• SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    The lifestyle of Vietnam’s nouveau riche elite was exposed during the devastating trial in Ho Chi Minh City that convicted Truong My La Lan of stripping the country’s biggest bank huge sums of money in a scam worth $44 billion. (…) She broke down in tears as she battled for her life before the sentence was announced. It was “due to my lack of understanding of legal matters,” she said, that she “did the wrong things.”

    Watch me boombling and bamboozling my way around with my eyes closed and absolute zero awareness of my general environment as I accidentaly scam billions of dollars. Whoopsies.

  • cyd@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    You can tell this is written by an American because it keeps bringing up the war for no reason.

  • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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    9 months ago

    I applaud holding rich people accountable, yet I’m militantly opposed to the death sentence.

    I think there’s quite some no wage labor left in them, let them try that out for a change.

    • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      The most difficult argument to argue against against the death penalty is that you cannot repair for the damages of executing a person you’ve wrongly convicted, if new evidence appears too late.

      This doesn’t even mean there aren’t people who deserve to die, or who deserve suffering. Rather, it’s an acknowledgement of the fallibility of human institutions.

      • Sludgeyy@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        That’s why death penalty shouldn’t exist for crimes like a wife killing a husband. You might be 99.9% sure she poisoned him, but you cannot know for sure.

        However, a school shooter caught red handed shooting a school?

        Some crimes and scenarios can warrant the death penalty in my mind

        Next argument is “what if the government framed people to execute them?”

        Why in the world would the government point out that they are executing someone?

        If the government (the rich controlled government) wants you dead they would do it quietly.

        Even something as simple as cutting your brake lines. You really think local police are going to figure out that the government had soldier 65478 tamper with your brake lines?

      • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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        8 months ago

        I’m overstating, but yeah I want them alive. To eat a way out. There’s plenty menial tasks they can do .

      • SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Not OP, but

        You use firearms = Militarily =/= Militantly = You go out of your way to actively advocate for something

      • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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        9 months ago

        It’s reversible at least. I’m not for unusual punishment, just got the exact conditions of a Vietnamese laborer at the bottom rung.

        • Sludgeyy@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          So you’re okay with sending someone to a work camp if “they probably did it, more than likely”? Because at least it’s reversible…

          So what if they have to spend 10 years breaking rocks in the sun. Oopsie daisies

          • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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            8 months ago

            You misrepresent what I said. If going guilty they are eligible to do the work many do for sustenance, not heavier or more. Just what other people do.

            Not a work camp, just living the life of many.

            There’s many proud garbagemen and cleaners, of they are any good, they might even climb the division ladder. But they are last, castwise.

            Like reincarnation, only we do it right here. Garbage men are their superiors.

  • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Concise writing is a dead art, isn’t it?

    I guess the death sentence is one way to deter people from similar offences.

    • Pilferjinx@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Maybe she didn’t bribe them well enough? She should’ve been buying officials rather than property like we do in the west.

      • whenigrowup356@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        From the article:

        “She faced an array of charges along with her husband, Eric Chu Nap Kee, a billionaire Hong Kong real estate operator, and 85 co-conspirators, including lawyers and banking regulators from the capital of Hanoi, the seat of communist rule.”

        So, she did bribe officials. Probably pissed off the wrong one, though.

    • skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Hint: communism doesn’t work in practice on scales the size of nations. The ideology is too fragile and susceptible to corruption and outside influence and you end up with shit like this.

      Before anyone says “it’s not real communism” that is the point. It’s useless if it’s too weak against other ideologies to be properly implemented.

      • zephyreks@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        The same argument can be applied for free market capitalism: it’s too fragile and susceptible to corruption and outside influence. The reality is that the big economies of the world lie somewhere in the middle.

      • gmtom@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        That’s because communism was never supposed to be a thing you just implement and was never meant to exist alongside other ideologies.

        Communism as first described by Marx and then later expanded upon by other theorists is merely the inevitable outcome of a global society that has overcome scarcity, moved away from late stage capitalism and values things like workers rights, equality and standards of living.

        The biggest divide between communists is usually how we get to that end state. Do you try to ignite a global violent revolution against capitalism, seize the means of production by force and then use dictatorial power to try and force society towards it, like the Soviets did? Or should we make incremental changes over time though existing Democratic channels like democratic socialists? Or do you seize the power for yourself, run the country like a monarchy and claim you’ve achieved communism?

        • skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          I am familiar with marxist theory. The problems lie in what you just said. As Marx said, it is the natural progression of a society that has progressed through the stages of capitalism and entered post-scarcity. People who advocate for other channels of achieving communism are misguided, as post scarcity is a pretty hard requirement and a lack of that aspect opens the mechanisms of resource allocation up to exploitation. And unless you can somehow stop shitheads from being born, someone is going to be enough of one to take advantage.

          Even the OG natural progression of society version of communism has issues. For one, you still have the shithead human problem. There’s always going to be people out there who want it all, and they’ll exploit whatever they can to get it. Communism, being stateless, doesn’t have particularly good mechanisms for dealing with that.

          • zephyreks@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            The entire point of socialism with Chinese characteristics was studying how to achieve post scarcity in a capitalist global economy without losing the leverage necessary for the government to eventually progress towards communism. It’s not like this is a unique train of thought.

            Marx wrote assuming that revolution would happen in the advanced economies of Germany, France, England, and America. Instead, revolution happened in the agriculturally-dependent economies of Russia, China, and Vietnam.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Socialism works. Workers can democratically direct production at scale. Communism is the goal, but Socialism isn’t some sacrifice to get through, it’s a marked improvement on Capitalism. Capitalism itself is the sacrifice.

      • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        But even if communism was an ideology and an unreachable standard that a community or country was striving to active, you would expect it to be harder to even become a millionaire

        • skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          Communism is an definitely an ideology. Literally first sentence from Wikipedia: “Communism […] is a left-wing to far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology…”

          But yeah, it’s kinda suspicious that every nation scale attempt at communism has ended in failure or a system that is decidedly not communist, whether through internal strife or external influence.

  • Murvel@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    The cognitive dissonance in the hive mind is as strong on lemmy as it ever was on reddit, which I find interesting.

    ‘The death penalty is brutal, primitive, unjustified; corrupt billionaires should be put to death by the state.’

    These two completely incompatible sentiments have been expressed just in the last few days on this same instance.

    • Tamoato@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s about balancing principles…

      On the one hand, I feel somewhat strongly that the state shouldn’t execute criminals. On the other hand, it’s more important that billionaires face the consequences of their actions like normal people do.

      In this instance, justice demands death.

      • HopingForBetter@lemmy.today
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        9 months ago

        It’s a very hard line to tow.

        I think the death penalty should really only be allowed for mass murder / enslavement.

        However, I doubt any billionaires are innocent of enslaving people, even if it’s “I paid them ($0.07 / day, which is slave wages)!” So, fuck the ultra rich. They didn’t get there by hard work; they got there by exploiting people and the system. Finances are not unlimited, so funneling that much money to yourself means you are directly depriving whole communities of livelihood and, almost always, actual life.

        • Maven (famous)@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          My major issue with the death penalty is the very real chance of killing an innocent person. People have been wrongly arrested/convicted significant amount of times for mass murder situations, so while on principle I have no issues with the death penalty in mass murder cases… I can’t support it because of the chance of it being the wrong person.

          With billionaires, it’s pretty easy to figure out exactly who is the billionaire out of a group of random people… Very hard to wrongfully convict someone of having over a billion dollars.

      • Murvel@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        It’s about balancing principles…

        Nah, it’s more about having no principles.

        • Tamoato@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Sticking religiously to ours principles isn’t a luxury most of us have. We just have to make do with pragmatism.

    • kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It’s pretty basic harm reduction. We support harm reduction. A terrible person being killed is harm reduction even if a terrible person being imprisoned and being rehabilitated if at all possible and made to be as productive of a member of society as possible in prison would be better harm reduction. The world is too big and too awful to look at everything in absolutes.

      And it’s nice to see awful rich people actually get the real punishments they often deserve instead of poor people get those punishments that they often don’t deserve.

      • Murvel@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Yes, yes. ‘The death penalty is acceptable for some’ is all I’m hearing.

        You say harm reduction, I say Bullshit!

        • kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          It’s a very easy argument for us both to have while dealing entirely in hypotheticals of how we feel about what other people are doing. I’m not executing anyone and I’m not in any position to do so I’m just enjoying watching bad things happen to bad people. The fact that I don’t trust anyone to be able to legally decide who deserves to be killed in cold blood doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate some real justice being done where it usually isn’t.