September 19, 2020 • 45 mins
White-collar crime often involves fraud and other nonviolent acts. For most people, the term "white-collar crime" conjures up images of CEOs conniving their way to fortune. But what is it, really? Listen in as Josh and Chuck break down the facts in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, your old pal, and for
this week's s Y s K Selects, I've chosen one
of those overlook gems from way back in July of
two thousand twelve, eight years ago. Can you believe that?
It's how white collar crime works? So sit back, relax
and learn about how the other half commits crime. Welcome
(00:23):
to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart
Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant uh stipping
on his laquais uh mineral water. And um, this isn't
(00:44):
even a sponsored by location and done this like two
or three times? Yeah, I agree, call us uh. And
since you put the two of us a couple of
microphones in an ice cold can of refreshing laqua mineral
water together, you have something called Stuff you Should Know.
It's a pod cast. It's a podcast. I'm looking to
see who makes this actually. Oh no, I thought I
(01:06):
was gonna say, like Coca Cola and smaller. No, it's
a Sundance beverage company. Oh yeah, they're huge for Minnesota.
I think that's perfect. That is a perfect sponsor for stuff.
You should know a little guy that's producing a great product. Agreed,
lax uh so chuck, Yes, I've got an intro today. Awesome, misses,
(01:26):
stop criticizing me. I mean, um so. Very recently, a
trio of Brits economists British economists dry, They're like walking saltines.
They're very exciting. Um. But anyway, these guys did something
pretty cool. They studied bank robberies and their study was
published in a journal called Significance. It's actually kind of
(01:50):
a cool journal. It takes statistics and applies it to
real world stuff, so it's an interesting statistics journal. If
there is such a thing, um, and if there is,
this is it. And what these guys found was that
bank robbery is actually a really terrible way to make
a living. Yes, I would agree with that morally, Economically
it's a terrible way to make a living too, the right. Yes,
(02:14):
they looked at they looked at a lot of variables,
like the number of people involved, and they found that
the bigger the gang, the more um, the bigger the hall.
I guess. But it also meant that's one extra mouth
to divide up amongst unless you're like one of those
bank robbers that just kills everybody afterward. Yeah, you don't
want to get in bed with one of those guys
like Ben Affleck or like in Heat when there are
(02:35):
a lot of killing afterward and heat. Yeah, and in
the town ben Affleck's a recent heist movie. Yeah, a
lot of killing going on. I was gonna let that
one walk by, but you brought it up twice. I
enjoyed it. Um. Oh really uh okay, So anyway, Um,
there's a lot of variables involved. But what they found
is no matter what, in the u K. You can
make off with about thirty one graham. That's not bad,
(02:57):
per yes, and on average that's what that's what the
take was. So in the UK it's not so bad. Um.
But at the same time, thirty one grand what are
you gonna do with that? Yeah, I mean, if you
want to live the highlight, you gotta rob like four
or five banks a year, easy, right or right? Okay
or um. If you're in the US, you have to
rob a lot more than that. So the UK suffers
(03:19):
about a hundred and six bank robbers a year. In
the US there's twelve thousand, and of those twelve thousand,
the average take is like four grand. They only have
how many a year England and six that's amazing. They
have really stiff, stiff gun laws and I think that
probably determ bank robbery because you kind of have a
gun or a note in your pocket and that says something. Well,
(03:42):
these guys figured out that the presence of a firearm
increased your takea Um. But anyway, so forty bucks that's
not much at all now, and about a third of
bank robberies, I guess in both countries yield nothing zero zero,
So it's a lot of hard work, a lot of risk,
for very little gain. The real money is in white
(04:04):
collar crime. Oh yes, you want to make some cash quick,
maybe one good heist. It's gonna set you up for
the rest of your life. And even if you're caught.
Even if you're caught, the chances are you will have
a mild, if any, penalty leviating against you. White collars
the way to go. Yeah, we're talking guys who um
(04:26):
tell people that they are financial investors and get friends
and family and uh parents of the little league that
they coach to give them nine grand. Um. There's other
guys who just have little penny stock companies that pump
up their um stock prospects called stock touting, and UM
(04:47):
dump all of their shares UM. That's investor fraud. They
make hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. It's
where the real money is. And historically speaking, it has
really low risk. Yeah, even if you're caught. All right,
So we're endorsing white collar crime, we're not endorsing it.
I was being facetious. Okay, I thought you met up
(05:08):
with white collar crime in no. No. As a matter
of fact, it's going down. The times are definitely changing.
There's a big struggle going on right now is to
figuring out the just the right amount of punishment with
white color crime because there's a lot of factors involved.
It's a lot different from blue collar crime e g.
Stealing a car, robbing a bank. There's a lot of
(05:31):
differences that differentiated. Let's separate the two, um. And one
of those now is the the sentencing forum is probably stiffer,
which is a total reversal from how it used to
be before. And they've also closed a lot of the
club beds down that got so much press. Yes, well
they've they've changed them. They're still there. They just are
(05:51):
changed a lot of more shut down like period, Yeah,
just to ship them to real federal penitentiary penitentiaries, penitentiaries
and tree. Uh. That reminded me of a word that
will definitely be hearing at some point in this podcast.
It's a psi oh, yeah, because that's definitely white collar.
(06:12):
Part of the problem with white collar crime, Josh, as
you know from reading this, is that, um it's hard
to come up with an exact definition of what constitutes it.
So that's why they have a hard time getting great
statistics on punishment and finds levied and how many of
they're catching. But I'm gonna go with non violent crime
(06:33):
that typically involves and you have to say things like
typically because it's kind of all over the map, typically
involves um deceit and fraud given by perpetrator because of
their occupation. Yeah, And for that reason, a lot of
times it's called occupational UM crime. Yeah. Uh. And if
you look at it through that view, which is a
very broad view of white collar crime, it's not just
(06:56):
the exacts in the three thousand dollar suits who are
perpetrated eating this. It's the guy who's stealing pencils from work, yeah,
or non violent to see. Especially somebody asked him if
he did it, and he says no, And it's because
you are you're you're granted this opportunity through your occupation. Actually,
I would call that petty theft. It's but I'm saying,
(07:16):
like in a very very broad definition of white collar crime,
that that definitely counts. But for the most part, when
you think of white collar you think about the CEO,
as you think about investor fraud, embezzlement, that kind of
stuff exactly. Uh, feds have been after in the United States, uh,
in earnest since nineteen seventy four as far as a
a dedicated division the FBI. Yeah, and that's because the
(07:39):
NIX and I read and then uh, despite that about
three hundred billion dollars a year. And that's a pretty
rough estimate, that's two estimate. Yeah. So let's talk about
a few ways you can commit white color crime. Yeah,
because the definition you gave was like beautiful, it's pretty good. Um.
And there are some that just like I said, investment
(07:59):
frau or embezzlement, they're just prototypical. Insider trading is one
that's a big one, which falls under securities fraud. Right, Uh, Yeah,
I mean it's a type of securities fraud. So basically
insider trading. We've I swear we've done something on this,
I don't think, so it must have been in our
Fenian Freddie presentation. Then maybe we studied a lot of
(08:22):
this stuff. Yeah, and I thought we'd done a podcast
and I guess not. But insider trading is essentially like, um,
let's say that you and I find out that Discovery
had an awesome quarter, and so we go and buy
a bunch of Discovery stock for nothing, and then it
just shoots through the roof after the stock price comes up.
That's inside of trading. Sure, that's using private knowledge about
(08:44):
a publicly traded company for your own game. That's a
no note. We go to other people that would count
as well, and then like s Marcus Stewart, Yeah, that
they took part and then they would be uh insider
traders as well, exactly. And it works the opposite way
as well, Like if you find out that there's a
lot of terrible information, terrible information is going to make
(09:05):
your stock drop that you sell before that information becomes public,
you're in trouble, big trouble. Securities fraud, which UM in
started training is kind of like that, UM, but it
is also manipulating cooking the books. You've heard that term
of your own company. Two maybe undervalue UM a stock
before it goes public or I mean there's all different variations,
(09:27):
but it basically involves manipulating numbers in a dishonest way, right,
that pumping up scheme where it's stocked touting. There's that's
all securities fraud UM. And then there's any trust violations
for another good one, there's this has been kind of
big lately. So UM. Google is supposedly hogging the YouTube metadata,
(09:48):
which is preventing Microsoft from making a decent app for it.
Yeah and UM and Google's like, well, it's proprietary or whatever,
and I was like, no, you gotta kind of have
to share that. That's they're alleging in an antitrust violation.
Companies kind of police one another with that. And then
also price fixing is a big one, which is like
the opposite of companies policing one another. It's collusion between
(10:08):
companies and like Apple and book publishers, UM fixing the
prices of e books allegedly has been going on. Yeah, yeah, man,
It's going on all over the place that it's it's
a dirty, dirty, dirty world bribery one of the oldest
tricks in the book. Um, obviously that's involves some sort
of a payoff or a kickback in exchange for uh
(10:33):
whatever information. Um, I get the bid, my company gets
your bid for this government job, and I get a
little kickback or I give you a little kickback rather um,
any kind of maybe favorable decision that can influence your company. Yeah,
little little grease in the palm going on. Here's three
high quality frozen steaks. Please consider it, and you say
(10:57):
consider granted. And within each of these steaks is a
one million dollar bill. It's not even eating. That doesn't
even exist. What frozen steaks with money in them? A
million dollar bill? Okay, we know about frozen deutsch marks.
Somebody sent us a dollar. By the way, I want
the dollar. We'll we'll give you fifty cents, all right,
I guess it's thirty three and a third we gotta
give Jerry or cut. Don't go there. We'll talk about
(11:21):
it later. Embezzlement Office Space. Everyone's seen the movie Office Space.
A little program they had to like shave a sin
or something off of transaction that's embezzlement. They were given
the opportunity through trust with books, with accounting, they basically
add access to the money and skim them off the top.
(11:42):
A wrong guys, money laundering, which we have done a podcast.
One schemes, yeah, on tax evasion. UM. So basically all
of the those are all the stars. There's also other
ones like UM snage, industrial espionage, corporate spelling, secrets its
(12:03):
white collar. UM. Remember the lady who tried to sell
Pepsi's secrets coke? Yeah, that was pretty hackney, no Coke's
secret of pepsi because she's like, wait right here, she
wasn't anyone called the cops. She didn't do a real
good job. That's she was surprised. UM. Environmental law violations
like dumping toxic waste, Yeah, covering that up like Aaron
(12:24):
Brockovich style. UM. One of the things they point out
in here, which is when it comes to things like
your a little office space scheme that you just touted, UM,
a lot of times it's difficult to imagine victims, Like
in the office space, they think no one's gonna min
miss a Penny is a huge company, So you commit
(12:45):
these crimes without realizing that someone has hurt somewhere down
the line. If you dump your stock, your company stock
that you know is about to tank. And I'm not
saying it's understandable, but if you've like worked your whole
career in sting in this company with your four O
one k you know it's about to tank, You're like, man,
I need to sell this or else I'm done for.
(13:06):
My family's done for. You don't think about the people
buying the stock. They're the victims. No, it's absolutely true,
And I mean like you are being pawned. You're pawning
your problem off on somebody else. But I think you
paint a really really excellent scenario. Like you can in
some cases feel bad for the white collar criminal um,
(13:29):
especially if it's just some average Joe who's worried about
is four oh one k um or in the case
of en Ron, you don't feel bad for the upper dudes.
You feel bad for everyone in that company that got defrauded, right,
But they were strictly victims. They didn't didn't turn around
and like try to dump the stocks. But that that's
a very visible case of like screwing over your own employees.
(13:50):
But you make a good point like even if the
even if the criminal is sympathetic, there still is a victim.
Even if it's just some amorphous trader, they will never meet,
even if the victim is some like hedge fund manager. Yeah,
it's really tough. There's like a really weird spectrum here.
There's like I don't know if it's a bell curve
or like, uh, the UV spectrum. Who knows. But there's
(14:15):
sympathies like placed in different spots, sympathies and anti antipathies
placed along this this depending on who did what and
what they gained from it and what their motives were agreed,
because you gotta also have credit card fraud and computer
and mail fraud and counterfeiting and things like that, like
you know the Nigerian email scams. That's white collar, but
(14:38):
and they're in the same boat as like ken Ley
and Jeff Skillings and Ron exactly same scummy crooks. Or
let's say you commit a little credit card fraud and
you or bankruptcy fraud and you're just like, does it
be easy way to get out of my debts? Or
I just say someone stole my credit card. It's very
easy there to not envision a a victim because it's
(14:59):
it's cha Manhattan Bank, and like they're gonna notice. But
what happens is they raise the rates on you and me,
and all of a sudden, everyone across the board is
paying more money for stuff. Yes, that is that is true.
That is very true, and that is I think everybody's probably.
(15:19):
I think a good companion piece that occurred to me
is to go listen to our wide corporations of the
same rights as you. One of the fundamental flaws of
UM corporate policy is that you served your shareholders first, right,
like you need to adhere to the law, but really, ultimately,
like anything you can do to serve your shareholders is
(15:39):
your mandate as a as a corporate governor. UM. That
includes keeping the profit margin as high as possible, which
you're not gonna go to your your shareholders and be like, hey,
we're making enough money. We took kind of a hit,
but we're still making a ton of profit, so we'll
just take a little hit this year. No, it's where
(16:00):
we took a hit, so we're gonna fire people. However,
you reconcile that, I mean, that's your own personal beliefs,
Like what what you feel about that but that is
reality as far as business goes, Right, there's fraud, there's
adjustments to the fraud. There absorbing the fraud, and it's
the corporation trying to get as lean as possible. Yeah,
they're not gonna take the hit for that. They're not
(16:22):
gonna say, oh, well, a bunch of people defaulted on
their credit cards this year. I guess we'll just have
a bad year. And I know in reality that's how
it works, but I just find it disingenuous to be like, well,
everybody suffers, you know, like people lose their jobs because
of fraud. It's like there's a there's a point b
in there that that has to be held accountable to
some degree, well, which is your own freaking ethical code
(16:46):
of conduct, and like about not doing that because it's
the wrong thing to do. No, but I'm saying, like,
there's an institution that's absorbing the hit and then turnerund
firing this poor guy. Yeah, exactly. It's just it's tough
because I came across a word when they were describing
white collar crime giving a definition of it, and they said,
victims coling diffuse. Yeah, you don't meet the person the
(17:09):
the victim passes along the hit to other people. It's
a big it's nebulous. And even if they're raising rates
by like a quarter of a percentage point, or you're
paying an extra two dollars as a consumer a year,
it's like it's still not right. Yeah, you know, jo
(17:42):
m hm. So where did this come from? Uh? Josh,
it came. It sounds like it came from a cold,
fool delivery boy. I want to know more about this.
(18:04):
Was this dude just cold or did he really steal
a lot of wool? Now, so you're talking about the carriers,
the Carrier's Case of fourteen seventy three, it's the first
um white collar trial, yes, um, and and it resulted
in the first white collar law in fifteenth century England.
And this wool transporter was given a bunch of wool
and said, hey, take this wool to this person, and
(18:26):
it was his job, so he decided to instead just
keep the wool for himself for his own use. So
he looked into this more. Yeah, I thought he might
have been like cold on his journey and said, you know,
I'm gonna keep some of this woold. Now, he kept
some of the wool. I think he kept all of it,
but somebody gave it to him. He's like, thanks chump,
he was. But the key is, and this is something
(18:47):
that has has woven into the history of white collar crime.
What he did was not illegal at the time. The
law that was enacted as a result of the Carrier's
case was they were saying, Okay, this isn't oh, this
isn't illegal, but it's obviously there's a huge problem with this,
so we're going to create a law that outlaws this
act so people can't do it anymore. Good point. And
(19:09):
basically that's what happened. Well, that's kind of what happens
with every law. I guess, someone commits it first and
then someone says, hey, maybe we shouldn't do that. Yeah, yeah,
I guess. But in this case, especially like uh, the
Industrial Revolution in the West, obviously you started getting these
larger corporations and all of a sudden, things like monopolies
and price fixing and employee uh safety and all these
(19:32):
things come into effect for the first time. So that's
sort of when it was really born and when they
started saying, hey, we need to look at something called antitrust. Yeah. Again,
like monopolies were not illegal, but when a company bought
up all of its competitors and said, oh, suddenly the
price for your groceries like through the roof, where else
(19:52):
you gonna go? It wasn't illegal, but the the people
of the world started screaming, and governments finally responded, and
it was really the US that first had the real
first solid response in the Sherman Anti Trust Act in
like the eighteen seventies maybe I think eighteen ninety named
for John Senator John Sherman, Ohio, Republican dude, chairman of
(20:15):
the Senate's Finance Senate Finance Committee, which I didn't know
they even had way back then. I forgot didn't either,
but I mean, it seems like a basic committee there,
so this is interesting. And that it was voted on.
It won by a vote of in the Senate fifty
one to one, in the House by two forty two
to zero. So there was one dude that didn't vote
(20:35):
for it. And then I think twenty five years later
when they came up with the Clayton Anti Trust Act
to really put some punch into the Sherman Act. It
was two seventy seven to seventy four and forty six
to sixteen so in that twenty four years, it sounds
like maybe things got slightly corrupt here and there. Well
it wasn't that. It was that. Well, maybe it was,
(20:56):
but there was also some real problems with the Sherman
Act that was really vague. It basically said like now,
from here forth, all um anti competitive corporate measures are illegal,
and then it left it to the courts to decide
what was what, and the courts weren't really in the
mood to enforce it, so it went largely unenforced. Although
American Tobacco Company and Standard Oil, like two of the
(21:19):
biggest companies in the country, were dissolved under the Sherman Act,
Standard Oil big time. Imagine that Like, imagine going to
a company now and saying like, hey, Apple, it's just
too big, so we're gonna dissolve you into thirty one companies.
We have all these federal regulators here and they're gonna
come in and look at everything and the dissolve you
into different companies. Sorry, that's what they did. Okay, Even still,
(21:43):
it didn't have enough tea. So they came up with
the Clayton Anti Trust Act, and then that one really
spelled things out, like, um, you couldn't do price discrimination anymore,
which if you were black in America during the Jim
Crow era, price discrimination was mind boggling. You walk into
a store if you're allowed in there to begin with,
and they'll just make up whatever price they want. It's
(22:05):
it was really I'm reading this, um Consumerism an America book,
and it's at this point now is really just this
blemish on American history. I mean, like slavery wasn't bad enough.
I mean to like have slavery light through the Jim
Crow era, it's just disgusting. Um. Okay, So there was
no price discrimination allegedly, corporate mergers were outlawed in the
(22:31):
Clayton yeah. Um. And then interlocking boards where you had
like competitive companies but the same people on the board
of each Right, you can't have that. And then also
exclusive contracts where it's like hey, Home Depot, you can
sell our um weed whackers, but you can't tell anybody
else's those contracts are out right, Hey Home. They do
(22:53):
stuff like that now though, right, maybe not exclusively, but
they carry lives. They do not limited number of brands,
corporate mergers, interlocking boards, exclusive contracts, all that stuff one
a way. They all got chipped away. Okay, it's just
I mean this, this this act is like not in
force anymore. Basically. Well, that's one things that bugs me
about like grocery or actually the big box hardware stores.
(23:17):
Grocery shopping, you you only have access to what they
who they have partnered with, right, whether it's your potato
chip that you want or your weed whacker that you want.
It's true. And most of the big box stores also
have exclusive contracts the other way. It's like, yeah, we'll
sell your weed whacker, but you can't sell it. No
one else can, right, So it's like a real gamble,
(23:39):
I understand, Like sign on to one of these giant corporations.
Well that's one in the Walmart effect. That was one
of the things I think they used to. It's like
a tent company or an awning company, and like this
mom and pop awning company all of a sudden gets
a Walmart contract and they're like, sweet, they answered all
our prayers. They ordered like thirty thousand of these. They
order thirty thousand, They opened up like three new buildings.
(24:02):
Hi are all these employees, and then the next year
they come back and say, we want thirty thousand more
but we're gonna pay you about less, and you've already
bought the buildings and even you know, invested in the
in the materials and the people, and all of a
sudden you're screwed. You know, one thing that I've long
thought and I'm gonna totally take flak for this, but
I still think it's worth saying, like you here, like, well,
(24:24):
that's just business. I feel that any any institution where
like morally reprehensible acts can just be you know, off
handedly dismissed as a matter of course of that institution
is inherently fought. There's an inherent problem with it. Yeah,
that's not okay, Like we don't just go, well, that's
(24:48):
just murder, you know, or well that's just stealing, you know,
welcome to earth. Human. No, we have moral and legal
guidelines that we follow. And is this in Corporations have
so so long stood outside of these things that it's
just it always bugs me when it's just like what
are you gonna do? Yeah, I don't like that. So sorry,
(25:11):
I'm off my soap I agree completely, Well, I'm off
of my Tide brand soapbox. Well said, um so, things
are kicking along here in the industrial West. Corporations are
getting larger, and all of a sudden, these crimes start happening,
and something called a muck raker in the nineteenth than
(25:31):
early twentieth century comes about. And I didn't realize a
muck raker was exclusively a journalist. Yeah, it's thought it
was for an investigative journalist. I thought it would was
anyone raking muck. Um, But it's specifically a journalist who
basically early on said you know what, that's bad stuff
going on, see and I'm gonna expose you right one.
(25:53):
Oh really and he wrote the jungle changed of course.
I mean the FDA basically came about because of the
investigation that conducted. Well, muckrakers raked a lot of muck
can cost a lot of problems in these companies. And um,
one of the things that came about because of the
muckraking were, you know, things like the Clayton Net that's
exactly right, exposing all this stuff exactly and things like
(26:15):
that DA, Federal regulations, consumer protections. The muckrakers basically stirred
up public sentiment like hey, don't be idiots, like this
stuff's going on, and a lot of people said, well,
it's not illegal. And then unfortunately there are guys like
um E. A. Ross, who was a criminologist and a sociologist,
and he started really kind of looking into this and said,
(26:37):
hey man, these people might not be criminal, but let's
call them criminal OIDs. Like that was the coining the
turn might coin for people who, especially in business, carried
out these terrible acts that weren't illegal. He argued that
even though it's not illegal, they're causing ill and these
people are still responsible for him. So make a law
that outlaws at dummies. And he inspired a guy named H. Sutherland.
(27:01):
Okay he came before Sutherland. Yeah, he was at the UM.
Ross was working at the time of the muckrakers, and
then Sutherland came about twenty years later. Yeah. Sutherland coined
the term actually white collar crime in nine and he
was a criminologist and sociologist, and he pretty much he
had a broader definition that basically it was the high
(27:21):
society and not the lower class at all committing these crimes, right,
which nowadays you can't really say that because anyone can
get a stock tip commit in. You know, it happens
all the time across all spectrums of the class system.
But Sutherland's point was, and he wrote a book called
White Collar Crime, UM. His point was that there was
(27:42):
a huge bias in the United States UM where the
where law enforcement in the courts leaned heavily on UM,
the working class crime, and just basically ignored the crimes
of the upper class and said this is not okay, Like, um,
if a guy is gonna steal a thousand dollars from
a cash register with no gun or anything like that,
(28:05):
like there are other factors, but let's just say a
guy steals a thousand dollars from a cash register and
he's poor, and a guy steals a thousand dollars from
an investor and he's rich. That's they should be treated equally,
and they're not. And that's what Sutherland's point was. And
he was the first dude to really bring this to light,
wasn't he. Yeah, well, Ross kind of started to, but
Sutherland was very well received. It was well received in
(28:27):
certain corners. But there were also certain flaws pointed out
by people over the years. UM. One of the things
mentioned the article has said that he failed to distinguish
illegal crime from deviant mere deviant behavior, right, like apparently
his his whole premise was like you're into donkeys, you're
a white collar criminal exactly. And the other thing I
(28:49):
mentioned too was that he pretty much said it was
anyone like any upper class nonviolent crime, right, And that's
definitely evolved, and I think fairly sure. I think you
can be working class, you can be buss his class
if you like. That's a big, big part of white
color crimes definition is that your opportunity arises because of
the trust that's granted to you through your occupation. Yeah,
(29:10):
even if you're a lower level employee, you still may
have access. Like the lady who wanted to sell the
coke secret. She wasn't like a CEO, No, she was
an admin. I believe in things like job job m um.
(29:47):
So there's a there's one thing that that like you said,
they like to shoot a hole in uh Sutherland's theory.
That or they say his definition is too broad because
he did include behavior that's not illegal. But it's a
very legitimate point to say, you kind of have to
because if not, then we wouldn't have had the Sherman
Anti Trust Act, we wouldn't have had the Clayton Act,
(30:08):
we wouldn't have had um you know, the f d A,
all of these things that uh that the carrier's case,
he would have gotten off scott free. What he did
was not illegal. So it has to evolve over time. Agreed, Okay,
and it has agreed. So let's talk about, um, I
guess the impacts of today's modern white color crime. I
(30:33):
was like man that was suspensable all of a sudden. Thanks. Um. Yeah,
We've talked about a few of these, about seemingly not
having a victim. But what happens is, um, you rip
off a huge corporation, the al race of prices. There's
another ripple effect. You talked about cutting jobs to meet
you know, the needs of the investors. If it's a
publicly traded company. Um, when there's stock fraud committed, insider
(30:55):
scandals like Enron are going to ripple out throughout the
stock market cause it is, like you know, basically cause
people to be unsure and have no faith in the
stock market all of a sudden. Yeah that's dangerous. Yeah,
I think about all the people who just lost everything.
Oh my god, I get yeah. I get just as angry,
(31:16):
if not more angry at something like that than you know,
something like heinous crime. Yeah, i'd say equal, Yeah, they're
both scumbags. Okay. Um, so you said, like in seventy
four the FBI first started, they that's when they've created
this white color Crime division. So apparently like yes, yeah,
(31:39):
and it was a response like this University of Michigan
survey that they conducted between nineteen fifty eight, I think
in nineteen seventy three, they found that, um, people who
said that they trust the federal government went from seventy
three to thirty seven percent between nineteen fifty eight and
nineteen seventy three. Yeah, I flip flopped. Yeah, and that
(32:01):
sort of could see that over that time period the sixties. Yeah,
one of the big ones was just like fraud and
corruption at high levels, and so the FBI created this
white collar crime thing. One of the other things that
differentiates white collar crime from regular working class crime is
the police's ability to police it. You walk into a
(32:24):
room and there's some guy weighing out cocaine, he's a criminal.
You walk into a room and there's some guy on
a computer doing a pump and dump scheme. Who knows
that average cop isn't equipped to detect this kind of crime,
And as a matter of fact, even very very well
trained cops aren't typically equipped to detect this kind of crime.
(32:45):
One of the hallmarks of white collar crime is that
it's very difficult to prove. It's very difficult to uncover,
and it's also difficult to prosecute. Yeah, and there's no uh,
smoking gun, there's no paper trail, or there may be
a paper trail, but it's probably electronified. Sure, so it's
a little harder to follow. You gotta really, you know,
(33:06):
you gotta have people that know what they're doing. And
that's why the FBI created that division, and I guess
they're doing a good job, but it's kind of hard. Well,
the Justice Department has been going after white collar crime
lately under Obama pretty hard here there, um, and then
the Sarbanes Oxley Act definitely step things up and to
(33:27):
some say too much. Yeah, I mean, I've had to
comply with this at various uh when I worked in
the film as Is production companies had to, like it,
jump through way more hoops with paperwork because the Sarbanes
Oxley do you want to tell do you want to
tell them? Well, it's it was in two thousand two,
and it was to improve corporate governance, which is basically
(33:48):
accountability between corporation the stakeholders. What it amounted to was
a lot more paperwork, essentially, a lot more proving of
numbers and showing numbers and jumping through hoops. It was
a direct reaction from of the fallout of Enron, from
the fallout of Enron and Tycho and like all the
other companies around that time. UM. But one of the
(34:11):
other things that did chuckers was UM quadrupled sentences in
a lot of cases for white collar crime. So now
you have guys like Bernie made Off getting a hundred
and fifty years. There's a guy named Sholem Weiss who
was involved in like the breakup of some insurance company.
He got eight hundred and forty five years. He gets
(34:32):
out in twenty seven fifty four. I don't think he's
going to see that. I don't either, But I mean
a guy named rich Harkness got a hundred years for
a thirty nine million dollar ponzi scheme like these, and
all of this is like post Sarbanes Oxley, except Sholem Weiss,
which is really saying something. But but I mean, like,
so now now sentences are like quadruple. It's like, well,
(34:54):
wait a minute, maybe maybe this is a little too
much like just retribution on the rich. It is, and
that's kind of I think why a lot of people
are having a hard time feeling bad for ridiculously wealthy
people who were hucksters and frauds, or people who builked
people out of their retirement accounts. It's tough to feel
(35:15):
sorry for him. But legally speaking, it's like, well, wait
a minute, Um, you were worried about the guy who
stole a thousand dollars out of it till being treated
differently from the guy who stole a thousand dollars from
an investor. Now it's flip flopped. How is that any better? Exactly.
One of the arguments for these kind of things is
that these people are traditionally and historically have been treated
(35:36):
differently because they look like the judges that are sentencing them,
and so judges historically like really have taken it easy
on them. Um, let's go ahead and just call them
white dudes. Okay, but they also have been Um you
can make the case that they are usually first time offenders,
they're usually family people. Um. That's that's something that the
(35:59):
judges put out there like, well, this is a family man,
he's not much of a flight risk. He's probably never
going to do this again, as he had dangered a society. Yes,
he didn't use a weapon, which is a huge, huge differentiation,
and so sentences have typically typically been light. But um,
you can you can also kind of say, well, you
know where where it feels like we haven't quite felt
(36:19):
it out, like we've traditionally ignored white collar crime. Now
we're really sticking it to him. Well, it's that whole
argument with prison. Is it like punishment for a crime done?
Or is it rehabilitating a person who has a problem
with crime? Well, within eight hundred and forty five years sentence,
it's making an example out of that person because since
(36:41):
you can't police it, another way to prevent it is
to send a message through the courts like you do
this man, you're going to prison for a long time. Yeah.
I don't know if that's such a deterrent though for
some of these people. I don't know. I mean, I
think about it. Twenty years in a in a federal pen.
You say, club fed is not around any longer? Yeah, um,
(37:01):
And I mean this is like twenty actual years. Yeah. Um,
some guy named Thomas Petters recently got fifty years and
he will spend forty years in jail and he's fifty
two and he will probably die in prison. Now that's
a big deal with somebody who's like, well, maybe I
shouldn't do this insider train, Maybe I should let this
fifty grand just walk by because it's not really worth it.
(37:24):
Well something like that. I'm talking about the ones who
are getting rich by the tens of millions of dollars.
What I want to see is that these people don't
get out of prison and still have all those millions
of dollars like hidden in different foreign accounts and offshore
islands and uh like, the financial part is what really
(37:45):
bugs me. I meant to I didn't get a chance
that I meant to look up and see if any
of the en Ron victims and employees were ever repaid
or if they were just s O L. I'm under
the distinct impression they were s O L really, because
the company was in such bad shape that even dissolving
it and I think I think they some people did
(38:05):
get some money, but I don't think it was anything
approaching what they lost. Well, if whoever commits these crimes
gets out of jail and they have two pennies to
rub together. Then those two pennies more than they should have.
I think, well, that's the thing. Like, so the government
started prosecuting under the Rico Act, which is the same
thing they bust up mafia organizations with UM and they've
(38:26):
been fighting white collar crime with that. And one of
the things about the Rico Acts it allows states and
individuals who are harmed to sue for up to three
times the damages. Yeah, but even then, all they have
to do is say, yeah, I don't have that money.
You kid me. Well, it's true, I can't pay it. No,
it's true. But like UM, in the made off case,
the guy who's who was assigned to basically get money
(38:48):
back for investors has gotten I don't remember how much
made off least, but let's say it was eight billion.
The guys managed to like get like six billion back. Yeah,
he's done a really good job of getting the money back.
And that's just a that's that's an example. It's not
a figure, but it's it's something pretty significant. You're still
gonna get email. I'm looking forward to the ones where
(39:11):
it's like Hey man, we don't listen to you for
free to hear your opinion about class. All right, let's
move on to other countries. Um, things are different all
over the world. UM. Obviously when it comes to big
business and business dealons. Uh. Western Europe has followed right
behind the US, UH most wholeheartedly with laws to prevent corruption.
(39:33):
Eastern Europe it's coming on board a little slower, um.
But then you go into other countries like in Western Africa,
and it may be customary to Greece palms to get
a deal going, or in India where apparently if you're
a truck driver, you're gonna have to bribe people to
keep your rig on the road. And that's just how
it is there, right, And not only is it customary,
(39:55):
it's frequently legal. Yeah. Russia, Yeah, bribes all over the A.
So you want to land contract, you might have to
bribe somebody. So if you're a multinational corporation, it's tough
to do that's headquartered in America. Yeah, you have like
a real problem facing you, especially, like I said, the
UM Justice Department under Obama has been prosecuting white color
(40:15):
crimes and going big time after UM people. Under the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which says, if you're an American company,
you can't engage in bribes, even if it's legal in
that country. Yeah, but what's the point, like, why hamstring
American business abroad? Exactly? Um? And to help this out, actually,
(40:38):
there has been a unified committee called the UM company
I'm sorry, committee called Transparency International, and they are out
to get rid of corruption and to unify business business
ethics all over the world. Right, And that's the that's
the reason that you hamstring American business because it's basically saying, hey, uh,
we can take the hit in the hopes of pressing
(41:00):
the rest of the world into the same clean up
their act. Competitive laws we have here in the States
that work very well, So good luck to them. Yeah
that's it, man, I got nothing else. No, we should
we should play this one out with um tucking heads
big business agreed, Okay, Um, so chuck, let's see. Uh.
(41:23):
If people want to learn more about white collar crime,
I would strongly advise them to go read this article
by Jaye McGrath. People with John and there's a Simpsons
reference in it. It's a way to go Jane. UM.
You can type in white collar crime in the search
bar how stuff works dot com? Which friend oh brings
up listener mail. That's right, Josh, I'm gonna call this
(41:46):
uh hot off the press is good cause I'm gonna
sucker with that stuff. Okay, Chuck and Josh and Jerry.
I want to say thank you for all the hours
of listening. My brother Chase and I've been listeners nearly
as long because you have been making them. There was
even one year's day where all we would do was
listen to your Hangover podcast on repeat. I don't he's
(42:07):
I don't know if that's good for hangover. Uh. It's
funny and informative, and I always feel like calling my
brother after listening to the latest episode. I'm writing you
because it's recently his birthday. He's the best brother in
the world and downright awesome human being. It would mean
a lot to me if you could tell the stuff
you should know listeners about his latest project. When his
friend Jim survived cancer, he told Chase that he gained
(42:31):
strength in the music he loved over two years, two
hundred twenty six hundred tracks, two hundred tracks. It's a
weird way to put it. What would that bed? Would
that be wait how many two D yeah would it?
(42:53):
Or D no plus two hundred d Nearly two hundred
artists persons insane, No, she's not over two years two
hundred tracks nearly two hundred artists from other countries all
over the world have allowed them to share that message.
(43:14):
They are releasing their second compilation disc Electronic Saviors colon
Industrial Music to Cure cancer. So it's these artists compilations
are putting together apparently two tracks. Uh. They are a
registered US charity and all proceeds go to cancer research.
And if you want if you're into electronic music and
(43:38):
if you want to support cancer research, you can go
to www dot Electronic Saviors dot com. And that is
something Chase has got going and his sister Laura Dudley
uh is a big fan of her bro He sounds
like a swell guy. I'm all for it. Cancer. Had
(43:59):
to promoted your cause, chuckers. We try to do that.
You did good. Um. Yeah, we always want to hear
about good causes, so you can get in touch with us,
let us know about yours. We'll try our best to
let everybody else know about it, especially if people can
support it. Agreed. Um, let's see also enjoy a little
Talking Heads Big Business from the live album Stop Making
(44:21):
Sense released. We're sure it's up on iTunes, Amazon and elsewhere. Um.
You can get in touch with us at s y
s K podcast on Twitter, uh, you can go to
Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, and you
can send us a regular old email to stuff podcast
at how stuff Works dot com and as always, join
(44:41):
us at our home on the web Stuff you Should
Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for
my heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Zero
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, your old pal, and for
this week's s Y s K Selects, I've chosen one
of those overlook gems from way back in July of
two thousand twelve, eight years ago. Can you believe that?
It's how white collar crime works? So sit back, relax
and learn about how the other half commits crime. Welcome
(00:23):
to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart
Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant uh stipping
on his laquais uh mineral water. And um, this isn't
(00:44):
even a sponsored by location and done this like two
or three times? Yeah, I agree, call us uh. And
since you put the two of us a couple of
microphones in an ice cold can of refreshing laqua mineral
water together, you have something called Stuff you Should Know.
It's a pod cast. It's a podcast. I'm looking to
see who makes this actually. Oh no, I thought I
(01:06):
was gonna say, like Coca Cola and smaller. No, it's
a Sundance beverage company. Oh yeah, they're huge for Minnesota.
I think that's perfect. That is a perfect sponsor for stuff.
You should know a little guy that's producing a great product. Agreed,
lax uh so chuck, Yes, I've got an intro today. Awesome, misses,
(01:26):
stop criticizing me. I mean, um so. Very recently, a
trio of Brits economists British economists dry, They're like walking saltines.
They're very exciting. Um. But anyway, these guys did something
pretty cool. They studied bank robberies and their study was
published in a journal called Significance. It's actually kind of
(01:50):
a cool journal. It takes statistics and applies it to
real world stuff, so it's an interesting statistics journal. If
there is such a thing, um, and if there is,
this is it. And what these guys found was that
bank robbery is actually a really terrible way to make
a living. Yes, I would agree with that morally, Economically
it's a terrible way to make a living too, the right. Yes,
(02:14):
they looked at they looked at a lot of variables,
like the number of people involved, and they found that
the bigger the gang, the more um, the bigger the hall.
I guess. But it also meant that's one extra mouth
to divide up amongst unless you're like one of those
bank robbers that just kills everybody afterward. Yeah, you don't
want to get in bed with one of those guys
like Ben Affleck or like in Heat when there are
(02:35):
a lot of killing afterward and heat. Yeah, and in
the town ben Affleck's a recent heist movie. Yeah, a
lot of killing going on. I was gonna let that
one walk by, but you brought it up twice. I
enjoyed it. Um. Oh really uh okay, So anyway, Um,
there's a lot of variables involved. But what they found
is no matter what, in the u K. You can
make off with about thirty one graham. That's not bad,
(02:57):
per yes, and on average that's what that's what the
take was. So in the UK it's not so bad. Um.
But at the same time, thirty one grand what are
you gonna do with that? Yeah, I mean, if you
want to live the highlight, you gotta rob like four
or five banks a year, easy, right or right? Okay
or um. If you're in the US, you have to
rob a lot more than that. So the UK suffers
(03:19):
about a hundred and six bank robbers a year. In
the US there's twelve thousand, and of those twelve thousand,
the average take is like four grand. They only have
how many a year England and six that's amazing. They
have really stiff, stiff gun laws and I think that
probably determ bank robbery because you kind of have a
gun or a note in your pocket and that says something. Well,
(03:42):
these guys figured out that the presence of a firearm
increased your takea Um. But anyway, so forty bucks that's
not much at all now, and about a third of
bank robberies, I guess in both countries yield nothing zero zero,
So it's a lot of hard work, a lot of risk,
for very little gain. The real money is in white
(04:04):
collar crime. Oh yes, you want to make some cash quick,
maybe one good heist. It's gonna set you up for
the rest of your life. And even if you're caught.
Even if you're caught, the chances are you will have
a mild, if any, penalty leviating against you. White collars
the way to go. Yeah, we're talking guys who um
(04:26):
tell people that they are financial investors and get friends
and family and uh parents of the little league that
they coach to give them nine grand. Um. There's other
guys who just have little penny stock companies that pump
up their um stock prospects called stock touting, and UM
(04:47):
dump all of their shares UM. That's investor fraud. They
make hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. It's
where the real money is. And historically speaking, it has
really low risk. Yeah, even if you're caught. All right,
So we're endorsing white collar crime, we're not endorsing it.
I was being facetious. Okay, I thought you met up
(05:08):
with white collar crime in no. No. As a matter
of fact, it's going down. The times are definitely changing.
There's a big struggle going on right now is to
figuring out the just the right amount of punishment with
white color crime because there's a lot of factors involved.
It's a lot different from blue collar crime e g.
Stealing a car, robbing a bank. There's a lot of
(05:31):
differences that differentiated. Let's separate the two, um. And one
of those now is the the sentencing forum is probably stiffer,
which is a total reversal from how it used to
be before. And they've also closed a lot of the
club beds down that got so much press. Yes, well
they've they've changed them. They're still there. They just are
(05:51):
changed a lot of more shut down like period, Yeah,
just to ship them to real federal penitentiary penitentiaries, penitentiaries
and tree. Uh. That reminded me of a word that
will definitely be hearing at some point in this podcast.
It's a psi oh, yeah, because that's definitely white collar.
(06:12):
Part of the problem with white collar crime, Josh, as
you know from reading this, is that, um it's hard
to come up with an exact definition of what constitutes it.
So that's why they have a hard time getting great
statistics on punishment and finds levied and how many of
they're catching. But I'm gonna go with non violent crime
(06:33):
that typically involves and you have to say things like
typically because it's kind of all over the map, typically
involves um deceit and fraud given by perpetrator because of
their occupation. Yeah, And for that reason, a lot of
times it's called occupational UM crime. Yeah. Uh. And if
you look at it through that view, which is a
very broad view of white collar crime, it's not just
(06:56):
the exacts in the three thousand dollar suits who are
perpetrated eating this. It's the guy who's stealing pencils from work, yeah,
or non violent to see. Especially somebody asked him if
he did it, and he says no, And it's because
you are you're you're granted this opportunity through your occupation. Actually,
I would call that petty theft. It's but I'm saying,
(07:16):
like in a very very broad definition of white collar crime,
that that definitely counts. But for the most part, when
you think of white collar you think about the CEO,
as you think about investor fraud, embezzlement, that kind of
stuff exactly. Uh, feds have been after in the United States, uh,
in earnest since nineteen seventy four as far as a
a dedicated division the FBI. Yeah, and that's because the
(07:39):
NIX and I read and then uh, despite that about
three hundred billion dollars a year. And that's a pretty
rough estimate, that's two estimate. Yeah. So let's talk about
a few ways you can commit white color crime. Yeah,
because the definition you gave was like beautiful, it's pretty good. Um.
And there are some that just like I said, investment
(07:59):
frau or embezzlement, they're just prototypical. Insider trading is one
that's a big one, which falls under securities fraud. Right, Uh, Yeah,
I mean it's a type of securities fraud. So basically
insider trading. We've I swear we've done something on this,
I don't think, so it must have been in our
Fenian Freddie presentation. Then maybe we studied a lot of
(08:22):
this stuff. Yeah, and I thought we'd done a podcast
and I guess not. But insider trading is essentially like, um,
let's say that you and I find out that Discovery
had an awesome quarter, and so we go and buy
a bunch of Discovery stock for nothing, and then it
just shoots through the roof after the stock price comes up.
That's inside of trading. Sure, that's using private knowledge about
(08:44):
a publicly traded company for your own game. That's a
no note. We go to other people that would count
as well, and then like s Marcus Stewart, Yeah, that
they took part and then they would be uh insider
traders as well, exactly. And it works the opposite way
as well, Like if you find out that there's a
lot of terrible information, terrible information is going to make
(09:05):
your stock drop that you sell before that information becomes public,
you're in trouble, big trouble. Securities fraud, which UM in
started training is kind of like that, UM, but it
is also manipulating cooking the books. You've heard that term
of your own company. Two maybe undervalue UM a stock
before it goes public or I mean there's all different variations,
(09:27):
but it basically involves manipulating numbers in a dishonest way, right,
that pumping up scheme where it's stocked touting. There's that's
all securities fraud UM. And then there's any trust violations
for another good one, there's this has been kind of
big lately. So UM. Google is supposedly hogging the YouTube metadata,
(09:48):
which is preventing Microsoft from making a decent app for it.
Yeah and UM and Google's like, well, it's proprietary or whatever,
and I was like, no, you gotta kind of have
to share that. That's they're alleging in an antitrust violation.
Companies kind of police one another with that. And then
also price fixing is a big one, which is like
the opposite of companies policing one another. It's collusion between
(10:08):
companies and like Apple and book publishers, UM fixing the
prices of e books allegedly has been going on. Yeah, yeah, man,
It's going on all over the place that it's it's
a dirty, dirty, dirty world bribery one of the oldest
tricks in the book. Um, obviously that's involves some sort
of a payoff or a kickback in exchange for uh
(10:33):
whatever information. Um, I get the bid, my company gets
your bid for this government job, and I get a
little kickback or I give you a little kickback rather um,
any kind of maybe favorable decision that can influence your company. Yeah,
little little grease in the palm going on. Here's three
high quality frozen steaks. Please consider it, and you say
(10:57):
consider granted. And within each of these steaks is a
one million dollar bill. It's not even eating. That doesn't
even exist. What frozen steaks with money in them? A
million dollar bill? Okay, we know about frozen deutsch marks.
Somebody sent us a dollar. By the way, I want
the dollar. We'll we'll give you fifty cents, all right,
I guess it's thirty three and a third we gotta
give Jerry or cut. Don't go there. We'll talk about
(11:21):
it later. Embezzlement Office Space. Everyone's seen the movie Office Space.
A little program they had to like shave a sin
or something off of transaction that's embezzlement. They were given
the opportunity through trust with books, with accounting, they basically
add access to the money and skim them off the top.
(11:42):
A wrong guys, money laundering, which we have done a podcast.
One schemes, yeah, on tax evasion. UM. So basically all
of the those are all the stars. There's also other
ones like UM snage, industrial espionage, corporate spelling, secrets its
(12:03):
white collar. UM. Remember the lady who tried to sell
Pepsi's secrets coke? Yeah, that was pretty hackney, no Coke's
secret of pepsi because she's like, wait right here, she
wasn't anyone called the cops. She didn't do a real
good job. That's she was surprised. UM. Environmental law violations
like dumping toxic waste, Yeah, covering that up like Aaron
(12:24):
Brockovich style. UM. One of the things they point out
in here, which is when it comes to things like
your a little office space scheme that you just touted, UM,
a lot of times it's difficult to imagine victims, Like
in the office space, they think no one's gonna min
miss a Penny is a huge company, So you commit
(12:45):
these crimes without realizing that someone has hurt somewhere down
the line. If you dump your stock, your company stock
that you know is about to tank. And I'm not
saying it's understandable, but if you've like worked your whole
career in sting in this company with your four O
one k you know it's about to tank, You're like, man,
I need to sell this or else I'm done for.
(13:06):
My family's done for. You don't think about the people
buying the stock. They're the victims. No, it's absolutely true,
And I mean like you are being pawned. You're pawning
your problem off on somebody else. But I think you
paint a really really excellent scenario. Like you can in
some cases feel bad for the white collar criminal um,
(13:29):
especially if it's just some average Joe who's worried about
is four oh one k um or in the case
of en Ron, you don't feel bad for the upper dudes.
You feel bad for everyone in that company that got defrauded, right,
But they were strictly victims. They didn't didn't turn around
and like try to dump the stocks. But that that's
a very visible case of like screwing over your own employees.
(13:50):
But you make a good point like even if the
even if the criminal is sympathetic, there still is a victim.
Even if it's just some amorphous trader, they will never meet,
even if the victim is some like hedge fund manager. Yeah,
it's really tough. There's like a really weird spectrum here.
There's like I don't know if it's a bell curve
or like, uh, the UV spectrum. Who knows. But there's
(14:15):
sympathies like placed in different spots, sympathies and anti antipathies
placed along this this depending on who did what and
what they gained from it and what their motives were agreed,
because you gotta also have credit card fraud and computer
and mail fraud and counterfeiting and things like that, like
you know the Nigerian email scams. That's white collar, but
(14:38):
and they're in the same boat as like ken Ley
and Jeff Skillings and Ron exactly same scummy crooks. Or
let's say you commit a little credit card fraud and
you or bankruptcy fraud and you're just like, does it
be easy way to get out of my debts? Or
I just say someone stole my credit card. It's very
easy there to not envision a a victim because it's
(14:59):
it's cha Manhattan Bank, and like they're gonna notice. But
what happens is they raise the rates on you and me,
and all of a sudden, everyone across the board is
paying more money for stuff. Yes, that is that is true.
That is very true, and that is I think everybody's probably.
(15:19):
I think a good companion piece that occurred to me
is to go listen to our wide corporations of the
same rights as you. One of the fundamental flaws of
UM corporate policy is that you served your shareholders first, right,
like you need to adhere to the law, but really, ultimately,
like anything you can do to serve your shareholders is
(15:39):
your mandate as a as a corporate governor. UM. That
includes keeping the profit margin as high as possible, which
you're not gonna go to your your shareholders and be like, hey,
we're making enough money. We took kind of a hit,
but we're still making a ton of profit, so we'll
just take a little hit this year. No, it's where
(16:00):
we took a hit, so we're gonna fire people. However,
you reconcile that, I mean, that's your own personal beliefs,
Like what what you feel about that but that is
reality as far as business goes, Right, there's fraud, there's
adjustments to the fraud. There absorbing the fraud, and it's
the corporation trying to get as lean as possible. Yeah,
they're not gonna take the hit for that. They're not
(16:22):
gonna say, oh, well, a bunch of people defaulted on
their credit cards this year. I guess we'll just have
a bad year. And I know in reality that's how
it works, but I just find it disingenuous to be like, well,
everybody suffers, you know, like people lose their jobs because
of fraud. It's like there's a there's a point b
in there that that has to be held accountable to
some degree, well, which is your own freaking ethical code
(16:46):
of conduct, and like about not doing that because it's
the wrong thing to do. No, but I'm saying, like,
there's an institution that's absorbing the hit and then turnerund
firing this poor guy. Yeah, exactly. It's just it's tough
because I came across a word when they were describing
white collar crime giving a definition of it, and they said,
victims coling diffuse. Yeah, you don't meet the person the
(17:09):
the victim passes along the hit to other people. It's
a big it's nebulous. And even if they're raising rates
by like a quarter of a percentage point, or you're
paying an extra two dollars as a consumer a year,
it's like it's still not right. Yeah, you know, jo
(17:42):
m hm. So where did this come from? Uh? Josh,
it came. It sounds like it came from a cold,
fool delivery boy. I want to know more about this.
(18:04):
Was this dude just cold or did he really steal
a lot of wool? Now, so you're talking about the carriers,
the Carrier's Case of fourteen seventy three, it's the first
um white collar trial, yes, um, and and it resulted
in the first white collar law in fifteenth century England.
And this wool transporter was given a bunch of wool
and said, hey, take this wool to this person, and
(18:26):
it was his job, so he decided to instead just
keep the wool for himself for his own use. So
he looked into this more. Yeah, I thought he might
have been like cold on his journey and said, you know,
I'm gonna keep some of this woold. Now, he kept
some of the wool. I think he kept all of it,
but somebody gave it to him. He's like, thanks chump,
he was. But the key is, and this is something
(18:47):
that has has woven into the history of white collar crime.
What he did was not illegal at the time. The
law that was enacted as a result of the Carrier's
case was they were saying, Okay, this isn't oh, this
isn't illegal, but it's obviously there's a huge problem with this,
so we're going to create a law that outlaws this
act so people can't do it anymore. Good point. And
(19:09):
basically that's what happened. Well, that's kind of what happens
with every law. I guess, someone commits it first and
then someone says, hey, maybe we shouldn't do that. Yeah, yeah,
I guess. But in this case, especially like uh, the
Industrial Revolution in the West, obviously you started getting these
larger corporations and all of a sudden, things like monopolies
and price fixing and employee uh safety and all these
(19:32):
things come into effect for the first time. So that's
sort of when it was really born and when they
started saying, hey, we need to look at something called antitrust. Yeah. Again,
like monopolies were not illegal, but when a company bought
up all of its competitors and said, oh, suddenly the
price for your groceries like through the roof, where else
(19:52):
you gonna go? It wasn't illegal, but the the people
of the world started screaming, and governments finally responded, and
it was really the US that first had the real
first solid response in the Sherman Anti Trust Act in
like the eighteen seventies maybe I think eighteen ninety named
for John Senator John Sherman, Ohio, Republican dude, chairman of
(20:15):
the Senate's Finance Senate Finance Committee, which I didn't know
they even had way back then. I forgot didn't either,
but I mean, it seems like a basic committee there,
so this is interesting. And that it was voted on.
It won by a vote of in the Senate fifty
one to one, in the House by two forty two
to zero. So there was one dude that didn't vote
(20:35):
for it. And then I think twenty five years later
when they came up with the Clayton Anti Trust Act
to really put some punch into the Sherman Act. It
was two seventy seven to seventy four and forty six
to sixteen so in that twenty four years, it sounds
like maybe things got slightly corrupt here and there. Well
it wasn't that. It was that. Well, maybe it was,
(20:56):
but there was also some real problems with the Sherman
Act that was really vague. It basically said like now,
from here forth, all um anti competitive corporate measures are illegal,
and then it left it to the courts to decide
what was what, and the courts weren't really in the
mood to enforce it, so it went largely unenforced. Although
American Tobacco Company and Standard Oil, like two of the
(21:19):
biggest companies in the country, were dissolved under the Sherman Act,
Standard Oil big time. Imagine that Like, imagine going to
a company now and saying like, hey, Apple, it's just
too big, so we're gonna dissolve you into thirty one companies.
We have all these federal regulators here and they're gonna
come in and look at everything and the dissolve you
into different companies. Sorry, that's what they did. Okay, Even still,
(21:43):
it didn't have enough tea. So they came up with
the Clayton Anti Trust Act, and then that one really
spelled things out, like, um, you couldn't do price discrimination anymore,
which if you were black in America during the Jim
Crow era, price discrimination was mind boggling. You walk into
a store if you're allowed in there to begin with,
and they'll just make up whatever price they want. It's
(22:05):
it was really I'm reading this, um Consumerism an America book,
and it's at this point now is really just this
blemish on American history. I mean, like slavery wasn't bad enough.
I mean to like have slavery light through the Jim
Crow era, it's just disgusting. Um. Okay, So there was
no price discrimination allegedly, corporate mergers were outlawed in the
(22:31):
Clayton yeah. Um. And then interlocking boards where you had
like competitive companies but the same people on the board
of each Right, you can't have that. And then also
exclusive contracts where it's like hey, Home Depot, you can
sell our um weed whackers, but you can't tell anybody
else's those contracts are out right, Hey Home. They do
(22:53):
stuff like that now though, right, maybe not exclusively, but
they carry lives. They do not limited number of brands,
corporate mergers, interlocking boards, exclusive contracts, all that stuff one
a way. They all got chipped away. Okay, it's just
I mean this, this this act is like not in
force anymore. Basically. Well, that's one things that bugs me
about like grocery or actually the big box hardware stores.
(23:17):
Grocery shopping, you you only have access to what they
who they have partnered with, right, whether it's your potato
chip that you want or your weed whacker that you want.
It's true. And most of the big box stores also
have exclusive contracts the other way. It's like, yeah, we'll
sell your weed whacker, but you can't sell it. No
one else can, right, So it's like a real gamble,
(23:39):
I understand, Like sign on to one of these giant corporations.
Well that's one in the Walmart effect. That was one
of the things I think they used to. It's like
a tent company or an awning company, and like this
mom and pop awning company all of a sudden gets
a Walmart contract and they're like, sweet, they answered all
our prayers. They ordered like thirty thousand of these. They
order thirty thousand, They opened up like three new buildings.
(24:02):
Hi are all these employees, and then the next year
they come back and say, we want thirty thousand more
but we're gonna pay you about less, and you've already
bought the buildings and even you know, invested in the
in the materials and the people, and all of a
sudden you're screwed. You know, one thing that I've long
thought and I'm gonna totally take flak for this, but
I still think it's worth saying, like you here, like, well,
(24:24):
that's just business. I feel that any any institution where
like morally reprehensible acts can just be you know, off
handedly dismissed as a matter of course of that institution
is inherently fought. There's an inherent problem with it. Yeah,
that's not okay, Like we don't just go, well, that's
(24:48):
just murder, you know, or well that's just stealing, you know,
welcome to earth. Human. No, we have moral and legal
guidelines that we follow. And is this in Corporations have
so so long stood outside of these things that it's
just it always bugs me when it's just like what
are you gonna do? Yeah, I don't like that. So sorry,
(25:11):
I'm off my soap I agree completely, Well, I'm off
of my Tide brand soapbox. Well said, um so, things
are kicking along here in the industrial West. Corporations are
getting larger, and all of a sudden, these crimes start happening,
and something called a muck raker in the nineteenth than
(25:31):
early twentieth century comes about. And I didn't realize a
muck raker was exclusively a journalist. Yeah, it's thought it
was for an investigative journalist. I thought it would was
anyone raking muck. Um, But it's specifically a journalist who
basically early on said you know what, that's bad stuff
going on, see and I'm gonna expose you right one.
(25:53):
Oh really and he wrote the jungle changed of course.
I mean the FDA basically came about because of the
investigation that conducted. Well, muckrakers raked a lot of muck
can cost a lot of problems in these companies. And um,
one of the things that came about because of the
muckraking were, you know, things like the Clayton Net that's
exactly right, exposing all this stuff exactly and things like
(26:15):
that DA, Federal regulations, consumer protections. The muckrakers basically stirred
up public sentiment like hey, don't be idiots, like this
stuff's going on, and a lot of people said, well,
it's not illegal. And then unfortunately there are guys like
um E. A. Ross, who was a criminologist and a sociologist,
and he started really kind of looking into this and said,
(26:37):
hey man, these people might not be criminal, but let's
call them criminal OIDs. Like that was the coining the
turn might coin for people who, especially in business, carried
out these terrible acts that weren't illegal. He argued that
even though it's not illegal, they're causing ill and these
people are still responsible for him. So make a law
that outlaws at dummies. And he inspired a guy named H. Sutherland.
(27:01):
Okay he came before Sutherland. Yeah, he was at the UM.
Ross was working at the time of the muckrakers, and
then Sutherland came about twenty years later. Yeah. Sutherland coined
the term actually white collar crime in nine and he
was a criminologist and sociologist, and he pretty much he
had a broader definition that basically it was the high
(27:21):
society and not the lower class at all committing these crimes, right,
which nowadays you can't really say that because anyone can
get a stock tip commit in. You know, it happens
all the time across all spectrums of the class system.
But Sutherland's point was, and he wrote a book called
White Collar Crime, UM. His point was that there was
(27:42):
a huge bias in the United States UM where the
where law enforcement in the courts leaned heavily on UM,
the working class crime, and just basically ignored the crimes
of the upper class and said this is not okay, Like, um,
if a guy is gonna steal a thousand dollars from
a cash register with no gun or anything like that,
(28:05):
like there are other factors, but let's just say a
guy steals a thousand dollars from a cash register and
he's poor, and a guy steals a thousand dollars from
an investor and he's rich. That's they should be treated equally,
and they're not. And that's what Sutherland's point was. And
he was the first dude to really bring this to light,
wasn't he. Yeah, well, Ross kind of started to, but
Sutherland was very well received. It was well received in
(28:27):
certain corners. But there were also certain flaws pointed out
by people over the years. UM. One of the things
mentioned the article has said that he failed to distinguish
illegal crime from deviant mere deviant behavior, right, like apparently
his his whole premise was like you're into donkeys, you're
a white collar criminal exactly. And the other thing I
(28:49):
mentioned too was that he pretty much said it was
anyone like any upper class nonviolent crime, right, And that's
definitely evolved, and I think fairly sure. I think you
can be working class, you can be buss his class
if you like. That's a big, big part of white
color crimes definition is that your opportunity arises because of
the trust that's granted to you through your occupation. Yeah,
(29:10):
even if you're a lower level employee, you still may
have access. Like the lady who wanted to sell the
coke secret. She wasn't like a CEO, No, she was
an admin. I believe in things like job job m um.
(29:47):
So there's a there's one thing that that like you said,
they like to shoot a hole in uh Sutherland's theory.
That or they say his definition is too broad because
he did include behavior that's not illegal. But it's a
very legitimate point to say, you kind of have to
because if not, then we wouldn't have had the Sherman
Anti Trust Act, we wouldn't have had the Clayton Act,
(30:08):
we wouldn't have had um you know, the f d A,
all of these things that uh that the carrier's case,
he would have gotten off scott free. What he did
was not illegal. So it has to evolve over time. Agreed, Okay,
and it has agreed. So let's talk about, um, I
guess the impacts of today's modern white color crime. I
(30:33):
was like man that was suspensable all of a sudden. Thanks. Um. Yeah,
We've talked about a few of these, about seemingly not
having a victim. But what happens is, um, you rip
off a huge corporation, the al race of prices. There's
another ripple effect. You talked about cutting jobs to meet
you know, the needs of the investors. If it's a
publicly traded company. Um, when there's stock fraud committed, insider
(30:55):
scandals like Enron are going to ripple out throughout the
stock market cause it is, like you know, basically cause
people to be unsure and have no faith in the
stock market all of a sudden. Yeah that's dangerous. Yeah,
I think about all the people who just lost everything.
Oh my god, I get yeah. I get just as angry,
(31:16):
if not more angry at something like that than you know,
something like heinous crime. Yeah, i'd say equal, Yeah, they're
both scumbags. Okay. Um, so you said, like in seventy
four the FBI first started, they that's when they've created
this white color Crime division. So apparently like yes, yeah,
(31:39):
and it was a response like this University of Michigan
survey that they conducted between nineteen fifty eight, I think
in nineteen seventy three, they found that, um, people who
said that they trust the federal government went from seventy
three to thirty seven percent between nineteen fifty eight and
nineteen seventy three. Yeah, I flip flopped. Yeah, and that
(32:01):
sort of could see that over that time period the sixties. Yeah,
one of the big ones was just like fraud and
corruption at high levels, and so the FBI created this
white collar crime thing. One of the other things that
differentiates white collar crime from regular working class crime is
the police's ability to police it. You walk into a
(32:24):
room and there's some guy weighing out cocaine, he's a criminal.
You walk into a room and there's some guy on
a computer doing a pump and dump scheme. Who knows
that average cop isn't equipped to detect this kind of crime,
And as a matter of fact, even very very well
trained cops aren't typically equipped to detect this kind of crime.
(32:45):
One of the hallmarks of white collar crime is that
it's very difficult to prove. It's very difficult to uncover,
and it's also difficult to prosecute. Yeah, and there's no uh,
smoking gun, there's no paper trail, or there may be
a paper trail, but it's probably electronified. Sure, so it's
a little harder to follow. You gotta really, you know,
(33:06):
you gotta have people that know what they're doing. And
that's why the FBI created that division, and I guess
they're doing a good job, but it's kind of hard. Well,
the Justice Department has been going after white collar crime
lately under Obama pretty hard here there, um, and then
the Sarbanes Oxley Act definitely step things up and to
(33:27):
some say too much. Yeah, I mean, I've had to
comply with this at various uh when I worked in
the film as Is production companies had to, like it,
jump through way more hoops with paperwork because the Sarbanes
Oxley do you want to tell do you want to
tell them? Well, it's it was in two thousand two,
and it was to improve corporate governance, which is basically
(33:48):
accountability between corporation the stakeholders. What it amounted to was
a lot more paperwork, essentially, a lot more proving of
numbers and showing numbers and jumping through hoops. It was
a direct reaction from of the fallout of Enron, from
the fallout of Enron and Tycho and like all the
other companies around that time. UM. But one of the
(34:11):
other things that did chuckers was UM quadrupled sentences in
a lot of cases for white collar crime. So now
you have guys like Bernie made Off getting a hundred
and fifty years. There's a guy named Sholem Weiss who
was involved in like the breakup of some insurance company.
He got eight hundred and forty five years. He gets
(34:32):
out in twenty seven fifty four. I don't think he's
going to see that. I don't either, But I mean
a guy named rich Harkness got a hundred years for
a thirty nine million dollar ponzi scheme like these, and
all of this is like post Sarbanes Oxley, except Sholem Weiss,
which is really saying something. But but I mean, like,
so now now sentences are like quadruple. It's like, well,
(34:54):
wait a minute, maybe maybe this is a little too
much like just retribution on the rich. It is, and
that's kind of I think why a lot of people
are having a hard time feeling bad for ridiculously wealthy
people who were hucksters and frauds, or people who builked
people out of their retirement accounts. It's tough to feel
(35:15):
sorry for him. But legally speaking, it's like, well, wait
a minute, Um, you were worried about the guy who
stole a thousand dollars out of it till being treated
differently from the guy who stole a thousand dollars from
an investor. Now it's flip flopped. How is that any better? Exactly.
One of the arguments for these kind of things is
that these people are traditionally and historically have been treated
(35:36):
differently because they look like the judges that are sentencing them,
and so judges historically like really have taken it easy
on them. Um, let's go ahead and just call them
white dudes. Okay, but they also have been Um you
can make the case that they are usually first time offenders,
they're usually family people. Um. That's that's something that the
(35:59):
judges put out there like, well, this is a family man,
he's not much of a flight risk. He's probably never
going to do this again, as he had dangered a society. Yes,
he didn't use a weapon, which is a huge, huge differentiation,
and so sentences have typically typically been light. But um,
you can you can also kind of say, well, you
know where where it feels like we haven't quite felt
(36:19):
it out, like we've traditionally ignored white collar crime. Now
we're really sticking it to him. Well, it's that whole
argument with prison. Is it like punishment for a crime done?
Or is it rehabilitating a person who has a problem
with crime? Well, within eight hundred and forty five years sentence,
it's making an example out of that person because since
(36:41):
you can't police it, another way to prevent it is
to send a message through the courts like you do
this man, you're going to prison for a long time. Yeah.
I don't know if that's such a deterrent though for
some of these people. I don't know. I mean, I
think about it. Twenty years in a in a federal pen.
You say, club fed is not around any longer? Yeah, um,
(37:01):
And I mean this is like twenty actual years. Yeah. Um,
some guy named Thomas Petters recently got fifty years and
he will spend forty years in jail and he's fifty
two and he will probably die in prison. Now that's
a big deal with somebody who's like, well, maybe I
shouldn't do this insider train, Maybe I should let this
fifty grand just walk by because it's not really worth it.
(37:24):
Well something like that. I'm talking about the ones who
are getting rich by the tens of millions of dollars.
What I want to see is that these people don't
get out of prison and still have all those millions
of dollars like hidden in different foreign accounts and offshore
islands and uh like, the financial part is what really
(37:45):
bugs me. I meant to I didn't get a chance
that I meant to look up and see if any
of the en Ron victims and employees were ever repaid
or if they were just s O L. I'm under
the distinct impression they were s O L really, because
the company was in such bad shape that even dissolving
it and I think I think they some people did
(38:05):
get some money, but I don't think it was anything
approaching what they lost. Well, if whoever commits these crimes
gets out of jail and they have two pennies to
rub together. Then those two pennies more than they should have.
I think, well, that's the thing. Like, so the government
started prosecuting under the Rico Act, which is the same
thing they bust up mafia organizations with UM and they've
(38:26):
been fighting white collar crime with that. And one of
the things about the Rico Acts it allows states and
individuals who are harmed to sue for up to three
times the damages. Yeah, but even then, all they have
to do is say, yeah, I don't have that money.
You kid me. Well, it's true, I can't pay it. No,
it's true. But like UM, in the made off case,
the guy who's who was assigned to basically get money
(38:48):
back for investors has gotten I don't remember how much
made off least, but let's say it was eight billion.
The guys managed to like get like six billion back. Yeah,
he's done a really good job of getting the money back.
And that's just a that's that's an example. It's not
a figure, but it's it's something pretty significant. You're still
gonna get email. I'm looking forward to the ones where
(39:11):
it's like Hey man, we don't listen to you for
free to hear your opinion about class. All right, let's
move on to other countries. Um, things are different all
over the world. UM. Obviously when it comes to big
business and business dealons. Uh. Western Europe has followed right
behind the US, UH most wholeheartedly with laws to prevent corruption.
(39:33):
Eastern Europe it's coming on board a little slower, um.
But then you go into other countries like in Western Africa,
and it may be customary to Greece palms to get
a deal going, or in India where apparently if you're
a truck driver, you're gonna have to bribe people to
keep your rig on the road. And that's just how
it is there, right, And not only is it customary,
(39:55):
it's frequently legal. Yeah. Russia, Yeah, bribes all over the A.
So you want to land contract, you might have to
bribe somebody. So if you're a multinational corporation, it's tough
to do that's headquartered in America. Yeah, you have like
a real problem facing you, especially, like I said, the
UM Justice Department under Obama has been prosecuting white color
(40:15):
crimes and going big time after UM people. Under the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which says, if you're an American company,
you can't engage in bribes, even if it's legal in
that country. Yeah, but what's the point, like, why hamstring
American business abroad? Exactly? Um? And to help this out, actually,
(40:38):
there has been a unified committee called the UM company
I'm sorry, committee called Transparency International, and they are out
to get rid of corruption and to unify business business
ethics all over the world. Right, And that's the that's
the reason that you hamstring American business because it's basically saying, hey, uh,
we can take the hit in the hopes of pressing
(41:00):
the rest of the world into the same clean up
their act. Competitive laws we have here in the States
that work very well, So good luck to them. Yeah
that's it, man, I got nothing else. No, we should
we should play this one out with um tucking heads
big business agreed, Okay, Um, so chuck, let's see. Uh.
(41:23):
If people want to learn more about white collar crime,
I would strongly advise them to go read this article
by Jaye McGrath. People with John and there's a Simpsons
reference in it. It's a way to go Jane. UM.
You can type in white collar crime in the search
bar how stuff works dot com? Which friend oh brings
up listener mail. That's right, Josh, I'm gonna call this
(41:46):
uh hot off the press is good cause I'm gonna
sucker with that stuff. Okay, Chuck and Josh and Jerry.
I want to say thank you for all the hours
of listening. My brother Chase and I've been listeners nearly
as long because you have been making them. There was
even one year's day where all we would do was
listen to your Hangover podcast on repeat. I don't he's
(42:07):
I don't know if that's good for hangover. Uh. It's
funny and informative, and I always feel like calling my
brother after listening to the latest episode. I'm writing you
because it's recently his birthday. He's the best brother in
the world and downright awesome human being. It would mean
a lot to me if you could tell the stuff
you should know listeners about his latest project. When his
friend Jim survived cancer, he told Chase that he gained
(42:31):
strength in the music he loved over two years, two
hundred twenty six hundred tracks, two hundred tracks. It's a
weird way to put it. What would that bed? Would
that be wait how many two D yeah would it?
(42:53):
Or D no plus two hundred d Nearly two hundred
artists persons insane, No, she's not over two years two
hundred tracks nearly two hundred artists from other countries all
over the world have allowed them to share that message.
(43:14):
They are releasing their second compilation disc Electronic Saviors colon
Industrial Music to Cure cancer. So it's these artists compilations
are putting together apparently two tracks. Uh. They are a
registered US charity and all proceeds go to cancer research.
And if you want if you're into electronic music and
(43:38):
if you want to support cancer research, you can go
to www dot Electronic Saviors dot com. And that is
something Chase has got going and his sister Laura Dudley
uh is a big fan of her bro He sounds
like a swell guy. I'm all for it. Cancer. Had
(43:59):
to promoted your cause, chuckers. We try to do that.
You did good. Um. Yeah, we always want to hear
about good causes, so you can get in touch with us,
let us know about yours. We'll try our best to
let everybody else know about it, especially if people can
support it. Agreed. Um, let's see also enjoy a little
Talking Heads Big Business from the live album Stop Making
(44:21):
Sense released. We're sure it's up on iTunes, Amazon and elsewhere. Um.
You can get in touch with us at s y
s K podcast on Twitter, uh, you can go to
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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