Handcuffs For Wall Street, Not Happy-Talk

[yurbud]

I think the author is being too kind. They don't deserve handcuffs. In terms of the economic terror and dislocation and even loss of life they have caused abroad (and if they are insurance companies here), they deserve a more permanent severance package:



When Hank Paulson demanded $700 billion from taxpayers with no strings attached, it was as much a punch in the gut as 9/11, and in one respect worse: 9/11 was an external attack on America. Paulson's was an attack from within our government, tearing aside the last figleaf from the naked truth that our government works for the very wealthy and sees us only as sheep to be shorn or made into mutton stew as needed.

Freeland is a long-time business editor at Reuters and the Financial Times, and the story she spins about the financial crisis comes across as very reasonable. It's also completely inaccurate. Here's the key line:

"Stricter regulation of financial services is necessary not because American bankers were bad, but because the rules governing them were."

Bank regulations were lousy, of course. But Wall Street spent decades lobbying hard for those rules, and screamed bloody murder when Obama had the audacity to tweak them. More importantly, the financial crisis was not only the result of bad rules. It was the result of bad rules and rampant, straightforward fraud, something a seasoned business editor like Freeland ought to know. Seeking economic harmony with criminals seems like a pretty poor foundation for an economic recovery.

The FBI was warning about an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud as early as 2004. Mortgage fraud is typically perpetrated by lenders, not borrowers—80 percent of the time, according to the FBI. Banks made a lot of quick bucks over the past decade by illegally conning borrowers. Then bankers who knew these loans were fraudulent still packaged them into securities and sold them to investors without disclosing that fraud. They lied to their own shareholders about how many bad loans were on their books, and lied to them about the bonuses that were derived from the entire scheme. When you do these things, you are stealing lots of money from innocent people, and you are, in fact, behaving badly (to put it mildly).

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010093612/handcuffs-wall-street-not-happy-talk

[rfranklin]

1. Bankers weren't bad, they couldn't help themselves....

It was like a pederast being given a classroom full of kindergartners.

[drmeow]

2. Bankers aren't bad

they're just drawn that way!

[yurbud]

3. they should be drawn AND quartered badly.

[drmeow]

7. I'd be happy to just erase them

barring that, drawing and quartering seems a fitting response.

[Demeter]

4. FRSP!

[yurbud]

5. translation?

[Demeter]

6. French Revolution Severance Package

See illustration, above post

[yurbud]

9. maybe we should just roll a fake guillotine through Wall Street and see if they get the message

[carnie_sf]

10. A real one would be better

[yurbud]

11. with your name, I suspect you'd know how to use it.

[yurbud]

12. We could cut off the head of the Wall Street bull and leave it in the CEO of Goldman Sachs bed

[avaistheone1]

8. k&r

The bankers are the asses of evil.

[Enthusiast]

13. No no no!

It was the Community Reinvestment Act. It was Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and Barney Frank. Barney Frank FORCED the banks to lend money to lazy minorities that had no intentions of paying back the loans. Get it right! Don't bring that left wing claptrap in here. :crazy:

[groovedaddy]

14. But if we threaten to do anything to them, they'll press the button and the economy will implode.

They're holding us hostage, you know?