Joseph Stiglitz: Jail the bankers

[tpsbmam]

Stiglitz was in London and did an interview with The Independent:

When traders working for Barclays rigged the Libor interest rate and flogged toxic financial derivatives – using their privileged position in the financial system to make profits at the expense of their customers – they were unwittingly proving Stiglitz right.

"It's a textbook illustration," Stiglitz said. "Where there are these asymmetries a lot of these activities are directed at rent seeking [appropriating resources from someone else rather than creating new wealth]. That was one of my original points. It wasn't about productivity, it was taking advantage."

Yet Stiglitz's interest in the abuses of banks extends beyond the academic. He argues that breaking the economic and political power that has been amassed by the financial sector in recent decades, especially in the US and the UK, is essential if we are to build a more just and prosperous society. The first step, he says, is sending some bankers to jail. " That ought to change. That means legislation. Banks and others have engaged in rent seeking, creating inequality, ripping off other people, and none of them have gone to jail."

<snip>

"Every economy needs lots of public investments – roads, technology, education," he says. "In a democracy you're going to get more of those investments if you have more equity. Because as societies get divided, the rich worry that you will use the power of the state to redistribute. They therefore want to restrict the power of the state so you wind up with weaker states, weaker public investments and weaker growth."

Stiglitz goes on to say that the politicians need to stop listening to the damn financial lobbyists (okay, he didn't say damn....I did ) and displaying their economic ignorance by insisting more regulations on the banksters will hurt the economy.

Read it at The Independent (UK)-- it's Stiglitz.

Joseph Stiglitz: Man who ran World Bank calls for bankers to face the music
Joseph Stiglitz tells Ben Chu that rogue financiers have proven that regulation must get tougher

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. We have an Army, a Navy, an Air Force, and Marines. And we can't go after the banksters who

financially ruined this country?

We don't even have politicians that will step up and criticize the banksters.

[msongs]

11. the military is doing its own good job financially ruining this country nt

[socialist_n_TN]

2. Jail ain't enough.........

They need their wealth expropriated.

[Kablooie]

14. That's what I say! Knock'em down into the middle of the 99% and then jail them.

If they sit in jail for a couple of years and then return to 400 million dollars, all their corruption has paid off and others will keep on doing it.

Only if they lose their ill gotten gains will it begin to be a deterrent to future corruptigators.

[russspeakeasy]

3. God damn right !

[sabrina 1]

4. I hope he will be asked to be a part of Obama's economic cabinet for his

second term. Along with all the others who got it right, like Dean Baker, Galbraith, Krugman. Time to get rid of those who got it wrong and have spent their time trying to cover the corruption, rather than stimulate the economy for the people.

[meow2u3]

8. Plus I hope Congress adequately funds the public protectors

I don't want to see rethugs defunding law enforcement anymore. Defunding the white collar crime division sends the message that the rethugs want to give the criminals free rein to rule and there isn't a damn thing law-abiding citizens can do about it.

[truedelphi]

5. Most Glad to be rec 16. n/t

[malaise]

6. He's right

Throw away some of the keys

[kitt6]

7. That may be the only way

too put the breaks on Mitt and the complete fraud of this election.

[pansypoo53219]

9. fuck jailing. need one of them medieval inquisition body cages and hang it over the wall street bull

then, take ALL THEIR ILL-GOTTEN GAINS. if we can live on poverty wages, so can they. LET THEM EAT RAMEN!

[pansypoo53219]

10. oh oh oh. LOCK THEM OUT!

take away their keys to the game.

[hay rick]

12. Throw away the key.

Give the next generation of bankers something that they can understand to think about.

[HiPointDem]

13. stiglitz is a banker.

[tpsbmam]

17. Point? You, apparently, don't know his history....here, for a little education

Joseph Stiglitz -- A Dangerous Man, A World Bank Insider Who Defected

The outsiders are environmentalists, labor leaders, students, anarchists. They stand at the barricades, chucking bricks at McDonald's and heresy at the International Monetary Fund. The insiders are elite economists and financial technocrats. They look down from their offices and defend the orthodoxy, insisting that markets deliver efficiency and that trade creates wealth.

Then along comes Joseph Stiglitz -- a dangerous man, an insider who defected.

Stiglitz, an owlish intellectual who reminds audiences of Richard Dreyfuss, probably won't win the Nobel Prize in economics when it is announced this week. But he has earned every other distinction in the field -- a Ph.D. from MIT; the top prize for young economists from the American Economic Association; faculty positions at Yale, Princeton and Stanford. In 1995 he became chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers and in 1997 chief economist for the World Bank.

(LOL -- he did win the Nobel Prize.)

Stiglitz takes the debate to a higher level -- not just because he dissects the orthodoxy with its own tools, but because he uses the anecdotes of an insider to confirm the suspicions of the outsiders.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2006

Former World Bank Vice President, Chief Economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz has predicted a global economic crash within 24 months - unless the current downturn is successfully managed. Asked if the situation was being properly handled Stiglitz emphatically responded "no," and also drew ominous parallels to the development of the NAFTA Superhighway and the North American Union.

Stiglitz caused controversy in October 2001 when he exposed rampant corruption within the IMF and blew the whistle on their nefarious methods of inducing countries to fall under their debt before stripping them of sovereignty and hollowing out their economies.

Speaking on the nationally syndicated Alex Jones radio show, Stiglitz defined the process of globalization as a system that was "rigged against the poor countries, rigged for the advanced industrial countries - the result of that is there were an awful lot of losers."

The Columbia University Professor described how rampant privatization has crippled Mexico, in particular citing the sell-off of major infrastructure such as roads.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And many, many more -- a simple Google search will further your education.

[HiPointDem]

18. you apparently leap to very large conclusions based on limited evidence & feel very superior about

the conclusions you've lept to.

stiglitz is a banker. fact. i didn't need your lecture or your history, especially a history that quotes the fucking alex jones show.

[Ichingcarpenter]

15. US Justice Dept signed an agreement with Barclays not to prosecute them

Its as if a bank robber signs an agreement to pay Justice a cut in his robberies and gets off scott free.




Signed agreement stating DoJ will not prosecute Barclay's criminally for LIBOR manipulation, LIEBORGATE








http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/documents/Barclaysagreement.pdf

[bvar22]

16. ..but just let them try to open a Medical Marijuana Dispensary,

..and our Justice Department will be on them faster than a Duck on a June Bug.