The following chart will be rather shocking to most people in this country. We have been led to believe that street criminals, the ones who use a weapon to rob individuals, banks, gas stations, and convenience stores are the people we need to be worrying about -- the ones doing the most damage to our society, and the ones who steal the most money. But that is not even remotely true.
The chart above shows that street criminals are dwarfed by businesses that steal from their employees. And I'm not talking about businesses that take from their employees by refusing to pay a decent livable wage. These are employers that refuse to pay employees anything at all for work they have done. They steal the wages they promised to pay.
Note that the figure is more than twice as much as all of the money taken by street criminals -- and that only counts what the Department of Labor has verified and forced businesses to pay back. Much more is still being investigated, or has not been reported to the Labor Department.
But even that figure is small. It does not count what businesses steal from consumers, from Main Street to Wall Street. Most street criminals are pitiful amateurs, who need a weapon to overcome their fears and commit their crimes. The real professionals wear a suit, and will steal much more using only a smile and a few lies.
It would be nice if our government (at all levels) considered these criminals to be as dangerous to our society as the street criminals.
