[jamornh]

No, but then that's an issue with the way fines and punishments for said crimes are structured, not the fault of those who takes advantage of the loophole.

There are 2 types of fines: fines that are meant to stop things from happening and fines that are there to basically make the city money. Most traffic fines seem to be structured for the latter.

[st3v3r]

Wrong. It is an issue with the idea that the rich are above the law.

[jamornh]

If you want the rich to not be above the law then the punishment for breaking said law should not be financial in nature. Any punishment that is financial in nature will ALWAYS be less impactful to the rich than to the poor.

An improvement to this would be to structure fine based on networth rather than a fixed amount. Yet even then, a millionaire paying $900,000 in fines is still not as devastating as a poor person paying $900. So I would say that the issue is still the structure of the punishment.

[ghaff]

A lot of the Nordics apparently have some fines based on income: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...

I can't say I really favor this but it has been done.

[Dylan16807]

Someone with money to burn can already get priority access to so many things. I don't mind if they can buy priority access to roads and reduce the amount of funding that has to come from everyone. When there's no harm or risk of harm, it's a pretty big exaggeration to use a phrase like 'above the law'.

[orcdork]

Good to know it's up to you to pick and choose which laws inconvenience you, I mean which laws are there to make those fat cats at the city office the big bucks.

[Karunamon]

Do you ever exceed the speed limit? Pass on the right? Rip your music or movies? Download torrents? Take pens from work? Park inches over the line? Throw away mail addressed to the previous resident of your house (federal felony)? Participated in an office pool? Smoke weed?

If so, kindly do not speak from the glass house about picking and choosing which laws to follow. You do it, I do it, everybody does it. Society still functions somehow.

[jamornh]

I don't think that was the point of my argument. I don't agree that rich people should be above the law, but that doesn't mean I can't disagree with the way the punishments are structured. I'm all for punishing all equally under the law whether you are rich or not. With that said, that also means that I think financial punishments for laws should be redesigned. A good start would be to fine people based on their networth instead of a fixed sum. Even then, the impact of a $900,000 fine on a wealthy person is likely less than a $900 fine for a poor person.

[Dylan16807]

What in the world are you talking about?

They stated that different laws exist for different reasons. That's not picking and choosing laws. And they didn't say that laws to make money are inherently bad either.