People on this forum take the latitude to discuss the differences between the "letter of the law" and the "spirit of the law". They are both supposed to be factored into legal investigations and judgments when deciding someone's guilt or innocence.

Someone who has deep understanding of the letter of law and uses it to semantically defy the spirit of the law (like tax evasion by exploiting loopholes that were not designed for their use case) do, in my opinion, deserve criminal punishment.

The tax code was designed to tax entities who use more than their fair share of public resources to make private profit. Think about the legions of WalMart semi-trucks ripping up highways that most taxpayers pay for; it gets to profit from its use of infrastructure that it uses way more of than the average taxpayer.

Obeying the intent of these kinds of laws as they were written originally requires ethics that many corporate individuals simply don't have.

Recognized that the law doesn't apply to rich people?

Recognized that just because something seems like it should be true doesn't actually make it true

Insider trading laws apply pretty much exclusively to rich people.

More like the law was written in cooperation with the people that became wealthy through means that used to be legal and protected themselves and their legacy by kicking away the ladders they used.

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Seems like you're saying the same thing as your parent commenter.

Didn't downvote but I figure I should better support it if someone actually cared enough to criticize...

From a trade policy perspective alone we have plenty of supporting evidence among developed countries of self-serving policymaking. Ha-Joon Chang, economist at Cambridge, has written several books criticizing neoclassical economics policies commonly used by both left and right wing policy makers across many developed economies including one literally called "Kicking Away the Ladder" describing how an alarming trend for developing countries to make trade and domestic economic policies that close off tools these countries used themselves to grow their economies. A recent case of not following conventional policies and playing into the hands of the ultra wealthy is Iceland following their real estate collapse and now subsequent rebuilding on their terms as suggested by economist Michael Hudson, another critic of neoclassical economic policies.

Regulatory capture is one of several by-products of cronyism and an oligarchical rather than impartial, equal opportunity system but even in a toy case study in sports there is clear evidence of bias with regulatory experience http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/coep.12240/abstra... If there's policymaking and enforcement bias over time in something with as little consequence as sports but also certainly fiscal motivators (for teams, NHL Commission, etc) it would be strange if our government policies would be exempt from the same human dynamics that is specifically meant by those with hidden information to stay obscure and hidden. But not a whole lot of grant funding out there to investigate corruption exactly, so rigorous academic research on corruption, regulatory capture, and other perversions of capitalist society is sparse, oftentimes difficult to get solid data, and thus difficult to cite in a random Internet comment to the satisfaction of pedantic critics that react to defend any assailment of the much-maligned wealthy.

I'll omit the studies showing those with wealthier backgrounds showing tendencies toward far more loose ideas of lawfulness and fairness compared to the general population.

Also, I wrote it partly tongue-in-cheek in tone responding to a potentially more inflammatory, generalized, presumptuous comment and somehow that was ignored?

I wrote that comment when I was really tired and went too far trying to make a point. I apologize for the flippant-tone, it was completely unnecessary. Thanks.