A bank clerk who dreamed of becoming a model stole £46,000 from the tills — and spent it on plastic surgery and shopping sprees.
Rachael Claire Martin, 24, used the cash to fund a boob job, dental work and liposuction, as well as hair extensions and nights out.
She took thousands at a time from her Barclays branch in Liskeard, Cornwall, in an eight-week period.
Martin initially denied 25 counts of theft in 2010.
But on what should have been the first day of a week-long trial, she admitted a single charge of theft covering the full amount of £46,000.
Steal thousands from a bank? You face criminal charges, a trial and jail time.
When that same bank manipulates a $600 trillion market by rigging the LIBOR rate for profit? No criminal charges, no trial, no jail time.
This is more surreal than Barack “I’ll Bomb Ya” Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize.
In a better world people who rob a company engaged in a manipulative criminal enterprise like LIBOR-rigging would not face criminal charges. There is a case that this girl should be treated as a hero. In stealing the money, she was just getting back a tiny fraction of the money that Barclays stole by rigging LIBOR. And by spending the money at least she gave the money back to the public instead of stashing it away in the Cayman Islands.
I hope she achieves her dream of becoming a model. And I hope the LIBOR-riggers spend a very long time in jail — but in reality there’s not much chance of that.
azizonomics 
Great observation. Great cartoon. The Banksters know they have it made, but also know there is limited room for their kind in the economy. It wouldn’t do at all if their methods were taken up by the masses. You’ve covered the MF Global scandal quite well. Is John Corzine doing jail time yet? Insider trading and money printing is ilegal for the average Joe, but OK for ‘top’ Bankers and their friends. It is a disgrace. I don’t mind punishment for breaking the rules, as long as the rules are the same for everyone.
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Always remember that 99% of what’s goes down in this world is perfectly legal. And the wealthy have always gotten away with the illegal stuff [it’s one of their perks].
Just the same, it’s all about making what should be illegal, legal. A good example is the obstructing of free markets, essentially the main purpose of modern government.
Imp.: Your 1st paragraph is ALMOST a bullseye. Would you agree to “the wealthy AND POWERFUL have always…”, or just “powerful”, with a note that wealth is merely one form of power?
Your 2nd paragraph — an original to me — IS a bullseye! Here in the U.S. our Constitution, as amended, is THE law of the land; it explicitly prohibits the FEDERAL government from exercising any “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution”. Regardless, various congresses, presidents, and supreme courts have imposed federal government healthcare, charity, housing, retirement, education, price controls, wage controls, agricultural controls, (non-defense) energy research, etc.– none delegated by the Constitution — without the slightest effort to amend the Constitution to legalize any of it.
The rule of law works great for people who can afford it.
It’s just the gangsterisation of justice.
There’s class in very thing people do. Low class criminals are different than the high class criminals. It’s not about the steal. It’s about the way you steal that makes the difference. Just like the saying goes: ” It’s not about what you are saying. It’s about the way you say it.” High class criminals can get away because they make their crimes not like crimes and make them highly debatable that they committed no crimes. Low class crimes are, well just simply “crimes” which are as obvious as the nose on your face. So that’s why.
I agree. Great explanation.
I tried forcing an Australian Regulator to prosecute a Director of a company who contravened the Corporations Act. The regulator said talk to the police. The Police said talk to the regulator. The Policeman said “If I spent my time following up all these complaints regarding this area of the law, how will I catch robbers etc” No joke. I said thanks now I can advise white collar criminals on the PRACTICAL LAW. He did not like that comment!
Toothless Laws for the rich, whilst the poor get shafted.
Makes me sick.
Yeah, makes me pretty sick too.
Buddy, we need your take on an Australian’s opinion piece on policies of Gillard and Rudd vs. Howard.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2012/07_australia_green_ideological_disaster
If that doesn’t work, send your email address to me.
canddguier@aol.com
Re your cartoon: Initially the “occupy Wall Street” (and copycats in other cities) illegal mobs were tolerated and indulged by authorities. When the law-breaking escalated from pranks and misdemeanors to serious property damage, assault and rape, all the enablers tried to deny their complicity. This always happens. The 1960s and following “race” riots were almost completely smash & grab mass robberies. Today we have “flash” (pre-scheduled!) mobs of black on white assault; rarely do media identify or.picture the race of the culprits.
Law-breaking mobsters SHOULD be in jail. And so should the Wall Street and Washington conspirators in mega-cime! Both!
“If anything can go wrong, it will.” If immoral, amoral, anti-social perpetrators find that they can get away with nonfeasance, misfeasance or malfeasance, they will.
You know, I have said to OWS supporters before they should not fear or stereotype the Tea Party, and I say the same thing to Tea Party supporters about OWS.
They’re both two manifestations of the same thing — the people being pissed off at the power elite.
Yes, AZIZ. “Two manifestations of being p—-d off at the power elite.” But……
One protests with angry, disorderly, noisy, anti-social, obscene, unlawful acts. The other with permits, published program, orderly presentations, trash cans/no litter.
One screams for selfish freebies, no obligation to work, no restraints on behavior, etc. The other openly and patiently urges the American people to retake their government back from the very elites you condemn.
Agreed. The OWS crowd had their chance and blew it,
Yes, please line up and vomit in the corner there, and, the discrepency has always been constantly obvious. We need to all get together and help us poor thieves to steal smarter… Don’t we…??
I recently tried ‘compassion for us poor’ over a trivial traffic fine. Speed camera got me and I would have been let off just 2ks an hour slower. “It is the law. This offense is not trifling”. First fine in a decade. I’m a disability pensioner and it cost me 6 weeks food bill and that fee is being officially reduced by nearly half in a few weeks. Never met a compassionate cop (administrator of justice for all of us). They can be legal or its usual opposite – moral!
Blind heartless law peddlers do more corrupt damage in a culture than just about anybody. The simpler people wear most of it for not having the means or ability to sort it out humainly. Corruption occurs wherever a culture feeds uncompassionately off its parts instead of administering to them with compassion and positive knowledge or assistance toward better response next time. Governing bodies in cultures exist to support all parts of the organism they are.
“Oops” is never an excuse where money can be extracted instead, is it?
Go to the other side of that divide… I paid an eye specialist 200 bucks for less than 10 seconds of treatment any half aware nurse could do and he treated about 8 clients at a time, swapping chairs along the line of us. Doctors have a licence to steal and a great many simply become parasites feeding on the damaged and dying every day of their lives.
They are responsible only for the time they waste not whether they actually do any good or not. Accept their taking over responsibility for your health instead of you, as they insist it ideal, and you will likely lose your kidneys and liver long term to the poisons they constantly administer and all of the wealth you would otherwise have passed onto your family then.
Will you accept that with a plumber next time the shower is blocked and you pay and it is not corrected? Across every culture it has always been so that we feed on the weak, the powerless, the damaged and the desperate. It is the essence of the financial system that we trade money for needed empowerment in all things.
Sorry to hear about the speeding fine. I wish administrators had more compassion, but the bureaucratic-technocratic system breeds it out of them.
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Jesus Christ said it best.
“For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”
“You shall always have the poor.”
Hey guys! A humble retired engineer grandfather shouldn’t have to remind you scholars/economists/philosophers of the basics. But I read “(only) people who can afford it”; “gangsterization* of justice”; “the poor get shafted”; “class (of crimes)”, etc., as though citizens of democracies are helpless to right wrongs. Fatalism and pessimism!
One can understand starving Germans’ willing empowerment of a Nazi dictator, suffering WW I Russian peasants preferring a unknown Bolshevik devil over the known Czarist one, and ditto with Cubans for Castro vs. Batista. But well-fed citizens of democracies?!?
There is law-making and law enforcement**. Political (Democrat New Jersey former senator and governor) and Wall Street insider Corzine is (so far) protected by cronies, while free enterprise crook Madeoff goes to prison. Legendary long-term Louisiana Democratic Governor Edwin Edwards, notable for openly auctioning off bribe-rich patronage jobs, stayed in power until a bold Republican federal prosecutor nailed him. Massachusetts prosecutors let Senator Ted Kennedy off with trivial punishment for obvious wrongful death and perjury, and Massachusetts voters kept reelecting him.
Today, New Jersey and Louisiana have Republican governors and Massachusetts a Republican senator.
* Gangsterism? US Democrat campaign functionary Pat Cadell, soon after he helped elect Bill (and Hillary) Clinton to the White House: “My party has been hijacked by gangsters!”
** Enforceability, or intended/unintended lack thereof, is always a consideration in law-making. SELECTIVE-enforcement is a big cronyism business.
We are wasting our time folks.
http://www.infowars.com/the-libor-scandal-in-full-perspective/
Extortion. Pure Extortion. If you don’t give us 700 Billion the sky will fall. If you prosecute the sky will fall.
Whilst my heart goes out to the victims of the Dark Night 2 shooting, I feel the Liborgate scandal should at least be on the main page of the Wall St Journal.
Either this scandal is not real (We are a victim of economic misinformation to entertain doomsayers), or the main stream news is deliberately suppressing it.
http://online.wsj.com/home-page
My apologies, they have released some information
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444330904577538632888914116.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
For all those who opened your blog expecting a graph of something like wage stagnation since 1970 or Fed funds rate vs. LIBOR…