"There are rapists and child molesters walking around free in this country - people need to get some sense of moral proportion."
A rapist or child molester destroys one or a handful of lives, which is terrible.
A guy who calmly defrauds his company, employees, and stockholders of billions destroys thousands.
As with a molestation or rape, the victim lives; but their lives are thrown into chaos, their futures ruined.
Now some outside guy, like me (although I had no stake in Enron) who bought some shares might have had a chance to bail out. The employees, though, were locked out of any chance to escape by transferring their 401k assets.
Those people were ****ed by Ken Lay. I don't want to in any way trivialize the horror of rape or molestation victims but IMO the "only fraud" treatment of white collar crime is 100% off target; the white-collar criminal just savages his victims from afar.
Please. Complete hyperbole.
I've lost a job because a boss of mine made some stupid decisions. It didn't ruin my life - I found another job.
I've also lost substantial money in the markets due to fraud at companies I invested in (Tyco, anyone?) - but that didn't ruin my life either.
If losing a job or losing money ruins your life, then you're not made of very stern stuff.
Money is replaceable and jobs are replaceable.
Comparing that to what a rape victim goes through is just silly.