Elizabeth Warren Demands Investigation Into Lack Of Wall Street Prosecutions

[GoLeft TV]

Senator Elizabeth Warren has combed through the documents and knows that the big banks were involved in illegal activities that led to the crash of 2007-2008. And that’s why she’s demanding an investigation to find out why the Department of Justice ignored the FCIC’s request that two dozen individuals and organizations be prosecuted for their involvement in illegal activities.

[ffr]

1. Would be a monumental start

to something that could lead to war crimes tribunals for Bush/Cheney and his merry band of cronies.

[juxtaposed]

2. Iceland did the right thing

[shadowwinds]

3. It's doable, folks! We need to get letters, emails, other responses, etc. going.

I have saved this particular website for each and every time I meet someone who says that it's too big to do or just can't be done or makes up some other lame excuse.

Well, it WAS done before. By William Black who reports to us in this TED talk just exactly what he did as a regulator to deal with the savings and loan "debacle". He explains how (right after 12:07)

"in the savings and loan debacle, our agency that regulated savings and loans, OTS, made over 30,000 criminal referrals, produced over 1,000 felony convictions just in cases designated as major, and that understates the degree of prioritization, because we worked with the FBI to create the list of the top 100 fraud schemes, the absolute worst of the worst, nationwide. Roughly 300 savings and loans involved, roughly 600 senior officials. Virtually all of them were prosecuted. We had a 90 percent conviction rate. It's the greatest success against elite white collar criminals ever, and it was because of this understanding of control fraud and the accounting control fraud mechanism."

So, you see, it's doable. It can be done because it was done.

Listen to Black's speech:
https://www.ted.com/talks/william_black_how_to_rob_a_bank_from_the_inside_that_is?language=en

You will also find a transcript of this talk so that anyone can take some time and get a brief, cogent logical argument together to help you spread the word around.

[shadowwinds]

4. A Little on William Black and why you should listen to his TED talk mentioned above.

Biography
William Black is a professor of economics and law at University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Why you should listen

William Black is an associate professor of economics and law. He was the executive director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He previously taught at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement.

His 2005 book The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One has been called “a classic.” Professor Black recently helped the World Bank develop anti-corruption initiatives and served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae’s former senior management.

He teaches white-collar crime, public finance, antitrust, law and economics, and Latin American development.

What others say
“During the savings and loan crisis, it was Black who accused then-house speaker Jim Wright and five US Senators, including John Glenn and John McCain, of doing favors for the S&L's in exchange for contributions and other perks. The senators got off with a slap on the wrist, but so enraged was one of those bankers, Charles Keating — after whom the senate's so-called "Keating Five" were named — he sent a memo that read, in part, 'get Black — kill him dead.' Metaphorically, of course. Of course.” — Bill Moyers Journal, 2009