Financial scoundrels have little to fear from the law

[ColbertWatcher]

Yes, that's the actual headline.

From the Los Angeles Times
Financial scoundrels have little to fear from the law
If experience is any guide, the titans behind the system's meltdown, and the regulators who watched it take shape, won't pay for their irresponsibility.
Michael Hiltzik
January 12, 2009

There are heads of banks and mortgage companies who invested their capital and made loans without the most cursory due diligence -- Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Financial and Charles Prince of Citigroup come to mind. Richard Fuld and James Cayne, the bosses of Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns, who presided over the extinction of their fine old firms. Maurice R. “Hank” Greenberg of AIG, whom I saw last year on CNBC saying that a government bailout of that irresponsible company ($150 billion at last count) was in the "national interest."

These execs collected otherworldly salaries and bonuses for years on the grounds that their institutions could scarcely survive a week absent their wisdom and judgment. We know better now, but they haven't given the money back.

Is America's legal system up to the task of delivering the justice they deserve? Experience suggests we're bound to be disappointed. "Before you can punish anybody, you have to determine if there's a crime, and I'm not sure much of this activity is criminal," Clifford Hyatt, a former SEC enforcement lawyer now at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in Los Angeles, told me.

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[spanone]

1. look at bernie madoff.....50 BILLION and he's not in jail

[Karenina]

2. I saw another Ponzi in passing on LBN

15 million in the Latino community, IIRC he IS in jail.

[madokie]

3. something tells me that that 50 bil figure is something someone pulled out of their asses

I'm thinking it'll be much more than that once its all said and done.

[Hubert Flottz]

4. I wonder what's in it for Bernie's buddy the judge?

[madokie]

6. Neither of us bp could take it

would be my bet.

[Winterblues]

5. As the Bush* Cabal dances off into the sunset laughing loudly.

The US treasury is several trillion dollars less due to those thugs and yet no one will receive anything other than Glory...let alone punishment... They are Heroes to the Right.. They successfully pulled off the biggest heist in World history..

[ColbertWatcher]

7. "They are Heroes to the Right" QFT. n/t