Today is Biden in Boise day…
- About Sharon Ullman and that whole open government thingy. Tom @ Fort Boise here. I think the main issue here is an unrealistic expectation about how many people actually read blogs.
- More pics from IdaBlue helping out with the Special Olympics in McCall.
- BW on the proposed liquor law changes. I feel the plight of the current license holders, but the system is corrupt and needs to be changed.
- Speaking of… citydesk: Boise bar owners question Otter attorney.
- Lot’s of stories about Canyon County Development Services Executive Director Leon Jensen suddenly resigning. But gosh darn it, people want to know why.
- “Cancer couldn’t kill her, but peanut butter did,” And a guy goes and fights for his country in the Korean War, survives, earns 3 Purple Hearts and he dies 56 years later because of American peanut butter. You know what would happen to the owner of this company had this happened in China –I’m not saying I support that, I don’t — but what do you want to bet they get off with a slap on the wrist. I hope they investigate all the up the FDA ladder, you look hard enough I’m sure there is a Bush appointee involved. Or better yet, not involved.
- Could legalized marijuana solve not only California’s budget crisis, but the whole country’s?
- Memories; Skittles and vodka, when I was in Korea a lot of soldiers used to do this, tastes like drinking liquid Skittles, I could only handle a sip. I stuck to the soju and OB.
- The bill to raise the dropout age has been dropped.
- Sounds like a nice place to get some good grub and vino in Canyon County.
Re: the contaminated peanut products. At least nine people have died as a result of eating contaminated food, including an Idaho resident. While the corporation is under criminal investigation, it remains to be seen if the owner and managers will be prosecuted for murder. This case illustrates a couple of problems - the first is that profits are more valuable than lives and health. The annals of white-collar crime are chock full of these sordid sagas. Second, we see once again that the regulatory system has failed to protect us. An estimated 5000 people die each year in the U.S. from eating contaminated food. When we realize that white-collar crime is <bold>the</bold> crime problem - more people are killed and injured and more money is lost to white-collar crime than all street crimes combined?
Hold on there Doctor. I applaud your passion, but let's come back to reality shall we?
WHO supports your 5000 deaths per year from food contamination in the US. It does not differentiate between contamination from processing facilities versus a dirty restaurant. Shot the white-collar crime argument to hell, didn't I?
Using the same failure to differentiate, FBI says the homicide rate in 2007, in the US, per 100,000 persons is 5.9%. Using the latest figures from the US Census for the US, 305,805,912,, this amounts to 18042 deaths per year. I'll knock off 10,000,000 for the year difference - that is still 17452 deaths per year.
Let's see some accurate stats to support your claim, Doctor Blankenship. Conspiracy theories are useless.
There is no conspiracy theory here, just the facts. These people are still dead because of the failure of the regulatory process and because an organization (a company or a restaurant) placed profit above human life. And these deaths are not the only ones that occur because of white-collar crime. Deaths from physicians outnumber the homicides reported in the UCR. And don't forget the deaths and injuries from defective products, unsafe working conditions, and pollution. Then add in tobacco and alcohol related deaths. Talk about dollars lost - how about the current economic collapse? How about Madoff and his $50 billion Ponzi scheme? Clearly more people are killed and injured and more money is lost from white-collar crime than from street crime.
Peanut Corp. CHECK
Madoff CHECK
Physician related deaths? Seriously, now. Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath?
The rest of your examples? While I'm sure we could find instances of criminal wrongdoing in each of the industries the examples apply to that is not enough to issue a blanket indictment of white-collar crime.
Look, deaths should not even be part of this argument, really. White-collar crime traditionally describes crimes committed for financial reasons by affluent people. The FBI describes white-collar crime as "those illegal acts which are characterized by deceit, concealment, or violation of trust and which are not dependent upon the application or threat of physical force or violence." Peanut Corp. is surely complicit in this sense. God knows what other infractions they are guilty of. But when the decision to ship tainted product was made it became murder. Plain and simple. Nothing white-collar about that.
I think you generalize much too much, Doctor. Except, maybe, when it comes to "street crime." If you are operating on the definition that street crime is comprised of illegal activities which take place in plain sight, such as muggings and the like, then yes: At an estimated cost of $300 Billion dollars annually, white-collar crime is more expensive. If you care to expand your definition of street crime to include violent and property crimes I think you'd have a hard time justifying your claim.