The Plutocracy Is Alive and Well
Let's Hear It for White Collar Crime!
Every once in a while a new piece of highly credible information comes along that whacks me upside the head. A sort of shameful response is "I knew that." This is one of those once-in-a-whiles. Heads up.
PROVEN: Big, well known, highly successful companies are more likely to commit "Vast corporate illegalities" than smaller or troubled companies. As an impressive research project has discovered:
Big name corporations more likely to commit fraud
One paragraph from the Washington State University research captures it:
“Prestigious companies, those that are household names, were actually more prone to engage in financial fraud, which was very surprising,” said Jennifer Schwartz, WSU sociologist and lead author on the study. “We thought it would be companies that were struggling financially, that were nearing bankruptcy, but it was quite the opposite. It was the companies that thought they should be doing better than they were, the ones with strong growth imperatives–those were the firms that were most likely to cheat.”
Individual crime gets all the space on the local news, while the crimes against all of us go under investigated, under reported and under prosecuted. Would a weakened IRS, a complicit Justice Department, a defanged SEC or millions in campaign donations have anything to do with this? Just asking.
I know scheming, cheating, and lying are basic human behaviors. But when big, well regarded corporations do it (throw in impunity besotted CEOs and lots of lawyers), they get away with it a lot. That's the raw material for a plutocracy. Whether one actually fully develops and we all become the vassals of the plutocrats depends on the leadership of the country in peril. It depends on ENFORCING THE LAWS. 
Some of us plutocrats are rather young.
So come on new Democratic administration, lead us back to the land of honesty, fairness, justice and, above all, truth! When they do the crime they should do the time.... and make restitution to all they robbed. Throw the book at white collar criminals. (And the bookshelf, the paperweights, the lamp....)
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