It Ain't Bank Robbery - or is it?

One of the complaints about the recent Trump trial in NY, was that there was no victim.  I wish to disagree.  There were over 200 million victims, people who could not get away with over valuing their worth.

First, an absurd comparison.  Suppose you robbed a bank, say for 1 million dollars.  You laundered that money to invest in the stock market, bought a Ferrari,  and a nice house.  Five years later you cashed out the stock, sold the Ferrari and the house with a cool 60% profit.  You then retuned (anonymously) the million dollars to the back along with $150K worth of "interest" (3% for 5 years).  You walk away with $450,000 in cash. Was there a crime committed?

Second, a more realistic example.  You have a house worth $100K.  You go to the bank and say it is worth $200K so you can do some repairs and buy a nice car.  First - do you think the bank would let you get away with it?  No, which is why I wish the banks would be held as co-conspirators in this scheme.  They enabled people like Trump to get away with this.  Remember, these were the banks that were never punished for the home loan scandal where millions lost their homes.  And we keep letting them do this?

Third.  There is a stanza in Credence Clearwater's song "Fortunate One" :

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand 
Lord, don't they help themselves, Lord?
But when the taxman come to the door
Lord, the house lookin' like a rummage sale, yeah

So you say a home is worth $300 million, but talk the town into appraising it at $20 million.  Hmmm.

Do you think you can convince the town your house is worth only 7% of market value so you can pay less taxes?  What does that do to all the other people in the town who do not have the ability to sway local politicians?

So you see - the definition of a victimless crime, doesn't really fit here.

I recently found this quote from Johanne Goethe

“It is much easier to recognize error than to find truth; for error lies on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to search for it is not given to every one.”

― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections