A case like this highlights a point seen in a number of white collar crime prosecutions when a high-level, and well-paid, executive or professional engages in misconduct that involves seemingly trivial amounts. Is it worth it? Wal-Mart's 2004 proxy statement (here) discloses that for 2004 Coughlin earned $983,894 in salary, an incentive payment of $2.8 million, a restricted stock award of $2 million, and other compensation (i.e., perks not including the ones he stole) of $252,082, which in addition to his ownership of 948,832 shares, which are worth over $40 million. The annual dividends on his stock holdings alone probably exceed the amount of the fraud he will admit, so in the end it's not the money. Instead, I think it is a sense of entitlement, and a belief that one is not doing anything wrong because the person is not a criminal like those people who rob a 7-11.
It's true. A half-million dollars is petty cash for a jamoke like Coughlin, but because he didn't actually hold up a liquor store and get caught on the surveillance camera, he somehow feels he's better than the common criminal.
This, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with the American zeitgeist in the power elites today — the sense of entitlement felt by the Skillings, Lays, Abramoffs, Lesars, and all the other white collar crooks whose hubris will someday become their ticket to infamy.
Is it even necessary to point out that Thomas Coughlin was a Bush contributor? Not including Wal-Mart's Republican PAC, of course.
