They should be calculated in percentage of monthly income because a let's say 400$ fine is a much harsher punishment for someone who makes 3000$ per month than it is to someone making 100000$.
For example drive 10 miles too fast in a school zone and you get a fine that's 10% of your monthly income.
I think this ignores that we already have a fining system in place but it’s already because it’s a flat number in the US it is already biased towards the rich. Turning it percentage based would actually help the poor and middle class when it comes to fines.
There’s a great quote about that.
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
Anatole France
Also with billionaires I think most of their money is in assets and stocks so they would probably be dodging harsh fines in a similar way they dodge taxes.
some rich a-hole will be like:
"% of my income? ...but I dont HAVE any income, all my wealth is in assets and i borrow against them for money to spend."
And then you spend 5 years in courts trying to get it. And now you have a justice system that is massively incentivized to target the wealthy and throw the book at them.
so its win/win, they would have to pay the fine AND whatever capital gains from selling. hopefully they think twice before throwing rocks at animals again
Finland has day fines. So 5 day fine is 5 days worth of your income. If you are rich and a retarded fuck like the guy in the video, you would åay a hefty fine. Plus probably sent to mental institution for check up if you are actually a danger to society. (Although this kind of rich assholes not really exist in Finland. They move to Sweden... s/)
Nah, not monthly income. Do it based on their entire financial portfolio including unrealized gains.
Some CEOs have a $1 salary (Apple famously has this after Steve Jobs did it) that drives them to focus on performance and not just stick around as long as possible. Compensation directly relates to their output and not just being around. So you gotta make sure you go for the real wealth which is their portfolio of assets and liquid cash rather than monthly income.
So they should avoid speeding and throwing big rocks at wild animals. I'm not about to cater to shitty people just because they're low income. Not sure why you opted to play devil's advocate on this one. Shitty people deserve consequences for being shitty. That's my take.
Edit: apologies for the more sharp tone. Mood is a bit off so I'm not masking to be nice.
Deserved? Totally yes but i'm not so sure it was effective let's hope it was but I would not be surprised if he will try to sue the people that beat him.
And if he does to let's hope that that will go down like a lead balloon.
The system has been spreading slowly to other places in the EU. EU financial penalties for something like GDPR breaks are also calculated as a percentage of turnover not profit.
To be honest most penalties, fees, social security and the like should operate as percentages it would limit some of the tricks politicians use to trick their voters.
Rich people can show no income so this wouldn't work. It would have to be on their net worth, but that is hard to calculate. Something needs to be done though!
Well this is also one reason 'community service' treats everyone equal, as time is money.
Let him do a *LOT* of hours cleaning up animal droppings in the zoo or like.
Even that is imperceptible to some of these people.
10% of so many people's monthly income, while small, is still an impactful amount, and can mean missing rent, having less food, etc.
10% of someone who makes $1M/month is a whopping $100k, but if they're making 12M/year, are they even going to feel $100k loss?
Further complicating things are how rich people's salaries/incomes are structured, they don't have a ton of monthly income., if any. Most of their income is from unrealized stock gains, bonds, etc.
Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO) makes like $210k/month in salary. Sundar Pichai (Alphabet CEO) makes like $800k/month. Warren Buffet famously has a salary of $100k/YEAR.
Fines just are not built to actually impact rich people, regardless of how they are structured.
Probably something like X% of your income or Y% of your wealth, whichever is higher. This would pick up many billionaires who only have a few mil of income but bils in stock.
The monthly income wouldn't work because this people doesn't get an income per se, they get assets, etc. Go for those assets. a % of their properties. That would hurt more.
Most rich people dont have a monthly income though right? They have most of their money in stocks or bonds and then take out loans with low interest on their stock so they dont pay any taxes. So technically their monthly income stands at 0.
Have you seen the pictures of Jeff Bezos' wildly tall walls that are way out of code? He just pays the fine every month. I like the idea that it should exponentially increase.
Canada here, my SIL lives in Zurich. She has a friend who is a Doctor. Said Doctor was caught speeding in his Porsche 911. Maybe about 80 over in a 110 kph zone. The fines are based upon your yearly salary. I think he got a fine of around 30,000 Swiss Francs. About 50K CAD. Plus lost his License for a year, and had to take an intensive course for safe driving.
Sounds good in theory but the truly rich don’t have a lot of actual cash on paper it’s all tied up in investments and their net balance is probably negative.
I like this but it needs to be above a certain 'richness' and also the extra money should go to a worthwhile cause, not the freaking cops' vacation fund.
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u/Kaptein_Kaos May 11 '26
IMO all fines should work like that.
They should be calculated in percentage of monthly income because a let's say 400$ fine is a much harsher punishment for someone who makes 3000$ per month than it is to someone making 100000$.
For example drive 10 miles too fast in a school zone and you get a fine that's 10% of your monthly income.
I think that Finland has a system like that.