Posted on 06/06/2013 10:14:26 AM PDT by grundle
An article in The Contributor today tells the startling news from Occupy Arrests: Over 7,700 Wall Street protesters have been arrested since September 2011. That’s 7,700 more protesters arrested than Wall Street executives, even after the largest financial crisis in history.
Some people wonder if no Wall Street executives were jailed because no Wall Streeters actually did anything illegal, however unethical their actions. We strongly don’t think this is the case. You can read the cases against specific individuals like Jon Corzine (here, here, and here), Dick Fuld (here, here, and here), and Angelo Mozilo (here, here, and here). But the wide-angle view on the lack of prosecutions on Wall Street during the 2008 crisis is just as telling.
After all, over 1,000 bankers were convicted following the Savings and Loans crisis in the 1980s and Enron employees faced jail time for their scandals in the early 2000s.
So what changed?
William Black, a key criminologist in the Savings and Loan crisis, gives one good answer in his 50-page testimonial to the Senate Banking Committee (linked to in this Economist article). Here’s a passage:
We have forgotten the successes of the past. During the S&L debacle, Congress responded to the S&L crisis … by ordering and funding a dramatic increase in DOJ resources dedicated to prosecuting the S&L accounting control frauds … President Bush (II), President Obama, and Congress have each failed to emulate the policies that proved so successful in prosecuting elite frauds that caused prior crises.
That is, Wall Streeters have avoided prosecution in the recent crisis because government never really looked for it. Instead, government unquestioningly accepted as fact that while what Wall Street did wasn’t cool, it wasn’t illegal. And government did this without putting forward the necessary resources to see if that premise were really true.
If they had dug deep, it’s sure they would have found something. Again, 1,000 bankers were convicted in the S&L crisis, but 0 were convicted in the recent financial crisis, which was orders of magnitude worse than what we saw in the 1980s.
To see the details of some of the crimes at the heart of the 2008 crash, watch PBS Frontline’s “The Untouchables,” which first aired in January and aired again last night. It’s as good of a summary as any about why Wall Street doesn’t deserve to be exempt from prosecution.
Any more easily disprovable Communist propaganda you’d like to post?
When they are in prison, they are - all of a sudden - little guys of no consequence.
A President of Chase Manhattan Bank who ran an 8 billion hedge fund and who was one of the 250 wealthiest people in America is "small potatoes"?
You're not a serious individual - you will keep moving the goalposts just to hang on to your exploded argument.
C’mon, just half joking wideawake.
But yes, I do believe 100% that the top of the tier crooks will never be touched unless they fall out of favor with even bigger fish.
That's hardly a Wall Street-specific phenomenon. Every profession and municipality in the US is the exact same way.
But who needed 100s of billions of tax payer money to clean up their fraudulent mess. Sure wasn’t the CEO of Pepsi or John Deere. Or any muni.
Now Calif or IL, when their time of need comes, that will be a big figure. And just like those that provide cover for those in WS who screwed tax payers, the left will have every excuse in the book on why we have to bail out some states.
Nope, it was General Motors.
Or any muni.
We'll see about Detroit.
You won’t see me sticking up for GM or Detroit. Or for Chicago which is flat broke too.
I fully expect more huge Govt bailouts. Wait for Media outlets with hats in hand. People think you can choke the MSM by them losing readers/viewers. In a perfect world yes. But with this Admin, I’m sure a bailout will come to save them too so they can keep up their “job” too.
It’s all cancer to me.
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