'robin hood' bankers

ninky_2

there have been several cases of 'robin hood' bankers recently taking from the rich to give to the poor. are they really criminal? what would you make of the real robin hood if he was around today?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/6581510/Robin-Hood-bank-manager-accused-of-stealing-to-help-poor.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1056746/Robin-Hood-bank-manager-stole-7m-rich-clients-gave-needy-customers.html

http://www.pantagraph.com/news/weird-news/article_d7f03aa8-b339-11de-a304-001cc4c002e0.html

Generali

In the stories, Robin Hood was an outlaw. That meant that the courts considered his crimes so heinous that he lived outside the protection of the law: anyone could do anything they wanted to him and there was no legal recourse Robin Hood could have nor any legal sanction in place for anyone acting in any way towards him.

In Liberal Democracies these days I guess the closest I can think of is Extraordinary Rendition but even that isn't anything like the same thing.

Of course the main difference between the news articles and Robin Hood is that Robin Hood didn't actually exist.

ninky_2

okay robin hood is a legend - maybe based on some fact but we dont' know. these people are real and subject to the real laws of the land. all these cases have been prosecuted.

but for me the question is whether what they were doing was morally wrong. if, for example, you can take money from someone who doesn't notice it's gone and give it to someone who is starving or struggling to put a roof over their head, is it wrong to do so?

Generali

ninky wrote: »

okay robin hood is a legend - maybe based on some fact but we dont' know. these people are real and subject to the real laws of the land. all these cases have been prosecuted.

but for me the question is whether what they were doing was morally wrong. if, for example, you can take money from someone who doesn't notice it's gone and give it to someone who is starving or struggling to put a roof over their head, is it wrong to do so?

For me it is wrong - you can't take someone's property without their consent.

It would be ok to steal from a rich person with Alzheimer's disease by your argument.

ninky_2

Generali wrote: »

For me it is wrong - you can't take someone's property without their consent.

It would be ok to steal from a rich person with Alzheimer's disease by your argument.

isn't that what taxes do? or punishments like parking fines? okay, you might say that they are state sanctioned - and in the uk that is supposedly democratically sanctioned. how about if you live in a country without an elected government? how did the richer 'victims' come to have more property in the first place? not all through honest hard work i suspect.

that said we can't have individual bankers deciding the correct wealth distribution for their clients. but i can't say i'm not without some sympathy.

Generali

ninky wrote: »

isn't that what taxes do? or punishments like parking fines?

Yes it is and that's why I'm against taxes for the most part. Taxation is the appropriation of money by threat of imprisonment.

ninky wrote: »

okay, you might say that they are state sanctioned - and in the uk that is supposedly democratically sanctioned. how about if you live in a country without an elected government? how did the richer 'victims' come to have more property in the first place? not all through honest hard work i suspect.

that said we can't have individual bankers deciding the correct wealth distribution for their clients. but i can't say i'm not without some sympathy.

You leave me behind with the rest of this. I think you make an argument for me and then knock it down.

To go back to your initial point, it's not for someone to decide that they should steal a person's private property and give it to another person, no matter how beneficial the recipient appears or how reprehensible the person taken from.

I'm off to bed so before you start on about the taxes thing, I suggest you have a look at your own property and how you'd feel about someone stealing from you and giving it to someone they consider more deserving.

I'll check back tomorrow. Toodle-pip!

dopester

A RBS branch-manager near us got caught in 93, having given away a significant amount of money to in-distress during the last recession. Not mega sums but about £55,000 all-in IIRC, which was pretty significant back then. I've still got the paper-clipping somewhere. In that instance I really believed he gave the money away... he had no money-troubles himself and the article reported him sobbing in court.

Nevertheless, what he did was wrong, as it was in each instance of each news-story you've linked. RBS writing-off £6.5m loaned by their free-lending employee. Fraud really can really pay for some.

Also in the recession my friend's solicitor-father later got caught for having dipped into client funds, leading to disbarment - but that was for personal purposes, propping up their own house/family/income needs (always check they have appropriate levels of indemnity insurance ect). And thinking about it, another friend's parents' clothes firm nearly went under after their accountant plundered a lot of their money and did a runner in the last recession too. The guy who bought our house when we moved into that area early in the last recession later got sent down for embezzling funds from his company, which probably helped him buy the house.

Stealing for personal gain - or giving other people's money away in an act of charity - it's wrong.

carolt

Well I think it's lovely. But I can tell I'm alone here.

ninky_2

dopester wrote: »

giving other people's money away in an act of charity - it's wrong.

why? how about if that money was got by seriously dodgy activities in teh first place? (e.g. abramovich)

lostinrates

ninky wrote: »

why? how about if that money was got by seriously dodgy activities in teh first place? (e.g. abramovich)

The old cliche is ''two wrongs don't make a right''. If I steal from my theif neighbour, does that make me a thief too, or the bringer of justice? I'f I believe property ownership was worng, yet went with the system and bought a house is that right or wrong?

My feeling is where I live with in a system I must play by its rules or enable my self to leave. I an campaign against the rules in various different ways, and an make it lear the rules I don't like, but I feel to maintain any right we have to have some ''rightness'' with in the system itself.

Its all very well to say the system is worng, of ourse, but who is to say, besides us, our alternative is right!

Generali

ninky wrote: »

why? how about if that money was got by seriously dodgy activities in teh first place? (e.g. abramovich)

Then there is a legal system which should be able to be used to gain redress by those wronged.

You can't just go around taking other people's property, regardless of whether you're Abromovich or a crusading bank manager.

You're on to a loser here ninky.