Matt Taibbi: Why Isn't Wall Street In Jail?

Rolling Stone:

Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer.

"Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail," he said. "That's your whole story right there. Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it. Just write that."

Read the whole story: Rolling Stone

Comments

[pat k]

12:22 PM on 02/23/2011

Wall Street will be put in jail when we protest enough. I am starting my protest now.

[shoegirl]

04:45 PM on 02/20/2011

this is exactly it....the working class which is about 98% of us consisting of dems and repubs liberals and conservatives...we should be standing arm in arm protesting wall street....they are the problem....everything else is a distraction to keep the he at off of them.

[Alan Papacito]

05:03 PM on 02/20/2011

You are exactly right. If the common GOP supporters knew how consistently and thoroughly they were being screwed on a daily basis, they might finally come out of their stupor and start working with all of the rest of us instead of being cleaved into opposing camps over wedge issues which are specifically designed for this purpose.

[shoegirl]

05:12 PM on 02/20/2011

Exactly

[Opus007]

05:18 PM on 02/20/2011

shoegirl
totally agree with your assessment. And since the corporate owned media ignores the problem, for many people it creates a fall sense of security- they think it is just political squabbling.

That's why they are so successful. You have to really dig to get to the truth. Thank God I was brought up to question authority, you can fight city hall and above all do not believe everything you hear/read.

[ProgressivesLoveAmerica]

06:57 PM on 02/17/2011

i love Matt Taibbi!

He really knows how to go after the most egregious offenders in our society!

[outnow]

12:43 AM on 02/17/2011

Kings were better rulers that corrupt bankers. We traded one tyranny for another. As much as the bankers steal and we allow it how far they will take their stealing. Obama is moving to the right to curry banker and Wall Street support and the working people's situation will get worse and worse. There is no rule of law. Isn't Obama and his pro-business AG (Eric Holder) responsible? The FBI blew the whistle about lending fraud back in 2004. Bush intentionally underfunded the FBI and placed all agents into money laundering cases against certain terrust organizations (but not others).

Bush wanted two wars so he lied to create a bubble to convince us that there was prosperity. Obama failed to prosecute any Wall Street crooks or war criminals. He keeps outsourcing more jobs even as he talks out of both sides of his face. Obama wants people to be educated to compete in the global economy wherein their costs of living are one-third of ours, even one-tenth.

Mubarak was an angel compared to the tens of trillions stolen on Wall Street. Mubarak only stole billions.

People are afraid to take to the streets because our military and police would probaby.not hesitate to use live fire and torture on US citizens to protect the Fed which funds their campaigns.

Our people have no voices except for Bernie Sanders, Alan Grayson. Dennis Kucinich. The Democratic party does not represent working people. Both parties represent Wall Street - their funders.

[OldTulsan]

12:29 AM on 02/17/2011

No prison time for laundering drug money...

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=asU.b_fCjHTE
Wachovia's Drug Habit - Bloomberg.com

"...The bank didn’t react quickly enough to the prosecutors’ requests and failed to hire enough investigators, the U.S. Treasury Department said in March. After a 22-month investigation, the Justice Department on March 12 charged Wachovia with violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to run an effective anti-money-laundering program.

Five days later, Wells Fargo promised in a Miami federal courtroom to revamp its detection systems. Wachovia’s new owner paid $160 million in fines and penalties, less than 2 percent of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009.

[snip]

‘No Capacity to Regulate’

Large banks are protected from indictments by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory.

Indicting a big bank could trigger a mad dash by investors to dump shares and cause panic in financial markets, says Jack Blum, a U.S. Senate investigator for 14 years and a consultant to international banks and brokerage firms on money laundering.

The theory is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for big banks, Blum says.

“There’s no capacity to regulate or punish them because they’re too big to be threatened with failure,” Blum says. “They seem to be willing to do anything that improves their bottom line, until they’re caught...”

Crime pays.

[donnac406]

11:37 PM on 02/16/2011

matt taibbi is a national treasure.

[BlackBuddha]

07:50 PM on 02/16/2011

Asses as nations.

[Captain Hindsight]

07:46 PM on 02/16/2011

Walk like an Egyptian...
Wait till it warms up a bit.

[Poboy]

07:40 PM on 02/16/2011

Q. Why isn't Wall Street in Jail?

A. Because Wall Street bought government protection, like mob protection, in the form of campaign contributions.

[turboe4truth]

07:22 PM on 02/16/2011

This has just about killed any hope I had for this country. These people will never go to jail as they keep paying off the politicians, who of course take the money to get re-elected, and then the big fat jobs that are waiting for them when they retire from politics. this is never going to end, I don't think it will matter what party is in power. i think as an experiment we have proved that it can't be done. what is the difference between this and a monarchy, or totalitarism? Not much, we are led to believe we have a voice and a vote but really we don't. it's all smoke and mirrors.

[MikeyJaii]

07:12 PM on 02/16/2011

Why aren't they in jail? Because they're controlling everything.

[Cabo600]

07:09 PM on 02/16/2011

This hasn't been "our" country for a long time. We're just being taken for a ride to a destination that goes nowhere.

[TheSpiderMind]

07:08 PM on 02/16/2011

Super-criminals have assumed control over our federal government.

We must make OUR nation a tiger that will eat these criminals as they try to enjoy the ride.

[Never Again]

07:08 PM on 02/16/2011

Cenk Uygur did a segment on this with Taibbi tonight. If it was not so believable how corrupt our financial industry is, it would have been unbelievable.