This is not a vent board or any other kind of therapy. Before you hit the POST button, ask yourself if your contribution will add to the level of discussion going on.

Important notes on articles:

• Please do not copy entire articles into your post; rather, provide links to them.. We are now links-only for ALL Internet publications. If only a small portion of the article pertains to your post, Fair Use allows you to copy those one or two paragraphs, provided you cite the author's name and the publication for which he writes. Otherwise, put a link in the HTTP Link box.
• Even if you're copying a reference to an article, provide a link to the page from which the article came. We're trying to cut down on duplicate topics, and the posting process will check the link to your article to see if it's already being discussed on this board. At the very least, you'll save yourself some grief on the boards.
• If your first reaction after reading the article you're going to share is the author is uninformed / stupid / a jerk / all of the above, it's not worth sharing with anyone. Not every article needs to be discussed. The more the hair-pulling articles are discussed (e.g. ESPN Page 2), the more the authors will write hair-pulling articles.

Post being replied to

Reminds me of a school bully... by Kbyrnes

...Yeah, I took your five dollars, but your family is rich--you won't miss it, so what's your beef.

Or if I didn't pay my taxes for 5 years, then paid up--I don't think the IRS would accept, "Hey, you got all your taxes--what's with this interest and penalties BS?"

The example an exoneration of this criminal behavior would set would be terrible. Go ahead, fudge everything, lie to your counterparties; as long as it works out in the end, what's the big deal? Sheesh.

I'd think there would be a lot of moral hazard to a policy that said, "Your intentional fraud against your counterparties was technically a violation of the law, but because they didn't really suffer, we'll issue a nominal penalty." The public is the long-term victim of the idea that financial fraud should be almost tolerated as long as in the end the "victims" really didn't lose out. Such a policy could easily be imagined to encourage more financial fraud...and what happens when, oops, the thus-encouraged financial fraud really does have a bad result?

Here's a better policy: Keep laws on the books against fraud. If you don't want to be punished for committing fraud then, gee, don't do fraud. A novel idea for Trump, I suppose.