The money that was stolen wasn't sent to everyone. You can't steal money sent to everyone. It was the PPP 'Paycheck Protection Program' money that was stolen where tons of small businesses filed to get that money when it wasn't needed. That's not the same thing at all as putting money in the same bank accounts that file tax returns, which is the example I was providing.
This site has a threaded discussion system, context matters. The post you are referring to was responding to someone who specifically made the point that this was analogous to allowing poor people to steal money, which is clearly not the case.
In this context, it's clear you are both in agreement.
again there's a vast gulf between one who steals money through dishonesty and one who steals with voilence. (granted if you have been screwed over you may disagree)
Do you really want to steal the money from people who saved money all life
You seem to be arguing they should not have taken any money at all, which I of course agree with.
My point was that if they take money (which they did) then they should at least have spared the <100k accounts. I was trying to give the simple answer to the rhetorical question "what's the alternative?".
They overstepped two red lines here. Applying a sudden-tax to their citizens is the first, and taking it from the people who can least spare it is the second. My response was only concerned with the second line, because that is the really explosive one (civil unrest, bank run).
You can put your theory into practice by walking into a bank with a gun (in states where it's legal) and kindly asking them to hand you a million dollars. It'd be interesting to see what happens next.
But, more importantly, it seems to be that your point is that crime is not a crime as long as it appears to not be one. As long as a robber asks and I cooperate, it's not a crime. As long as IRS doesn't use force first, it's okay to steal things from me. I don't agree with that. What right on earth does anyone have to take away from me the money I honestly made? Who gave anyone this right? Why should I comply except for the reason that if I don't, they will make my life difficult and will still manage to take things away from me? I haven't stripped anyone off their money, I created value and sold it to people who were willing to buy. Explain to me: why does anyone have the right to take money from me?
Nah, you're making weird rhetorical question strawman arguments.
No, holding people accountable for stealing money is attacking the wealthy only if you believe all wealthy people are literally stealing money for some reason.
No, stealing money from people is not the same as a traffic violation, but, yes, people should be held accountable for operating heavy machinery recklessly.
I don't know why you've decided to deliberately misunderstand things and engage petulantly, but here we are.
I'm not seeing the bank as a faceless entity. My point about the comparison with two people should clue you in on that. Your theory about if enough people steal from "the bank" doesn't hold any water since if that happens it's proven that the government will swoop in and save the bank as happened in the 2008 financial crisis. That's not even to say the vast options banks have to detect stealing if it would become such a huge problem. A person on welfare has little option.
It's simple to me. a single person stealing from a bank incurs a lot less suffering then a single person stealing from a welfare recipient. The damage done is simply not even comparable.
Income. Money people make is being stolen by gunpoint.
Irrespective of the proposed uses of the money is, stealing is stealing.
I can put a gun to Bill Gate's head and demand 50% of his wealth and spend it only for 'good' things. But, doesn't mean I didn't steal.
But as a matter of probability and human greed, some people understood the system and invisibly stole from it. How much of the money was mismanaged vs how much was stolen is debatable.
The question people should be asking is not whose income grows and who gains the most. To me, the only relevant question is: did this person stole the money or made it honestly? If he stole it, then he should be in jail. If he didn't, then it's none of anyone else's business how much he has and what he spends it for. And by honestly I mean he didn't force people to pay him and he didn't coerce anyone to pay him. If one can't convince a rich person who made his money honestly to share or help the poor or invest in a project that would supposedly create more jobs, then maybe it's that person's problem that he can't convince.
So you're saying that if the government only steals money from a few innocent people, that's OK?
And "Chances are many of them are either criminal money": we have a process for determining if someone's a criminal. It doesn't involve the government just deciding that on its own.
Stealing was good for the majority of people in the financial services business who didn't get caught and go to jail.
The financial services industry, according to 2011 statistics, employed roughly 5.5 million people (and this is surely lower than the pre-2007 statistic). Do you honestly think that the majority of these people are thieves?
I could give one random person a million dollars and that would prove that people can escape poverty?
That's not how people escape poverty. People who rise up have to work to achieve it.
Money represents the time out of people's lives that they spent to earn that money. He didn't steal just money - people worked and sacrificed time out of their lives to earn that money.
We should continue to try and catch and give consequences to the people we can, else how many more people will join the ranks of those who already do pilfer.
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