Obama calls for tougher financial fraud penalties

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Obama calls for tougher financial fraud penalties
The Associated Press
Published: Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 4:25 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 4:25 p.m.

President Barack Obama is backing tougher penalties for financial fraud after a top Wall Street regulator called for more tools to punish repeat offenders.

Obama said Tuesday he wants legislation providing penalties that companies can't simply shrug off as the cost of doing business.

Obama was speaking in Kansas about economic fairness.

His call for tougher penalties comes days after the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Schapiro, asked the Senate Banking Committee for greater authority to fine companies and individuals. She is seeking to raise the limits on fines under current law, including tripling penalties for repeat offenders.



Read more: http://www.goupstate.com/article/20111206/APA/1112061273

[msongs]

1. how bout some jail time? ya know, steal a twinkie and all that nt

[meow2u3]

6. How about jail time--and a lifelong ban on ever working in the financial services industry?

That would be real punishment--not a fine that amounts to chicken feed, plus letting sociopaths rob the country blind.

[Luciferous]

21. I like the idea of banning them from the industry.

[freshwest]

26. That's what they used to get.

[phantom power]

2. I hear Eric Holder is free...

just a thought

[truedelphi]

3. I guess he has to respond to last Sunday's "Sixty Minutes" report on

How the prosecution of investment fraud criminal activities is at an all time low.

Sixty Minutes carefully choreographed this segment. They brought on the mousey little guy who represents DOJ, and he explained very carefully that although activity may seem suspicious, it is "impossible" to prosecute, as after all, for there to be indictments of fraud, it must be proven that there is intent to commit that fraud.

So then Sixty Minutes spends ten minutes explaining all of the fraud committed by Citi Group.

And then it brings in the whistle blower, who had reported to the executives at his division about everything fraudulent that was going on in the division. Undeterred, those executives still released the annual report, claiming with glowing phrases how worthy a product the investments in that division were, and how very profitable they were doing.

SO the fraudulent activities are provable, Mr Obama. And your DOJ buddy should admit it. We the People know it.

And enough of the speeches - we know you're very good at the speech giving and the oratory end of things. It is in the actual "doing" that you fall so short, Mr President. (Which is why so many of us think our only salvation lies in Occupy!)

And maybe while you are at it, you could get your good buddy Tim Geithner to talk to his friends at Citi - and have them give the Whistle blower his old job back.

[russspeakeasy]

5. Well said.. It's CYA time...

Go OWS.

[Enrique]

4. this proves it's just talk

he's calling for "more regulation" but at the same time he is prosecuting less fraud cases than George W. Bush. Why didn't Bush need those regulations?

And he's also pressuring state Attorneys General to settle away all their mortgage fraud cases. If he wants all this economic fairness, why doesn't he back their cases instead of trying to kill them?

[Fumesucker]

7. Here's what's actually happening..

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/prosecutions-for-bank-fraud-fall-sharply

First the chart for financial fraud prosecutions..






Next comes the chart for all other prosecutions..

[paparush]

8. Good to hear President Obama talking like Candidate Obama.

I wish he'd put some of those words into actions.

I know, I know. He's saddled with a do-nothing, obstructionist, Tea-Bagger dominated House. I get that.

[rhett o rick]

9. WTF. He isnt even using the ones available to him (his DOJ) now. What good are tougher

standards if you arent going to enforce them.

[Shoe Horn]

20. Pssst, he's running for re-election and has to at least pretend for the unwashed masses.

;)

[Luciferous]

22. +1

[Autumn]

10. Then fucking do it.

Haven't seen anyone in his administration hot to go on this yet.

[lib2DaBone]

11. Mr. Obama is owned by the Bankers. He will do nothing.

[xiamiam]

13. exactly..he aint fooling anybody but the fools..nt

[Shoe Horn]

23. Kayfabe.

""Kayfabe" is a Carny term thought to have originated from the Pig Latin for "be fake", possibly originally by pronouncing it backward ("kay-feeb"). Professional Wrestling adopted the term as a reference to the standard Fourth Wall features of separating the audience from the action. It is meant to convey the idea that, yes, Pro Wrestling is a genuine sport, and yes, this is how these people act in real life. It is essentially Willing Suspension of Disbelief specifically for Pro Wrestling.

Back in the old days, though, Kayfabe was much more; it was pro wrestling's real-life Masquerade. Wrestlers, promoters, and everybody else involved with the business alike resorted to any means necessary to guard the secret that wrestling was rigged, from wrestlers roughing up any reporters who dared ask, "It's all fake, right?" to (alleged) death threats towards anybody who threatened to expose the secret, through contacts with the Mafia and other organized crime. Heels and faces weren't allowed to travel, eat, or be seen with their 'enemies' in public. Regardless, fans started to figure out the truth in the '70s (...)"


http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Kayfabe

[marasinghe]

12. bring in the sound; bring in the fury. n/t

[PSPS]

14. More meaningless blathering. "Sleepy" Holder could do this now, but he's on the pad like Obama.

[izquierdista]

15. Has anyone even been investigated?

Not sentenced, not convicted, not tried, not charged, not even arrested, I'm talking just investigated? Or is Obama's Jell-O sculpture of an attorney general saving all his shock and awe for some Cheech & Chong wannabees?

[MARK52]

16. Obama knows who butters his bread.

Obama has no intention of promoting real Wall Street reform. No serious talk from the administration on; reinacting Glass-Steagall, creating a tax on stock transactions, a rollback of even Bush's taxcuts let alone Reagan's taxcuts. We should have a top marginal rate of 90%. Until we get private money out of politics we will continue to get politicians like, Bush, Reagan, Obama, Palin...

[Shoe Horn]

19. They're too big to be investigated.

But you ain't. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLbGJtLGEuA

[Sgent]

28. Yep

two of the most flagrant Bear Sterns officers were investigated, indicted, tried, and found not guilty due to lack of mens rea. That trial essentially turned the justice department off of trying anyone else criminally.

[provis99]

17. the horse is already out of the barn, Mr. President.

so all your grandstanding don't mean squat.

[Shoe Horn]

18. Talkin' a bunch of loud threats that he knows can't happen. ----->Old hat.

For instance, once you know the other side of congress would never allow something to pass, you start struttin and yellin about how much you're gonna do this and how bad you wanna do that. Etc. Yawn. Old hat.


EDIT:
Kayfabe.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Kayfabe
Do you know how long I've been waiting to drop that link somewhere? lol

[Matariki]

24. Jail time. They don't give a damn about fines, which they just pass on to the public.

[wordpix]

25. besides few penalties or jail time to date, where are the BP penalties and jail time?

remember that one?

What is with this DOJ?

[CHIMO]

27. Obama can't fight class war too soon

Substantively, nothing in Obama's Kansas speech broke new ground. No new policies were put put forth and no new arguments were made. I'd argue that the tone – restrained frustration leavened with the pixie dust of hope – was not especially different from other recent addresses, either.

And you can't argue that it's breaking new ground for a president to empathise with a ravished middle class.

What's new is the admission by a president that the problem facing middle-class families isn't getting to the next rung on the ladder, it's that they are struggling to remain middle-class – and that this erosion is a problem of national concern, not just a set of individual sad stories that could find a happy ending with luck and pluck.

"When people are slipping out of the middle class," he said, "it drags down the entire economy from top to bottom."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/ana-marie-cox-blog/2011/dec/07/obama-middle-class-war-speech