1 percenter benefit | The Salt Lake Tribune

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George Pyle's column on wrist-slapping not being painful enough to deter offenses ("A slap on the corporate wrist," Opinion, Aug. 4) recalls news decades ago that a wealthy man in Finland had incurred a $70,000 fine for a traffic offense on the grounds that it would be as effective a deterrent as a normal fine was to an average income earner.

Whether this sentence was appealed successfully or not was not revealed. However, it can be questioned whether a corporate CEO with 400 times the income of his average employee experiences any deterrence from future offenses when he feels only one 400th of the discomfort that his average employee would feel for a similar offense.

Another unearned advantage of being a 1 percenter.

John Ellison

Salt Lake City