The Wall Street Criminals Are Still Running Free, Stealing Billions

[katty]

more:
http://www.alternet.org/story/130377/the_wall_street_criminals_are_still_running_free%2C_stealing_billions/

The Wall Street Criminals Are Still Running Free, Stealing Billions

By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted March 6, 2009.

Why are the very people whose actions ignited a worldwide depression still sitting pretty, at least compared to their victims?

As those of us who still believe those silly "rights" our Founders put in the Constitution push to investigate and prosecute the Bush/Cheney crowd for their crimes, we have other criminals still running around free in the private and public sector.

1.Why isn't Bernie Madoff behind bars?

2.Why hasn't Congress thrown Roland Burris out of the Senate on his lying ass?

3.Why hasn't Fitzgerald reeled in Blago yet, instead of letting him run around giving interviews and signing book contracts?

4.Why hasn't the Attorney General Holder filed scores of civil recovery actions to reclaim for taxpayers the billions in excess salary and bonuses pocketed by the people who lost/squandered the life savings of millions of Americans?

5.Why hasn't Congress or the administration introduced and passed legislation requiring the above?

6.Why haven't Wall Street wheeler dealers who got us into this mess been fired and/or indicted instead of bailed out?

7.Why is it that only ordinary citizens are feeling the full impact of the chaos these movers and shakers caused?

In short, why are the very people whose actions ignited a worldwide depression still sitting pretty, at least compared to their victims? (That would now include taxpayers.)

I don't know about you, but I want the administration and Congress to do two things at once; start repairing the damage cause by hurricane Bush, and punish the few -- maybe as few as 100 -- individuals, like Mazillo, Madoff, Sanford et al, who aided, abetted and profited at the expense of everyone else.

Because if we just clean up the mess and don't also make an example of the people who caused it, we'll be cleaning up another mess in few years. I know this is true because this is the third financial meltdown I've covered in less than 25 years.. 1) The S&L mess, 2) The Dot-Com mess, and 3) Now this one.

[wackywaggin]

1. Hang em' High !!

Starting with the Madoff clan from the penthouse balcony railing. Then moving on to Stanford and his gaggle, and so on...

[Paranoid Pessimist]

2. Criminal conspiracies

Ever since my misbegotten yuppie years of the mid 80s, where I somehow managed (without much in the way of higher education) to blunder my way into the middle management ranks of one of those very banks now on zombie status, I have been telling anyone who would listen (damn few) that the large financial institutions are criminal conspiracies.

Their scam is to design money transfer "instruments" that are so complicated that no one notices how much they skim off the top and give to their "senior management" people.

Money is faith based and now that their criminality is being revealed for all to see, the entire global financial system teeters on the brink of collapse and extinction.

[cascadiance]

3. We're at the "Enron stage" for them... They don't care about the companies or anyone else now!

They just care about THEMSELVES! And they don't care if they take down America stealing our money away from us. And it IS time that congress must put a stop to this theft from happening and basically FIRE and IMPRISON all of them, and nationalize these damn banks!

[classysassy]

4. Congress and the crooks

sleep in the same bed.

[Robbien]

5. There is a good reason for this. Congresscritters changed the rules for the rich

Per
http://www.brspoll.com/blog/?p=87#

When in the mid 1990’s Dodd and fellow Democrats Charles Schumer, Patty Murray, and Harry Reid worked to curtail private lawsuits by investors who were victims of securities fraud, they weakened what has traditionally been the most effective deterrent to securities fraud.

Their actions represent the result of a determined effort by giant corporations seeking to do away with accountability in the financial markets because they felt it got in the way of their profits. . .

The lobby in the early 1990’s pushed hard for Congress to approve a new law that would make it more difficult for people to bring class action lawsuits in federal courts against companies allegedly involved in securities fraud. . . . and it changed the rules to require that investors prove intentional lying by company executives in order to get into court. This standard is so high that investors now practically need to have an executive make a videotape and say he lied before investors can challenge suspicious behavior.

Making these lawsuits harder to bring to court diminishes the main deterrent to securities fraud in the U.S., since federal and state government regulators are notoriously understaffed.