THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

One would think that the brother is aware of Eliot’s wife

I meant the doctor’s wife won’t be happy to read about her own husband’s views at being powerless in front of women.

I don’t even know what that means.  Is he trying to insinuate his brother is a victim here?  It sounds like something an accused rapist would say.

PS - first post in what, a month, without a hockey analogy?  Shouldn’t there be a reference here to finishing your checks, third man in, 2 minutes for hooking, or something?

I normally don’t care what a politician does in his private life, I am a registered Democrat (really an Independent), and I also don’t care whether someone likes to frequent hookers or not (and I think that prostitution should be legal), with all due respect to the guy’s (or gal’s) family (not a good thing if you are married or otherwise monogamously attached, especially with children), but…

This situation is pathetic, for various reasons, and Spitzer should resign, and I am 99.9% sure that he will…

On the one hand, it’s pretty clear that this prosecution exists because someone in the Public Corruption Squad was combing through IRS data desperately looking for dirt on Democratic officeholders.  On the other hand, how freaking stupid can you be to think your $9,000 transfers aren’t going to be noticed?  There’s a law against that.  This man was an AG.  Stupidity like that should be criminal.

There is no law against making $9,000 transfers.  The “structuring” law is about purposely splitting up cash transfers that would be subject to a reporting rule, in order to get around the reporting.  It is difficult to prove.  It is a stupid law, and one that has an interesting history.  At one time, it was one of the few laws that in order to convict, you had to prove that the person knew about the structuring law itself (that it was unlawful).  I think that ruling (I think it was a Federal Circuit Court ruling) has since been overturned or the law was re-written, which is a shame, since the court was correct when it concluded that it is too easy for an “innocent” person to violate the structuring law simply because they did not want the government poking around in their lawful affairs.  In fact, the example they gave in that original ruling was, “Imagine a little old lady who owns a small business goes to the bank and wants to deposit $11,000.  The teller tells her, “Ma’m, I am going to have to fill out a CTR which goes to the IRS.” She replies, “Oh my, what right do they have budding into my business?  I’m a law abiding citizen and legitimate business person!  Here, I’ll just deposit $5,000 today and I’ll come back tomorrow with the other $6,000.  The teller says, “O.K. No problem.”

She just broke the structuring law, a serious felony, and of course, she does not know that. The teller does not even know that.  All the teller knows is that if someone transacts more than $10,000, they must fill out and send in a CTR.

So the court originally made the 100% CORRECT ruling that for a person to actually violate the spirit of the law, they must know that they are NOT ALLOWED to do what the old lady wanted to do.  20 years ago, almost no one knew about “structuring.” Now, it is more well-known.

Normally ignorance of the law is not a defense, but sometimes it is (again, rightfully so) when an otherwise law-abiding citizen may “innocently” break a law in the course of normal activity.

Anyway, our wonderful, benevolent, always looking out for the little people, government thought that this ruling made it too easy for people to simply claim that they never heard of the structuring laws as a defense, so they went and made it a strict liability crime.  So now the old lady goes to jail, not knowing that she did anything wrong other than try and avoid the government sticking its nose in her lawful financial affairs.  Of course, in reality, she is not going to get prosecuted, but just the fact that she could is a bad thing.  IMO of course.

And according to the media, a bank or several banks notified authorities about “suspicious cash transfers.”

I doubt that is even close to an accurate representation.  First of all, to fill out a “suspicious cash transaction report” (less than 10 but more than 5), the teller or banker has to have good reason to think that the transaction involves unlawful activity.  That usually happens when some drug dealing guy comes into the bank and makes several large cash transactions or something like that.  This is the Governor of NYS for cripes sake!  Plus he is a multi-millionaire.  What cash transactions that he would make would rise to the level of being strongly indicative of illegal activity?  Plus he was taking OUT money, not putting it in (presumably).  If he was putting money in, it might look like bribe money (even then, he is already a multi-millionaire and these are relatively small transactions).  The Governor of NY can’t take out 5,000 from the bank without them filling out a suspicious transaction report?  Come on! I don’t think we or the media have any idea how he really got caught.  The media just makes shizit up all the time or prints stuff which makes no sense at all.

How old is the structuring law, and was the limit always $10,000?

I’m against it simply on the grounds of it being against the concept of a free society.  Inflation is another problem.  10K today buys maybe what 20K did 20 years ago, and that’s just “official” inflation.  Add some stagflation to the mix, wait a few decades and keep your limit the same, and you’ll have to fill out a form everytime you fill up your car or pay cash for groceries.

I had thought of the inflation issue as well.  The AMT is a similarly-related problem.  If the intent was to catch 1% of IRS filings or 0.1% of transactions, then the limits should be readjusted periodically (say every 5 years), so that a balance is kept.  Same deal with alot of these threshhold laws.

I’m pretty sure the 10K thing has been around for quite a long time.

I’m against it simply on the grounds of it being against the concept of a free society.

You’re kidding right?  Most people and legislators (apparently) think it is OK to “protect” us and enforce the law (the CTR and other reporting requirements are designed to “catch” money launderers, which is the catch-all phrase for doing anything with money that the government does not like) and sacrifice a little bit of “freedom.” Their argument is always, “If I’ve done nothing wrong, I need not fear the government knowing what I am doing.” Or that, “A tiny bit of loss of freedom or privacy is nothing compared to the benefits...” My friend who is a smart guy, constantly argues that no innocent person has ever been damaged by the government’s post 9-11, Patriot Act type of warantless (or secret warrants) searches and surveillance.  Of course he has NO IDEA that that is true and it probably isn’t.  And even if it is, that is not a justification, IMO.

That is a flawed argument, but many people do not understand why.

The Bank Secrecy Act is the progeny of most of the “reporting” laws.  That was enacted in 70 or 72, I think.  I think that the “structuring” laws have only been around since the 80’s.  And yes, the original amount was $10,000 and it has not changed in over 30 years. The government has little incentive to change it, other than the paperwork headaches and expenses (they get over a hundred million CTR’s per year I think).  If it were solely up to them, they would have it at $1,000.  Again, the “government” (and most people) sees no problem with poking around in people’s business.  They simply think that if you are not involved in criminal activity, you have nothing to hide, and therefore don’t mind these things, and that if you do mind these things, you are likely a criminal.  They can’t imagine a law abiding citizen not wanting the government to know their business, and if someone does, it is just too bad for them. That is just the way most people think.  A government in a democratic society is just a reflection of the people in general.  People complain about corruption in government, as if there is no (or little) corruption in society. I hate to tell people, but government is corrupt because society is even more corrupt.  I don’t mean to day that there is “causation” in that direction, only that government and society are one and the same, in a democracy.

Here is a good web site I just found about “money laundering,” bank and reporting Acts (laws) and requirements, etc.

http://members.tripod.com/~orgcrime/genmlbasics.htm

From Spitzer’s resignation speech today:

“Over the course of my public life, I’ve insisted, I believe correctly, that people regardless of their position or power take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself,”

He forgot to add:

That’s only if you get caught, of course.

Just once I’d like to hear, “I f***ed up and I’m sorry.”

Was #10 supposed to make me feel OK about CTR laws?  (since it started with the “you’re kidding right?") I assumed I was being rebutted.

It certainly had no such effect.  I hope you aren’t confusing “democracy” with “free society”.

Was #10 supposed to make me feel OK about CTR laws?  (since it started with the “you’re kidding right?") I assumed I was being rebutted.

No!  Just the opposite.  I am a libertarian and I don’t believe the government has much of a right to poke into our private affairs.  Not so much that they “don’t have a right”, it is just that I would prefer them not to, and I think it makes for a better society, but I don’t know that of course.

When I said, “You’re kidding,” I meant, that I thought you were implying that we live in a free society.  I guess you didn’t mean to assert that “we live in a free society,” only that it seems to be antithetical to the concept of living in a “free society.” I whole heartedly agree.  It is just that we don’t live in anything close to a free society (according to my criteria for a FS), and it gets worse all the time.

The reason it gets worse is that new laws get enacted all the time, right?  Just by virtue of our legislators being replenished every so often means that they will all have their notions of what laws we should have to “protect” someone (like some legislators in Minnesota want to pass a LAW making it illegal to wear cologne in school).  Just like on our baseball rules (Girardi) thread, everyone has a new rule/law they would like to see put into effect.  So the first legislature drafts 100 new laws.  Then new people get elected and they think that their job is to enact NEW and MORE legislation, so 100 new statutes get passed. So and and so forth.  The problem is that no one thinks about GETTING RID of laws.  There should be a Constitutional Amendment requiring that for every law passed there should be one abolished.  Seriously!  So what do you think is going to happen in a society where new laws are being enacted ALL the time?  It gets more free?  I think not.  Every day someone comes up with an idea (for a law) that will make us (supposedly) more secure and protect us from evil-doers in our country and in the world.  The next thing you know, you wake up in the morning and someone is listening in on your phone conversations and peeking through your window.  Most people are OK with this until it gets really bad.  I am not.

I want to go the rest of my life without knowing about anyone else’s sex life. I realize there were crimes committed here, and there’s the issue of hypocrisy, but I’m mostly ticked off because once more some idiot has done something so stupid it forces me to hear about his sex life for days on end. And I live more than 3,000 miles from his state.

MGL, I think we’re on the same page.  I’m a registered libertarian, though I’m not an extreme one who thinks every function of government should be privatized.

Agree that way too many laws are going way too far.  One example is that I can understand laws keeping guns out of the hands of children, and guns out of schools.  It’s going way too far when kids are getting in trouble for drawing a picture of a gun, or wearing a t-shirt with a gun on it.

But stuff like that, or laws regulating sex lives are merely distractions.  The real injustice is the way the banks have usurped our entire economy, as we watch them try to avoid the consequences of years of irresponsible lending practices.

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, — if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.

- Benjamin Franklin, Speech to the Constitutional Convention (1787-06-28)

I’m not sure I get what he means.

As an aside, there is barely a day that goes by that I don’t read some obviously grossly inaccurate statement on a mainstream web site.

In an article, “A Look Inside the Emperor’s Club” from the Washington Post:

Emperors Club made more than $1 million over three years and paid about $400,000 to more than 50 prostitutes.

Is it obvious what is wrong with that statement?

Not obvious to me, other than the very low number.  That’s 8K per prostitute, and if the girls are charging upwards of 1K an hour, it seems that the total number of clients would be just 3 or so per girl (presuming the 2.5 hours that was being reported per session).  Doesn’t make much sense.

***

The “other woman”:
http://www.myspace.com/ninavenetta

Yes, those numbers are ridiculously low and couldn’t possibly be accurate, and the writer of the article should have realized that.