When are felonies not felonies? When banks do them (Govt changes laws for Wall St. felon banks)

[think]

When are felonies not felonies? When banks do them

By gjohnsit - Wednesday Aug 12, 2015

Three months ago Obama's Justice Department accomplished a milestone: It managed to get felony pleas from Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, the biggest banks in Wall Street.

However, looks can be deceiving.

Besides the criminal label, however, nothing much has changed for the banks. And that means nothing much has changed for the public. There is no meaningful accountability in the plea deals and, by extension, no meaningful deterrence from future wrongdoing...

As a rule, a felony plea carries more painful consequences. For example, a publicly traded company that is guilty of a crime is supposed to lose privileges granted by the Securities and Exchange Commission to quickly raise and trade money in the capital markets. But in this instance, the plea deals were not completed until the S.E.C. gave official assurance that the banks could keep operating the same as always, despite their criminal misconduct.

A felony guilty plea without actual punishment is a travesty of justice. But the Obama Administration hasn't stopped grovelling before Wall Street yet.

With the blessing of the White House and the Justice Department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is attempting to sneak through a major policy change that would enable big banks convicted of felonies to continue lending through a federal mortgage program, according to federal records and government officials.

The housing agency wants to quietly delete a requirement for lenders to certify they haven’t been convicted of violating federal antitrust laws or committing other serious crimes. HUD proposed the move on May 15, without detailing the reasoning behind the change.

This rule change proposal happened at almost the same time as the "felony" pleas by the big banks.

The rule change was largely ignored until Rep. Maxine Waters of California and Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts brought it to public attention in recent weeks..

Read more:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/12/1411362/-When-are-felonies-not-felonies-When-banks-do-them

[gratuitous]

1. Get busted for pot and never vote again

Ain't that America somethin' to see?

[think]

2. Little pink houses

for you and me...

[99th_Monkey]

3. It would be interesting to ask the Democratic Candidates if they favor this

i.e. to they favor this rule-change, allowing HUD to continue doing business with felonious bankers?

[think]

4. I would love to hear their opinions on this. Not holding my breath on it being discussed though

Unless Bernie would bring it up.

For some reason this really didn't make the MSM news....

[Quantess]

5. K & R