea bargain is to plead guilty to the crime of raising funds in the way Chinese entrepreneurs have been doing, not that she actually did it. She didn't, which why it's a plea bargain, but it's concerning that what she bargained to is a death-penalty crime, apparently.
To be fair, this article seems to be a little shorter than it should be; it requires closer reading than it should. And I'd also point out that she still appears to be getting the death penalty for that charge, which is worth reacting to.
(If you ignore the "China is Evil" bit for a minute) It kind of makes sense: you steal money from a country, maybe go to jail for a bit, leave the country, reunited with all your stolen money. Not so good.
From the government's point of view, why should crimes of violence like murder or aggravated sexual assault warrant a harsh punishment, but economic crimes that affect vastly greater numbers of people receive more lenient treatment?
Given that we can approximate a lifetime's productive labour to, say, $1M, a fraud involving multiple millions in stolen money amounts to alienating multiple life's worth of work. Steal $500M and you've done the equivalent of wiping out five hundred lifetimes' work.
If your perspective is that the judicial system exists to punish crimes against the state, then a $500M fraud is considerably worse than the actions of a serial killer.
(That's not the judicial theory we run on here in Scotland, but it's rather closer to the way things work in one-party states.)
If you hold any other opinion, you are fooling yourself. A lot of people will go to great length to deny it, but if you think about it unprejudiced, you'll have to accept it. There are just too many instances where spending amount X of money can save a life and people make the conscious decision not to do so because X is more than they can or want to afford. Usually they'll rationalize or otherwise hide this reason (or even the fact that they even made a decision), but it's there.
And this is indeed the founding assumption at which many totalitarian regimes operate.
How does this have anything to do with totalitarian regimes?
Now this is a promising beginning. Put that Randian tone aside if you want to be taken seriously.
> There are just too many instances where spending amount X of money can save a life and people make the conscious decision not to do so because X is more than they can or want to afford.
We're not talking about saving someone's life in varying circumstances. We are talking about cut-off figure that makes e.g. financial crime punishable by death. Those societies that practice it, tend to be totalitarian, with the conversion rate to e.g. RMBs or Soviet Roubles written down in criminal law.
I can't say how accurate/objective it is, but based on the discussions on TV and on the Internet, it seems to be fair, and most importantly, very detailed.
Hopefully there will be people left to run the country after their property and construction bubble pops.
Here are a list of financial crimes punishable by death, per Wikipedia (hope this is a reliable source since there seems to be a debate above!)
* 12. Whoever, for the purpose of illegal possession, unlawfully raises funds by means of fraud
* 13. Whoever commits fraud by means of financial bills in any of the following ways:
o (1) knowingly using forged or altered bills of exchange, promissory notes or cheques;
o (2) knowingly using invalidated bills of exchange, promissory notes or cheques;
o (3) illegally using another's bills of exchange, promissory notes or cheques;
o (4) signing and issuing a rubber cheque or a cheque, on which the seal is not in conformity with the reserved specimen seal, in order to defraud money or property; or
o (5) signing or issuing bills of exchange or promissory notes without funds as a guaranty, in the capacity of a drawer, falsely specifying the particulars thereon at the time of issue, in order to defraud money or property.
* 14. Whoever commits fraud by means of a letter of credit in any of the following ways:
o (1) using a forged or altered letter of credit or any of its attached bills or documents;
o (2) using an invalidated letter of credit;
o (3) fraudulently obtaining a letter of credit; or
o (4) in any other ways.
* 15. Whoever falsely makes out special invoices for value-added tax or any other invoices to defraud a tax refund for exports or to offset tax money if the amount involved is especially huge, and the circumstances are especially serious, thus causing especially heavy losses to the interests of the State.
* 16. Whoever forges or sells forged special invoices for value-added tax shall, if the number involved is especially huge, and the circumstances are especially serious so that economic order is seriously disrupted.For example, the courts don't have a working appeals process. People can appeal, but they have to go to Beijing to plead their case. And the central government punishes the provinces when too many people from their province do this.
So what do the provinces do? Why, they kidnap people in Beijing, of course.
They seem to keep track of people when they try to get justice, but not who's ripping them off.
If they are smart, those in charge would make reforming this situation a top priority. They have a lot of internal dissent. Improving the legal system would help.
Of course, that's probably a very tall order.