How Much Time Does Madoff Deserve?

I've been thinking about this for a while too. How do you equivocate a $50 Billion dollar scheme into other crimes that happen everyday? I don't think white collar crimes are looked at heavily enough. Consider this viewpoint from Scott Burns in a recent article he wrote:

We may soon have a financial "equivalency" for murder. People feel it isn't right a man can get five or 10 years in prison for robbing a 7-Eleven, when a white-collar crime can be more devastating to more people, but get a lighter sentence. As reader G.C. wrote: "You can kill someone in one of three ways: physically, emotionally, or financially. But only one is punishable by death."

We'll be a long time figuring out the equivalences, but if employers can talk in terms of "full-time equivalents" for jobs, it isn't far-fetched to imagine that white-collar crime may soon be seen as a new form of mass murder.

Some will think this is an extreme statement, so let me explain. The highest figure I could find for the value of a human life was the average amount paid to families that suffered a loss from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, $3.1 million. Yet even using this gigantic figure, the $50 billion fraud is the financial equivalent of destroying 16,100 lives.