Don't Let the Banksters Walk Away from Their Crimes

[Octafish]

When is a Crime Not Considered Criminal?
Answer: When it’s Hatched on Wall Street.



Danny Schecter spells out the situation and how it impacts just about everyone in the nation:

We Can't Let the Banksters Walk Away from Their Crimes

By Danny Schechter, AlterNet
Posted on January 26, 2011, Printed on January 27, 2011

EXCERPT...

The Pew Economic Policy Group reports the average U.S. household lost $66,000 in stock holdings and $30,000 in real estate values from June 2008 through March 2009 due to the upheaval in world markets. This brings us close to $100,000 per family.

SNIP...

Our newspapers and TV sources contributed to an economic disaster so cynically engineered even billionaire investor Jim Chanos was prompted to ask, “So where are the perp walks? How long does it take before we see any investigations? It boggles the mind that $150 billion is vaporized…there haven’t been any arrests, any indictments, nor any convictions at any major bank or at any of the government-owned financial institutions Fannie, Freddie and AIG.”

SNIP...

Former bank examiner William Black understands this. Focusing on looting and CEO fraud, he helped send over 1,000 bankers to prison during the S&L crisis in the 1980s. This time there were neither dogged sleuths nor crime-busting newshounds on the beat.

Even Alan Greenspan has finally admitted in his all-too-polite exchange with a government inquiry that has come to resemble a Princeton seminar, “If you don’t have enforcement, and a lot of that stuff was just plain fraud, you’re not coming to grips with the issue.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/149670/

Banking requires integrity. Crooks require prison.

[Frustratedlady]

1. That's telling me the Bush kid did time in the 1980s...and I missed it?

Dang!

Where do I sign a petition? Let's get this ball rolling.

[Octafish]

5. True, Neil's one Big Fish that got away...with Poppy's "subtle" help.

Nothing that would hold up in kourt.

Report of Intervention In Inquiry on Bush Son

By MARTIN TOLCHIN,
The New York Times
Published: March 26, 1993

EXCERPT...

Mr. Seidman wrote that in late 1990 Alfred J. T. Byrne, the F.D.I.C.'s general counsel, came to his office and said that Boyden Gray, the White House counsel, "has a question about the Neil Bush matter." At the time of the investigation, Neil Bush was also facing a $200 million lawsuit filed by the F.D.I.C. against him and the other Silverado directors.

"Boyden wanted to know if there was any legal process to move the Neil Bush case out of the administrative process and into a Federal court," Mr. Seidman wrote. "I told him it was a matter to stay out of, a loser, and none of our business."

Mr. Byrne disregarded the advice. "On Jan. 2, my first day back in the office after the holidays, Tim Ryan informed me that Al had called him about Neil Bush, and the possible change of venue," Mr. Seidman wrote. Mr. Ryan was the director of the Office of Thrift Supervision. Some Punishment Given

Mr. Ryan referred the matter to the Treasury Department's Inspector General, according to Mr. Seidman, who added in a telephone interview today from Milwaukee that subsequently "Byrne was reprimanded by our board, on the recommendation of the Treasury's Inspector General, and lost his bonus and salary increase." Mr. Seidman categorized that punishment as a "rap across the knuckles."

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/26/business/report-of-intervention-in-inquiry-on-bush-son.html?ref=neilbush

So, the government official who wanted to continue the investigation got in trouble. Right. Situation under control. Nothing to see here. No such thing as BFEE. Yada yada blah blah blah.

PS: Sorry to write I can't find the article on this subject that spelled out the above conversations in detail (The boy doesn't remember didn't do it knew it wasn't prudent whatever....). Once I find it, I will post.

[blm]

12. Clinton WH/DoJ did aLOT of covering for BushAss, rehabbing Bush name enough by 1994 that DimSon

could run for office.

It's a shame Obama appears to be following that same pattern....most likely under strong advisement from the last Dem President and his team.

[Frustratedlady]

23. Thank you for all the information you posted. Wow!

Maybe it's time for us to hit the streets. Someone needs to demand changes against and charges for all the crimes being committed by the wealthy. If we recovered all the money owed to the U.S., we wouldn't have a debt problem.

[Octafish]

18. Poppy bails Neil, re. Silverado: How the Elite Talk in Code

Here we go:

How the Elite Talk in Code

EXCERPT...

A perfect example of code talk comes from a true master insider, George H.W. Bush, when his son, Neil, was caught red handed in the middle of the S&L crisis as a director of Sliverado Bank.

Did Bush lay out his cards and call in his operatives and say pull some strings, get my son out of this investigation (Remember Bush was president at the time.) No. Bush is too smooth. In his published collection of letters, All The Best, George Bush, he shows us how the heat is delicately taken off Neil. On page 449, there is this letter to Thomas Ludlow Ashley.

Ashley is a Yale University grad, and member of the secret society Skull and Bones along with Bush. Here's the letter:

The Honorable Thomas Ludlow Ashley
Association of Bank Holding Companies
Washington, D.C. 20005

Dear Lud,

Thank you for your good memo December 8th.

I would appreciate any help you can give Neil. He tells me he never had any insider dealings. He got off the Board early--long before I was elected President. The Denver paper apparently ran a very nice editorial about him on that. He is an outside director, and thus I guess has liability, but I can't believe his name would appear in the paper if it was Jones not Bush. In any event, I know that the guy is totally honest. I saw him in Denver and I think he is worried about the publicity and the "shame". I tell him not to worry about that but any advice you can give as this matter unfolds would be greatly appreciated by me. If it turns out there has been some marginal call, or he has done something wrong, needless to say there will be no intervention from his dad. But, I'm quite confident this is not true...

Warm regards,

George

Notice how smooth. No talk about getting Ashley anything for taking care of the matter. The nice touch about if Neil "has done something wrong", but the clear finish, he didn't.

CONTINUED...

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/07/how-elite-talk-in-code.html

Whoever's behind Economic Policy Journal makes the dismal science absolutely fascinating.

[creon]

2. Funds

Law enforcement has to be funded. If you do not, the law is not enforced. The organizations tasked to enforce these regualtions are, by intent, underfunded. The result is that those who break the law get away with it. This is no accident.

[Octafish]

6. ''That is no accident.''

Well said, creon.

Prof. Black spelled out the consequences of having no cops on the beat:

William K. Black on Wall Street, corruption and the current crisis

EXCERPT...

BLACK: That's right. So what bankers figured out was, oh my God, other bankers are lying about their asset values, and they're lying not a little bit but massively. And, of course, the bankers figured that out because they knew they were lying themselves, and they rightly suspected that their counterparties were doing the same thing. And as soon as that happens, then the markets start freezing up. That really will cause very severe economic problems. The answer to that is either honesty or a bigger lie. So my policy would have been honesty. The central bank's policy was a bigger lie, that they would hide the losses, secretly subsidize the richest people in the world, the absolute one thousandth of 1--top 1 percent. The wealthiest people in the world who had caused the crisis the Fed would bail out, and it would do so even if those people were in other countries, and even if, say, the Germans were late in bailing out their folks. So the alternative for insolvent places is to assure liquidity from the central banks by lending and by checking the asset quality to see whether they're good assets. What we know is that the Fed stopped looking at asset quality and took, deliberately, junk and valued it as if it were good stuff. There was no reason to do that, and doing so exposed all of us to tremendous losses and, again, created this subsidy for the worst, most fraudulent institutions.

"Control Fraud." What a concept! Whereby a company's executives are free to rip-off, loot and rob to their criminal content that which they've been entrusted to protect.

BTW: A most hearty, and belated, welcome to DU! Seems like you know more than a thing or two about integrity.

[msongs]

3. "the rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor...." = L. Cohen nt

[Octafish]

16. Jim Chanos on Lehman: Where Are the Perp Walks?

The guy does know how to phrase a question.

...Mr. Chanos: Except for the shameful New York Fed/Lehman “stress test” disclosures, nothing in it surprised me. We had concerns about Lehman well before 2008. People thought they were tough, no-nonsense guys. But we were saying, actually, they’re incredibly aggressive risk takers with a wide berth for what they consider the truth. We’ve known for a while that the hole in their balance sheet was around $150 billion. To put that in perspective, the hole in Enron’s balance sheet was roughly $65 billion. We can quibble on a billion here, a billion there, but $150 billion? I have to think that fraud was involved. It wasn’t just bad business judgment...

PS: Thanks for the heads up on L.Cohen, msongs. Know him by reputation, but would like to learn more about his thoughts, words and music.

[SoCalDem]

4. they already did

Rob a 7-11 of a few hundred & you'll do 10 years

steal billions at a computer & you never pay

[Octafish]

21. Will U.S. Judges Get Exposed in Swiss Banking Scandal?

Absolutely correct. This possibly explains a lot:

Will U.S. Judges Get Exposed in Swiss Banking Scandal?

By: RogerShuler Wednesday January 26, 2011 10:41 am

TweetTweet3 Share
digg stumbleupon
Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas might not be the only judge feeling a tad uncomfortable in the coming days. Thomas is under scrutiny for his failure to disclose his wife’s income for at least five years–and possibly going back more than 20 years. But we are seeing signs that other stories soon will be breaking about judicial chicanery.

Federal and state judges are among those likely to hold Swiss bank accounts that have become the subject of a WikiLeaks investigation, reports a California-based human-rights organization.

SNIP...

How would judges benefit from offshore accounts? It would allow them to hide their financial ties to financial institutions and then rule unlawfully in favor of those institutions in court. The whole process, if proven, would amount to a massive fraud on American courts. Writes Zernik:

A growing body of evidence suggests that both U.S. and state judges have accepted financial benefits from large financial institutions. In 2008 Dr Zernik filed requests with California Judge Terry Friedman (Los Angeles Superior Court), U.S. Judge Virginia Phillips, and U.S. Magistrate Carla Woehrle (U.S. District Court, Central District of California) for statements on the record regarding financial benefits to them or family members residing with them from such institutions (pursuant to the California Code of Judicial Ethics). All three refused to provide such statements.

In 2009 whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld led to the discovery that an estimated 40,000 U.S. wealthy citizens were holding Swiss numbered accounts with UBS-AG. Birkenfeld was swiftly sentenced by a U.S. court to years in federal prison. He was never able to collect rewards provided by the False Claims Act and stated U.S. policies, which could have amounted to billions of U.S. dollars. The criminal prosecution of the culprits–banking executives–never materialized, and the U.S. government negotiated an agreement with the Swiss government, according to which the names of the vast majority of the offenders were never released by UBS-AG.

CONTINUED...

http://my.firedoglake.com/rogershuler/2011/01/26/will-u-s-judges-get-exposed-in-swiss-banking-scandal/

So THAT's why all those scofflaw tax-dodgers weren't exposed.

PS: How'd you find my senior picture? Geesh, SoCalDem, can't a guy enjoy a moment of privysee?

PPS: UBS benefitted from the "leadership" of one former Sen. Phil Gramm (R, once a D, Texas).

[shanti]

32. rotten

from the head on down, this octopus is....

[lonestarnot]

7. The the likes of the criminals heading the highest kourt in the land,

I doubt we'll be seeing much enforcement of the laws of the land, they'll just change them to suit their needs.

[jotsy]

9. Not when 5% of 5% of law enforcement is aimed at this kind of crime, no.

To follow the sourcing lead of thread host: William Black's top ten ways to crack down on corporate financial crime.

<http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/05-5>

In the comments section is a call for Mr. Black to be assigned as special prosecutor; my own dream team? He, Elizabeth Warren and Brooksley Born.

RECOMMENDED.

[lonestarnot]

11. Do you actually see any of those things happening any time soon?

And what about good ol boy Clarence?

[jotsy]

20. I'm not sure I should bog down the thread with one of my long winded free writes.

Short answer, not with the current systematic flaws and the peripheral echo of collusion leaving all hands a bit muddied. I don't see the public pushing hard enough to make the political will, their lives, by and large, are consumed with survival as the PTB requires to maintain the milking.

As to the Clarence inquiry, I proposed during the wake of the Citizens United decision to impeach all justices who ruled both in favor of this and crowning Babushka in December of 2000. Threw in the chief as one who should be embarrassed enough to step down at presiding over such a grossly jagged cut between the people and any access to equality in the pursuit of justice, now defined by the highest bidder.

I asked if it ever been done in the legal forum here and learned that was only tried once and didn't take because it wasn't ratified by the senate. His name was Samuel Chase.

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=226x7516>

[Octafish]

36. Please feel free. Learning, teaching and understanding are reasons for reason.

Opinions matter, too.

Plus, you're a most interesting and kind person who cares, jotsy.

[Octafish]

26. Wall Street's Collapse to Be Mystery Forever

The heart of the matter is one dark place...

Wall Street's Collapse to Be Mystery Forever

By Jonathan Weil - Jan 27, 2011 9:00 PM ET
Bloomberg.com

To get to the heart of what went wrong with the report released yesterday by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, check out its account on page 254 of how the largest investor in a cash fund managed by Bank of America suddenly pulled out $20 billion of its money in November 2007.

SNIP...

And here I had thought the purpose of the commission’s inquiry was to uncover new facts that the public didn’t already know. Such as: The identity of the mystery investor that single- handedly kneecapped Bank of America’s Columbia Strategic Cash Portfolio, once the largest cash fund of its kind in the U.S. The commission had subpoena power. It should have been able to get this information. It didn’t, though.

This, in journalistic parlance, is what we call a clip job. And that’s the trouble with much of the commission’s 545-page report. There’s lots of breezy, magazine-style, narrative prose. But there’s not much new information.

SNIP...

Predictable Failure

The FCIC’s failure was predictable from the start. To examine the causes of the financial crisis, Congress created a bipartisan panel of 10 political appointees led by Democrat Phil Angelides, a former California state treasurer. What was needed was a nonpartisan investigation directed by seasoned prosecutors (like Pecora was) who know how to cross-examine witnesses and get answers.

Whereas Pecora had no fixed deadline, Congress gave the crisis commission until December 2010 to complete its inquiry. Witnesses who didn’t want to cooperate fully could simply milk the clock. The panel got a budget of less than $10 million to investigate all the causes of the financial crisis. Lehman’s bankruptcy examiner got $42 million to produce a 2,200-page report on the failure of a single company.

CONTINUED...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-28/wall-street-s-collapse-to-be-mystery-forever-commentary-by-jonathan-weil.html

Like mints and minds, he who runs the mine gets the gold. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. The suits leave office. The officials put on suits. And We the People get the shaft.

[slipslidingaway]

31. Interesting ... "Whereas Pecora had no fixed deadline..."

"...Congress gave the crisis commission until December 2010 to complete its inquiry. Witnesses who didn’t want to cooperate fully could simply milk the clock. The panel got a budget of less than $10 million to investigate all the causes of the financial crisis. Lehman’s bankruptcy examiner got $42 million to produce a 2,200-page report on the failure of a single company..."

[mmonk]

8. There's a reason they armed themselves after the collapse. They were scared the average

citizen might put it all together. They knew what they did and they also knew the prostitutes in Washington would protect them (no disrespect intended to prostitutes). Thanks Octafish. Recommended.

[Octafish]

30. Absolutely, mmonk. One guy's designed the Bankster Doomsday Kit

From the William Banzai 7 collection

Another guy outta Chicago's starting to sell passage to his post-collapse time-shares in the northern Lower Peninsula:

Is Survival Only for The Rich?

The Have-Mores may think they'll outlive the cockroaches, but they won't.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[Imagevision]

13. We really need to give the rich more tax breaks - don't we?

[hootinholler]

14. I'm sure Glen Beck is on the case..

And will open the vault with Jeraldo real soon now. Just wait.

What's that? Oh we're looking forward? Well then it's all good, right?

Damnit Der Fishie, why do you always remind us of shit like this? Oh, that's right, you care.

The message is spot on and if the Fed won't prosecute this maybe we can find some DAs at the state level who will.

-Hoot

[bobthedrummer]

15. K&R + The money laundering thread: A DU collaborative investigation (repost from 7-9-10)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8716178

[xchrom]

17. Recommend

[Disintermedia8]

19. In terms of scale and scope, this was the biggest

case of control fraud ever perpetrated upon humanity. At the tip of the spear among the political class were Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Ben Bernanke and their private sector counterpart Lloyd Blankfein. The private sector got to take out their competitors, and the political operatives were rewarded with continued influence and the promise of future riches.

Thank god for Lily Ledbetter.

[EFerrari]

29. I don't think they're finished, yet.

Their secondary gain is a real estate heist from all these bad foreclosures.

[chill_wind]

22. K & R.

[earth mom]

24. That's why I call em bankster gangsters. nt

[lonestarnot]

25. JMJ!

[slipslidingaway]

27. knr - Bill Black Testimony on Lehman Bankruptcy ...

If people did not see then they were blinded because it was convenient, more Dems voted for the bailout than did Repubs. Very telling to see Dem leaders advocate for the bailout bill and say 'if only we had known last month' ... they damn well should have had a clue.

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/04/20/transcript-video-bill-black-testimony-on-lehman-bankruptcy/

"...When people cheat you cannot as a regulator continue business as usual. They go into a different category and you must act completely differently as a regulator. What we’ve gotten instead are sad excuses.

The SEC: we’re told they’re only 24 people in their comprehensive program. Who decided how many people there would be in their comprehensive program? Who decided the staffing? The SEC did. To say that we only had 24 people is not to create an excuse — it’s to give an admission of criminal negligence. Except it’s not criminal, because you’re a federal employee.

In the context of the FDIC, Secretary Geithner testified today that this pushed the financial system to the brink of collapse But Chairman Bernanke testified we sent two people to be on site at Lehman. We sent fifty credit people to the largest savings and loan in America. It had 30 billion in assets. We had a whole lot less staff than the Fed does.

We forced out the CEO. We replaced the CEO. We did that not through regulation but because of our leverage as creditors. Now I ask you, who had more leverage as creditors in 2008? The Fed, as compared to the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, 19 years earlier? Incomprehensible greater leverage in the Fed, and it simply was not used... We’ve also heard from Secretary Geithner and Chairman Bernanke — we couldn’t deal with these lenders because we had no authority over them. The Fed had unique authority since 1994 under HOEPA to regulate all mortgage lenders. It finally used it in 2008.

They could’ve stopped Aurora. They could’ve stopped the subprime unit of Lehman that was really a liar’s loan place as well as time went by..."

[Octafish]

37. Prof. Black wrote the book, literally: 'The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One.'

Thank you, slipslidingaway. Much obliged.

The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One - How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry

EXCERPT...

Several factors make control frauds uniquely dangerous. The person who controls a company (or country) can defeat all internal and external controls because he is ultimately in charge of those controls. Fraudulent CEOs do not simply defeat controls; they suborn them and turn them into allies. Top law firms, under the pretense of rendering zealous advocacy to the client, have helped fraudulent CEOs loot and destroy the client.

CONTINUED…

http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exblabes.html

From my way of thinking, Control Fraud has been a public thing in America since November 22, 1963.

Know your BFEE: Goldmine Sacked or The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One

[slipslidingaway]

39. We can only imagine why Black has not been consulted by this administration ...

as to what happened during this past economic debacle ... who could have possibly known.

:mad:

Thank you Octafish and my pleasure.

:)

[unkachuck]

28. K&R....n/t

[leftstreet]

33. K&R

[Hannah Bell]

34. kr. & put this article side by side with this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x285930

[DirkGently]

35. Can't punish the crimes of the past; we must "look foward." To more of the same.

[katnapped]

38. Yes yes...need to be the "adults" in the room

This means letting "by-gones" be "by-gones". "Nobody could've predicted", but we need to "Win The Future"

[Scruffy1]

40. Too busy going after anti-war people

More subpoenas on grandmothers than Banksters. www.stopFBI.net