Why Aren’t Big Bankers in Jail? Why ask why, say their enablers in financial press

[G_j]

http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/why-arent-big-bankers-in-jail/


Why Aren’t Big Bankers in Jail?
Why ask why, say their enablers in financial press

By Janine Jackson

CNBC's Jim Cramer agrees with banker Jamie Dimon that "failure is not illegal."

The man in charge of a bank that engaged in massive mortgage fraud chatted with a corporate media host (CNBC Squawk on the Street, 7/12/13) about the fact that virtually none of those who enriched themselves while eviscerating the life savings of many blameless people, derailing the US economy along the way, have faced criminal prosecution:

Jim Cramer: Shouldn't they have indicted somebody who actually did bad things in banking?

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon: I think if someone did something wrong, they should go to jail.

Cramer: Well, who did? Who went to jail?

Dimon: One of the great things about America, failure is not illegal or wrong. You can't just say it failed. But I do think America looked at the crisis—and this is too bad—and there was no, anywhere, Old Testament justice. What they saw is people got overpaid—and some of these people lost all their money, their reputation, all that. If someone did something wrong, they should pay. You've got to be specific. Did they do something wrong, or you just don't like the fact that they failed? You make investments. They don't always pay off. It doesn't mean you're a criminal.

Cramer: Right.

Granted, Cramer is no one's idea of a serious interrogator of the financial system (FAIR Blog, 3/13/09). But much journalism on the question of criminal prosecution of industry leaders amounts to similar apologia.

While there have been substantive inquiries into the wrongdoing of investment banks and auditors, those calling for jail time are often dismissed as irrational, driven by "blood lust" (Washington Post, 9/12/13), "anger" (Chicago Tribune, 11/30/13) or "vengeance" (Washington Post, 11/18/13).

We're told such calls come from the margins: That no "financial industry types" have been jailed is "a recurring theme among Occupy Wall Street protesters and some Democratic politicians" (Christian Science Monitor, 10/11/11) or "the Occupy Wall Street crowd" (New York Times, 3/1/13).

People who believe bankers should go to jail are deflecting blame—from the people: "The real scandal," explained the Washington Post's Charles Lane ("Banks Aren't the Bad Guys," 11/18/13), was "Americans' shared, erroneous belief in ever-rising housing prices and corresponding mania to profit from them."
And maybe they need to move on: "This all happened a really long time ago. What-ever happened to the statute of limitations?" the Washington Post (11/19/13) asked itself in a recent Q&A.

Above all, to advocate prosecution is to be simple-minded, to believe that "public revulsion indicates likely culpability" (Bloomberg Businessweek, 5/12/11) and to "reduce complex historical processes to the machinations of an evil few" (Washington Post, 11/18/13).

..more..

[democratisphere]

1. THE BIG BANKERS have the BIGGEST NAME ATTORNEYS from the BIGGEST NAME LAW FIRMS....

to circle the wagons around the corrupt BIG BANKERS. Certainly, they would not want to arrest Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon as it might spook investors and send markets plummeting. Instead, they have rewarded the BIG BANKERS and allowed them to borrow $$$ at ridiculously low interest rates so they and their investors could become even more obscenely rich. Some politicos might also be caught up in the process of prosecuting THE BIG BANKERS. The result is NOTHING, as usual....until it happens again....and again.

[awoke_in_2003]

2. Bernie Madoff

only went to prison because he ripped off the 1%, too

[Octafish]

3. William K. Black would clean up Wall Street...

...so he's ignored.

http://www.alternet.org/authors/william-k-black

[G_j]

4. "America Has Become a "Cheater-Take-All" Nation"

"Why do people like Tyler Cowen still equate wealth with merit? Many rich people are just crooks."

[MFrohike]

6. Don't take this the wrong way

Your post is incoherent and makes no sense. If your purpose is to rant about the lack of a gold standard, be clear about it. Also, if you're going to quote sources, make sure the quoted section is actually on point. Your above quotation says "many nations" not the "United States Government." If you'd actually checked the source cited in Wikipedia at the end of the third sentence of the above quotation, you'd find that it was a measure of the international reserves and did not support the sentence where it was cited.

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. "Why do you think we bought the government?"

"I mean it's not like we were going to be able to steal the wealth of the entire nation and get away with it, without some serious protection from the people with guns".