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The Largest Theft of All Time

2019-03-29 · explainer · Hank · 3:50 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society (also: History & curiosities) · mode: Advocacy & fundraising

Formerly titled You Are Probably a Victim of the Largest Theft of All Time.

Ranking history's biggest thefts (the 2005 Fortaleza tunnel heist, a 2015 bank hack, MacGregor's Poyais scam, Madoff), Hank finds US wage theft, $20-60 billion a year, exceeds all other property crime combined; few officers police it and almost no one goes to jail.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The fun video that took a turn; the 2005 Fortaleza tunnel heist

  • ★ Hank says he meant this to be a fun video, but it took a turn and ended up making him really mad. (playful) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ In 2005 a group of 25 men rented a commercial property in central Fortaleza, Brazil, tunnelled over 250 feet to a bank vault and removed 3.5 tons of 50-real notes, about $100 million today. — 00:00:08

00:00:31 — A bigger bank robbery: the 2015 malware theft by hackers

  • ★★ Hank says the Fortaleza heist was, depending on how you count, the largest bank robbery of all time, yet basically nothing next to the largest thefts of all time. (hedged) — 00:00:31
  • ★★ Hank says the largest bank robbery was in 2015: hackers in China, Russia and Europe took $300-900 million from many banks with common malware; no one was caught and nothing was recovered. — 00:00:43 · China, Europe

00:01:14 — The biggest thefts are from people: MacGregor's Poyais scam and Bernie Madoff

  • ★★ Hank says the biggest thefts are not from banks, which are doing just fine, but from people. (playful) — 00:01:14
  • ★★ In the 1800s Gregor MacGregor claimed to be Cazique of Poyais, a country that didn't exist, took investment, and shipped hundreds of investors to a jungle where most died; $4.5 billion was wiped out. — 00:01:20
  • ★★ Hank says Bernie Madoff stole around $20 billion, and not just from the rich: much of the money came from pension funds meant to support retirees. — 00:02:00

00:02:16 — All property crime vs wage theft: scale, enforcement, Walmart's fines, Hank's own settlement; the biggest theft of all time

  • ★★★ Hank says all robbery, theft, burglary and auto theft in a year adds up to less than Madoff stole, though Madoff stole over years, so the comparison isn't really fair. — 00:02:16
  • ★★★ Hank says wage theft, an employer not paying legally required wages and benefits, is the largest property crime: $20-60 billion of US workers' labor a year, more than Madoff and all other property crime. — 00:02:36 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers work on other property crime, but only around a thousand work on wage theft. — 00:03:06
  • ★★★ Hank says companies committing wage theft find it more efficient to pay the fines than to pay their workers, as Walmart has done 96 times in the last 20 years. — 00:03:16
  • ★★ Hank says he knows wage theft first-hand: he got a wage theft settlement after working at Walmart for a summer. — 00:03:26
  • ★★★ Hank concludes the biggest theft of all time is ongoing and widely known, hits the disadvantaged hardest, has victimized most people, and almost no one has gone to jail for it. — 00:03:32

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says Hank realized that most theft in America is literally the rich robbing the poor. — video description · economic inequality, United States
  • ★ The description sardonically says not to worry, there is a minimum wage, 'ish'. (playful) — video description
  • ★★ Hank sums up the first defence of wage theft, that minimum wages stop undocumented immigrants and the very poor from getting work at all because the laws are too strict. (playful) — video description
  • ★★★ Hank rejects the defence that wage theft is just poor management by floor managers the CEO can't know about: knowing what employees are up to is exactly a CEO's job. — video description
  • ★★ Hank points workers who worry they are being stolen from to a wage theft FAQ. — video description
  • ★★ Against the claim that wage theft is overstated by non-profits, Hank says it is extremely hard to measure, but worker surveys regularly show many different kinds of it. — video description

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Banco Central burglary at Fortaleza · Wage theft

Also: People: Bernie Madoff · Gregor MacGregor

Organizations: Walmart

Concepts: cybercrime · Property crime

Places: Brazil · China · Europe · Fortaleza · Poyais · Russia · South America · United States

Only in the description or credits: economic inequality · minimum wage

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