Handcuffs and Prison Sentences are in order for Wall Street, not Happy Talk

[Better Believe It]

Handcuffs For Wall Street, Not Happy Talk
by Zach Carter
September 12, 2010

The Washington Post has published a very silly op-ed by Chrystia Freeland accusing President Barack Obama of unfairly “demonizing” Wall Street. Freeland wants to see Obama tone down his rhetoric and play nice with executives in pursuit of a harmonious economic recovery. The trouble is, Obama hasn’t actually deployed harsh words against Wall Street. What’s more, in order to avoid being characterized as “anti-business,” the Obama administration has refused to mete out serious punishment for outright financial fraud. Complaining about nouns and adjectives is a little ridiculous when handcuffs and prison sentences are in order.

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 regulators Obama kept on board at the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have not recommended any fraud prosecutions to the Justice Department—and we know that the OTS itself was involved in the illegal backdating scheme at IndyMac and other banks. The SEC has not pursued civil fraud cases against some of the executives it believes were involved in Citibank’s subprime scam, nor is the agency seeking serious accountability for Barclays. Nothing has happened to Lehman Brothers or Bank of America for their Enron-style derivatives scams that hid debt from investors, or to Merrill Lynch for its self-dealing of subprime derivatives. The Justice Department is letting Wachovia off the hook for laundering drug money. Let me repeat that: the Obama administration has been so eager to please Wall Street that it is letting bankers get away with laundering drug money.

Read the full article at:

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/09/12/handcuffs-for-wall-street-not-happy-talk/

[JDPriestly]

1. K&R

[jimmyflint]

2. I don't know which makes me more sick

Wall street and banks or the hundreds of billions in bail outs both baby bush and Obama gave them. Dare to mention a little money to give to unemployed people and you have a huge fight on your hands.


:puke:

[Octafish]

3. This should be a national movement.

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