Financial Crisis: Why Are So Few Culprits Are In Jail?

McClatchy:

WASHINGTON -- More than a year into the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression, millions of Americans have seen their home values and retirement savings plunge and their jobs evaporate.

What they haven't seen are any Wall Street tycoons forced to swap their multi-million dollar jobs and custom-made suits for dishwashing and prison stripes.

Read the whole story: McClatchy

Comments

[angryliberaluser]

If no justice is served the American People are going to get more restless, and the next time something happens...­..there could be real UNREST! WE have to hold people accountable for their actions.

hat tip to: http://www.iamned.com

Ignorance = Negligence­....... They knew what was going on the whole time, all the while padding their pockets. The U.S. crony-Capitalist justice system is a f**king joke. There must be some way we can outsource for justice against these criminals.

[KCFreedom]

Yea, something sure smells fishy about all of this.

To put things into perspective, around 3500 bankers and financial types were charged in the S&L scandal of the late 1980s. And it didn't even compare to what we're going through now.

What do we get? Bernie Madoff, who gets silenced from the press and gets some sort of solitary confinement, and we don't even get to know where all the money went (but I'd bet someone in the gov't knows).

Meanwhile the general public gets Tased (even for legless men in wheelchairs) and gets ignition interlock devices for 1st time DUI offenders.

[TrueSense]

Obama and company, especially Obama, seem to worship at the alter of the Wall St. deity.

Even daddy bush put over 1,200 S & Ler's in jail and went after more. That crisis was peanuts compared to this one !

Obama is out their playing golf with UBS'sRobert Wolf becuase he "donated" 250 K to Obama over the years while his partent company is in trouble for helping Americans hide from US taxes.

Obama's motto, taxes and laws being enforced are for little people and little countries !

Hey Obama, next time you want to lecture blacks about accountability, why do not you look at your campaign rhetoric versus your practices and show that laws and accountablilty are for Wall St. too. Otherwise, you should advise some of those that turn to bad behavior on the street to hire a lobby and get their money into Wall St.

[cheeriogirl]

Last year, my son's roommate altered the date of a check my son had given him, and took it to CHASE BANK to cash it. My son had called earlier in the day and alerted CHASE that this might happen.

The bank took the check from the roommate, cashed it for him, then charged my son's account for the full amount, despite being told specifically NOT to do this. There wasn't enough money in my son's account to cover the check on THIS date. My son did not have any account protection, so he was looking at paying ONE bad check fee. Inconvenient, but certainly doable.

Unfortunately, CHASE decided to cover the check for him, because ( in their words) he was such a good customer.

This set into motion an unbelievable chain of events, which we were powerless to stop, despite him having plenty of money to cover the charges in his savings account at that same bank. CHASE went to great lengths to continue to accrue large fines on his account daily, for many weeks, as they patted themselves on the back for doing this to protect their valued customer from a SINGLE bad check charge.

With banks like CHASE, who needs enemies? All told, my son was charged hundreds of dollars in fines, after CHASE accepted a visibly altered check, which is illegal.

Mulitiply those fees by the number of Chase customers, and just imagine the possibilities.

It's like Christmas year round for these people!

[Tom Langley]

These theives walk, meanwhile, the taxpayers they hosed who are footing the bill for their salaries and bonuses get evicted and foreclosed on.
How can ANYONE refer to this as capitalism?
This is croney corporatism and the only thing that stopped it last time was all out revolt.
Your government can't do anything about it, becuase they are completly beholden to these banks for solvency since there is no real value behind the currency anymore. Print all you want, they'll make sure it becomes worthless faster than you can print.
They have no patriotic loyalty, they are multi-national shareholder enriching vehicles that hold the taxpayer supported leaders of the governments of the world by the short hair.
Only the apocolyptic failure that was in the offing, prior to the governments providing these crooks with immunity, could have made a difference. The short-term bailout makes it worse for the survivors over the long haul, not better.
Failure would have ensured anarchy, which is still the only real fix to the grip of the money-lenders sho sing "capitalism" be mean "corporate welfare state." It's loss sharing, profit hoarding madness. Law's won't stop them, never have. Only convenience store robbers feeding a family or a illegal drug habitgo to jail, these cash addict villians go to their private, guarded island with all the money and tell the governments and treasuries what to do next.

[goswim12]

Absolutely bang-on. The American Revolution was about getting the private, central Bank of England OUT. President Jackson: "You are a den of thieves and vipers and I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God I will rout you out! If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system there would be a revolution before morning."
Unfortunately, most of the Presidents who subsequently tried to keep the private bankers out ate lead.

[CoronaDischarge]

It's unfortunate that Mozilo won't apparently see jail time. I think there is little doubt that he knew he was kiting mortgage paper with under qualified applicants and undisclosed risk, yet he was a regular on CNBC offering up seemingly self-serving analysis of the market stability.

[Konnie]

oh i know!
i know!
i know teacher! (waving my arm wildly)

because they helped write the laws so what they wanted to do was not criminal..­........

because they bought the worst government stooges money could buy.......­.
.
because the american people don't pay attention.­..........­.

[oldleftcoastdude]

Pretty much true......

[northstar11]

580 cases , 40 in sub prime are under investigation ---that is very good news ---there has to be a few song birds in that crowd.

[oldleftcoastdude]

Well, it depends. Word in the Construction industry here in SoCal before the whole meltdown was that Countrywide was enmeshed with the Mafia.....

[ibsteve2u]

Hard to name culprits when the Republicans legalized criminality.

[mcmchugh99]

If Obama had any gumption at all, he'd appoint a special prosecutor for Wall Street and let the chips fall where they may. They should probably all be in jail with Madoff.

[rf-hawaii]

Obama is prioritizing between various huge mandates -- propping up a severely damaged country.

[ResidualSelfImage]

AG ERIC HOLDER'S TIES TO THE RNC

Just as a point of information (several points, actually, so I apologize
for the length), and out of curiosity, I followed up Simpson's article
about Holder's ties to the RNC via Covington and Burling LLC, his
employer during the last eight years. Holder reportedly received some
$2 million in compensation from C&B during his tenure, which coincided
with a number of high-profile cases against the Bush administration.


On its website, the company boasts more than a few such cases, in which
it worked for Bush et al. In nearly every one, and while Holder was happily
a partner in the firm, C&B defended GOP operatives--and also the
financial industry and Big Pharma.

Check out the litany of litigation that C&B has been involved in, mostly on
the RNC side. Remember, these are the company's own proud claims.




The real question is why Obama would infect his administration with both Holder
and Greg Craig, both of whom are not merely politically tainted, but have acted
Simpson's article on Craig, which I think you may have sent around:
http://pubrecord.org/special-to-the-public-record/3263/white-house-should-craig/ ).

Can the Dems really be this clueless? I doubt it. So what else is going on? Is the
political face of the parties really just that, a facade of political space when, in fact,
the Rs & Ds are just part of the same machine?

[falco]

Yep, political parties are a division for me and you. Keeps the serfs at each others throats, blaming this administration and that administration, and golly gee, the next administration will surely fix this mess! Politicians are like lawyers, battling each other in court in front of an audience, and then at the end of the day they go have cocktails together, bar-b-ques on the weekends. Laughing. All the way to the bank.

[Dailypolitics55]

Obama's reform is a joke. There will be no prosecutions, no jail time. Nothing. No change.
Like the investigations into the CIA, this will go NO WHERE, end in NO PROSECUTIONS and serve only as a way for them to WASTE TIME and RUN OUT THE CLOCK until the next round of elections before digging deeper holes.

hat tip to http://www.iamned.com

I am very frustrated by the lack of progress with regards to heath care, education, energy, and financial reform. Obama is acting like an empty suit.

[kickatthedarkness]

"Why are so few culprits are in jail?"

Perhaps--like the headline--this was merely an oversight:

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/the-ghost-in-the-machines-the-mystery-of-the-wtc-hard-drive-recoveries/

[Libarchist]

Most, are in Congress.

[falco]

They take us for such fools. Like our politicians didn't know these guys were a bunch of thieves before handing them our tax/TARP money. I guess it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Especially when there are no consequences to suffer. I say, peel back the layers. These banking thieves are the surface players. There are bigger fish further up the ladder, unseen. Those are the ones we need to go after.