Punish white collar criminals

Recently I read in the L.A. Times where a Chinese official had his death sentence suspended to life imprisonment for accepting bribes during the construction phase of the Chinese Olympics. Sunday's paper recounted the five months Martha Stewart spent in prison and five months of house arrest for her conviction regarding $56,000 she pocketed form insider trading information. Michael Vick went immediately to jail for two years, lost millions in endorsements, his profession and home for funding and participating in dog fighting.

MSN.com recently showed a list of the incomes for 10 of the major corporate leaders responsible for, in large part, our horrific financial meltdown, the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, wiped out retirement nest eggs and our overall loss of safety however naive, to name but a few. Their combined compensation for the period 20052007 equaled $800 million.

At the top of the list, Angelo Muzillo from Countrywide who took home over $375 million and Richard Fuld from Lehman Bros., over $175 million.

How will we deal with these few who have stolen so many peoples' futures? Mike Duck Agoura Hills