Hacker News Reader

Comment by isk517 | Hacker News Reader

Depends on the rules and laws. The system tends to be very good at punishing rich people that swindle money from other rich people.

View on HN

In other words, when the elite are impacted the full force of law will be brought to bear on the perpetrator of the injustice. This used to be called aristocracy. We've spent the past 250 years pretending it doesn't exist here in the States.

I find it funny how we use phrases like "Russian oligarchs" all the time without batting an eye, but we never use them when referring to the Bushes or the Clintons in the US.

There's a minor genre of imagining US journalism standards for world reporting applied to reporting on the US: https://slate.com/tag/if-it-happened-there

LOL. It's telling that even in these satires they don't quite get the tone right - it still has a tinge of US- centrism in there

The power resides in generational wealth not some commoners who got lucky. These people don't need to hold elected office because they can buy whatever they want, including manipulating government in their favor.

Nobility is specifically included from Forbes wealthiest list. They really don't want to draw attention.

*excluded

The Clintons and Bushes are not really oligarchs. They represent a monarchy maybe of inherited wealth and status.

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerburg are better examples of oligarchs because they managed to create their own wealth and with that obtained political clout.

> they managed to create their own wealth

Haha, there's that fiction. See how deeply it pervades all thinking about power and success in the US?

I take that politicians are more of useful tools. Not the people who have any real power or wealth.

> The system tends to be very good at punishing rich people that swindle money from other rich people.

… Eventually? I'm surely not the only one who thinks of Madoff first, and he got away with it for almost a decade after suspicions were first reported.

Ah, but Madoff was also making money for other rich people, so the system took some time to decide what to do.

Madoff got 150 years once he was convicted, though you are correct, I probably should have stated that the system is very good at punishing rich people that are CAUGHT swindling other rich people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com