Amber Wilson
Critical Writing
PBS Frontline- The Untouchables
The PBS Frontline Documentary The Untouchables shined light on the claim that wealthier people in today’s society get off easier when they break the law. During the financial crisis of 2008, it was said that fraud was committed when many mortgage bankers and high-end executives on Wall Street knowingly bought loan portfolios that didn’t meet their policy credit standards. Even with the evidence in place, no one was arrested and held responsible for a stock crash that nearly destroyed the entire financial system of the United States. With a powerful justice system and justifiable evidence in place, no was prosecuted. Did the justice system not take the necessary steps to ensure that justice was served
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It took for the losing in the case with two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers for the government to realize that there was a problem within their justice system. If they couldn’t take down two people accused of deceiving investors, how did they assume that they would be able to take down numerous high-end executives within Wall Street? So in fall 2009, over a year after the initial hit of the financial crisis, Obama introduced the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task to oversee prosecution for fraud and financial crime a week before the hearing to discuss ’08 financial crisis prosecution. With such a department now put in place, the government believed they could go back and review the “fraud” that took place within Wall Street years before and place a blame somewhere, revealing another flaw of the US government and justice system. The government wasn’t taking the cases as serious as they should have. They weren’t finding ways to filter through Due Diligence underwriters and they weren’t calling forth whistleblowers. They were losing the case before it could even
The story The Outsiders By S.E Hinton is said to be “timeless” because kids can relate to the characters and themes of the story. In my opinion the story The Outsiders is not timeless because kids these days can’t relate to the characters in the story The Outsiders. Kids today aren’t riding in rodeos, roll drunks, jump smaller kids, walk to a stranger's house, or get in a stranger’s car, also they get arrested at the age of 10. Saying the statement “The Outsiders is a “timeless” book “ is an invalid statement. So, Kids today often don’t relate to The Outsiders anymore in many ways.
S. E. Hinton’s argument is given from the perspective of a 14 year old Greaser named Pony boy Curtis who is being raised by his older brothers Darrel and Soda pop. The theme of the Outsiders is no matter what side you may grow up on whether you are a Greaser or a Socs, that you all can still have the same problems, see the same solutions, and dream the same dreams. You are also able to see how his character grows up and matures during the various interactions throughout this book. The two gangs in the book are the Greasers and the Socs (socials) and honestly, even after reading the book the only reason they didn’t like each other is they both had assumptions about each other that really weren’t correct.
Oppression is a term that has been used throughout history to describe the injustices brought upon minority groups. Feminist writer Marilyn Frye shared the definition of oppression, which essentially means to shape or conform certain groups of people (for this paper women will be used as the primary example) into socially constructed ideals through restrictions that mold and immobilize minority groups or females (Frye 11). According to Marilyn Frye, this term is sometimes loosely thrown around and used out of the term’s true context. The misuse of this term often creates a misconstrued view of what true oppression is and how particular groups of people are able to function within
Choo choooo. Choo choooo. SMACK! Weee Wooh. Wee Whooh. Imagine losing both your parents to a train. They were just driving around, when their car stalled on the tracks. Right then their car stalled, the train couldn’t stop. Your family’s care is parted into two, swung out into the trees only a matter of seconds. In the book, “The Outsiders,” that just happened to come into a boy’s life. A boy named Ponyboy Curtis.
Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in restitution to any swindled stock buyers of his brokerage firm (A&E Networks Television). Though his lavish spending and berserk party lifestyle was consumed by excessive greed, he displayed both positive and negative aspects of business communications.
My research topic explores the prevalence that economic privilege has on implications of crime. Privilege is a word used often in today's society, but to what extent do we truly understand how privilege is exercised in our justice system. My research topic explores the prevalence that economic privilege has on implications of crime. The economic status of many determines how fair they are treated and viewed by the legal system. People of a higher economic status, sometimes do not understand what it means to have the privilege of wealth on their side. Through the careful analysis of articles and books, I will provide sufficient evidence that points to the mistreatment of the underprivileged in the criminal justice system. The emergence of carelessness
Enron and their accounting firm Anderson Accounting brought what we know as “white collar crime” to the forefront. White-collar criminals are not known to be dirty criminals, because they use their heads to get what they want from society. White collar criminals do not use their muscle; instead they use their brain for mischievous way to manipulate people. These criminals are just as dangerous as the bank robbers and murderers in my opinion. In these times, even the most trusted people are being convicted of white-collar crimes, your neighbor, the banker you have trusted for ten plus years, the closest of family friends, no one can be ruled out. White-collar crimes can differ in the sort and magnitude of the crime. There are always new scams coming out every day that society falls victim
The title “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton is very transparent and requires deeper thinking to be understood, because in the end it is like an onion. You can peel of layers and layers but there is still more. Ms. Hinton never did mention who the outsiders were or outsiders at all, so what is an “outsider”? I believe that we are all outsiders, because being an outsider means to be different and to work well together because of that. Perhaps a hidden moral to the book is that being an outsider isn’t a bad thing.
Quentin Tarantino’s latest offering, “The Hateful Eight,” gave a touch of the classic era as it was shown like a blast from the past. From the movie’s setup to the premiere, people behind it made sure that they gave their viewers a different kind of experience over the Christmas weekend.
We see it all the time something that a normal individual would be in jail for a celebrity gets a tap on the wrist and a “don’t do that again” for it. If an individual with power and money do time for their crime they do time in a prison that’s more like a resort you can’t leave. An average person and a rich person could commit the same crime at the same time and the average person would get in more trouble than the rich person. The judicial system is messed up, but there is nothing anyone can do about it. A regular criminal compared to a white-collar criminal, when arrested a white-collar criminal are more likely to have their cases dismissed by the prosecutor and less likely to have to put up bail. If convicted they are more likely to get probation rather than jail and more likely to get shorter
This case illustrated that there were real consequences to white collar crime. In addition to paying the fifty million dollar fine, he relinquished another fifty million dollars of his illegal trading profits. (He still had millions remaining, however, from his illegal gains.) His actual prison sentence was three years, yet he served only twenty-two months in the federal prison at Lompoc, California, which was known to have a “country-club” atmosphere.
In the essay about the "Untouchables", we learn about the different attitudes some people express towards the homeless people across the United States. I did find it disturbing that people were being poisoned and burned just so society would get rid of the homeless people in their area. As a first responder, I see many of these people on a regular basis on the street and in the homeless shelter. Most of the people we visit are regulars but they have serious medical conditions that they cannot help due to some of their circumstances. I believe that this essay was intended for the politicians and people in society that does not understand some of the hardships that these people have endured. This essay has not changed my perception of the homeless,
White-collar crimes and organizational structure are related because white collar-crimes thrive in organizations that have weak structures. According to Price and Norris (2009), the elites who commit white collar-crimes usually exploit weaknesses in organizational structure and formulate rules and regulations that favor their crimes. Makansi (2010) examines case studies to prove that white-collar crime is dependent on organizational structure. For example, the financial crisis that Merchant Energy Business faced in 2001-2002 occurred due to the liberal Financial Accounting Board, which failed to provide a standard model of valuing natural gas and fuel. Moreover, a financial crisis that rocked the securitization market in 2008 was due to fraudulence in the pricing of securitization products. These examples ...
The Enron Corporation was an American energy company that provided natural gas, electricity, and communications to its customers both wholesale and retail globally and in the northwestern United States (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Top executives, prestigious law firms, trusted accounting firms, the largest banks in the finance industry, the board of directors, and other high powered people, all played a part in the biggest most popular scandal that shook the faith of the American people in big business and the stock market with the demise of one of the top Fortune 500 companies that made billions of dollars through illegal and unethical gains (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Many shareholders, employees, and investors lost their entire life savings, investments,
In the 1990’s after the United States Congress approved legislation that deregulated the sale of natural gas, Enron was able to sell energy at much higher prices and to gain higher revenues. This is when Enron’s engagement in criminal activity is considered to have begun. While most companies’ activities regarding commercial business are regulated and watched over by the government, deregulated companies “are not subject to government mandating and oversight; as a result, the executives of ENRON were able to misrepresent their respective earnings reports and stock activity in a fraudulent manner” (Finance Law) by misrepresenting their earnings therefore falsely inflating the prices of their sto...