11.05.2010

Punishment That Fits the Crime

Minnesota Mom Hit With $1.5 Million Fine for Downloading 24 Songs
Now don’t get me wrong, I certainly believe copyright laws must be enforced, JUST LIKE every other law must be enforced. Before being reduced, the judgment came out to a penalty of $62,500 per song.

Now this begs the question - what should the equivalent penalty be for each bad mortgage originated and then fraudulently sold off? How many mortgages did Countrywide originate that were fraudulent? And how much was that evil orange leprechaun Mozillo ordered to pay? According to this article $67,500,000.

For the sake of argument, assuming that Countrywide's transgressions are on par with our evil Minnesota mom, Countrywide originated only 1080 bad mortgages under Mozillo. Of course Mozillo earned hundreds of millions of dollars cashing out Countrywide stock options, so while it's a stiff penalty, he'll still be able to get by and won't have to cancel his 24hr Tan membership. Thank goodness a judge reduced the mom's penalty to a very reasonable $54,000 and I wish they had published how much money she had made so we could compare her situation to Tanzillo's. Oh you suggest that she didn't make any money on the deal...while Mozillo made hundreds of millions??? Huh....that's funny.

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