If top bank & Wall St. execs arrested & their personal assets seized, would you feel better?

[yurbud]

Poll question: If top bank & Wall St. execs arrested & their personal assets seized, would you feel better?

About our financial system?

I would.

So far, most of the bailouts have been aimed at reassuring Wall Street rather than reassuring America that Chief Brody and Quint are going to kill the shark.

Obviously, reregulation is the long term solution, but to restore public confidence, don't some of these assholes have to be frog-marched in orange jumpsuit and spend some time in the non-Club Fed penal system?

And it would have to be heads of banks and investment firms we have heard of, including Goldman Sachs just to show there's no favoritism.

[LakeSamish706]

1. I also want to know how high this scam went though, cause I think it was brought on...

by the Bush Administration directly. Just as many (including me) feel that 911 was an inside job, I also think that this Securities and Banking situation was as well.

[JDPriestly]

8. Paulson moved almost directly from defrauding investors and managing

investment and insurance schemes that either made not sense financially or were deliberately intended to bankrupt the system into the position of Secretary of the Treasury. That's a pretty clear indication of involvement of the top echelons of government in this scheme that bankrupted us. Whether the conduct of Paulson and his ilk was mere negligence or intentional -- that should be up to a jury to decide. Whether Paulson and his ilk lied at various points of their career, defrauded the public, committed perjury in testimony before Congress or when signing documents under oath -- that's for a jury to decide. A grand jury or prosecutor should be given the chance to review the facts and decide whether to bring criminal indictments.

[Buns_of_Fire]

27. They should all definitely be given a fair trail before a jury to determine guilt or innocence.

THEN we'll hang 'em.:evilgrin:

[yurbud]

31. I was thinking of beheading, but since I don't believe in capital punishment...

just the little head.

[truedelphi]

29. Nicely and concisely stated, JD.

When will Obama come to regret his "Good job there Hank" assessment of Paulson?

[lpbk2713]

2. Greedy bastids.

I wouldn't like to see their families suffer but I'd like to see these high rollers held accountable.

[Donnachaidh]

4. so it's OKAY for the families of displaced workers to suffer instead?

Personally, I think they should suffer the indignities their parents have wrought for everyone else. Let THEM find a homeless shelter with a bug free bed to sleep on.

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. .

:applause:

[grasswire]

10. I vehemently disagree.

When tens of millions of Americans face evictions, when tens of millions will suffer their old age in poverty, when cities can't provide services and Social Security and Medicare are in danger of being cut, when children go hungry.....

The families of the thieves benefited from the stolen monies. They must suffer the consequences, too.

[madokie]

17. I agree with you grasswire

show no mercy on those who have no mercy for you.

[yurbud]

32. like Bernie Madoff's wife--she should be working at a fucking McDonald's

cleaning vomit out of the bathrooms.

[roguevalley]

22. ordinarily I wouldn't either but since the actions of these people

affect the families of their victims making them collateral damage unfortunately, one cannot help it if their families suffer the same fate. This debacle doesn't affect just those whose names were on the policy. It affects everyone. Even Madoff's elderly sister had to sell her house. :(

[AngryOldDem]

23. If they are partaking in the profits, then hell yes, they are also part of the problem.

Where else in society is anyone being spared the consequences of these bastards' greed?

Maybe if it hurts THEM where THEY live, they may actually begin to give a shit.

[leftstreet]

3. Unless regulations changed, we'd just be arresting a new crop soon enough

Meh.

Don't feed the Prison Industrial Complex!

[xchrom]

5. it's not about my feelings.

i want justice done if there have been criminal activities and i want the system appropriately regulated.

[yurbud]

33. just as the stock market is about perceptions, so is our confidence in our government

and after the Bush years, it is pretty easy to feel shut out, ignored, and held to a different standard than these assholes if we don't see consequences.

[haele]

6. It's a far more civilized way of handling outrageous greed of "the leadership" -

- that is, the so-called "Achievers" who had bought leadership rights in a government thinking they didn't have to also accept the responsibility of running this country into the ground.
That's the problem they always forget - the crew tends to make sure that if everyone can't be saved, the Captain's supposed to go down with his or her ship. Or in other words, no matter how much you try to keep the masses huddled and down, they will become a mob if you don't let them stand up and give them breathing room.
And a mob - especially one with nothing left to lose - is not a beast you want to let loose. You can't negotiate or reason with a mob that wants to tear you apart.

Better off giving up assets and sitting in jail for a couple years, than stuck behind gates and low-paid guards who are just as likely to open those gates and pick up a torch because most of their family and friends have no jobs or homes. Gates only add maybe 5 minutes of get-away time.

Haele

[notadmblnd]

7. it would also go a long way in restoring consumer confidence

Day after day we sit and watch the talking heads tell us how much this one scammed and how much that one blew while partying. Until these people are held accountable, regular people are going to figure that there is no reason for any of them to change their behavior and things will continue to go on as they have for the last several years.

[JackRiddler]

9. Management decapitation should have been the first condition of TARP.

Every one of those bastards should have had to step down, no parachute.

Motherfuckers.

[yurbud]

39. literal would have been better

[Nick at Noon]

11. Will the sun be rising tomorrow ? n/t

[Mnemosyne]

13. I'm sure it's too late, but still would love to see that happen. n/t

[marions ghost]

14. yes they are guilty of crimes

but look at the attitudes toward white collar crime in America, and the likelihood of prosecution.
Oh sure every once in awhile one of them does some time or pays a small price. The problem is the laws don't have teeth and the prosecutions just don't happen. In actual fact white collar crime often IS a crime of violence against others and causes injury and death. People need to realize that the whole system is set up to aid and abet white collar criminals. And then do something to change that, not just lament the obvious--ie. that there are no controls.

[madokie]

15. You got that right

and after we get through with them we'll hang their sorry asses. They're all punks anyway so what would be the loss?

[crankmob]

16. no, i want the people who fund and direct the ppl they report to arrested..

[anonymous171]

18. YES YES YES YES YES! nt

[sad sally]

19. Absolutely!

The punishment needs to fit the crime. I'd like to see all of them in orange jumpsuits and flip-flops for a few years, but not before they've given back all the cash and assets they continue to flaunt and especially all the money they've hidden. What a farce that these crooks have been and still are touted as the best and brightest - no wonder the financial industry is in shambles.

[FatDave]

20. The only sympathy I would offer these fuckers...

...is the option of chloroform before the blade drops.

[yurbud]

35. if Tim McVeigh was executed for what he did, how could justice system allow these

domestic terrorists to live to do more damage?

[BeFree]

21. Ever hear of Zero-Tolerance?

If one of us peons even looks to be bad, we get all our stuff taken.

A few of them paying the same high price will do two things: eventually get rid of Zero-Tolerance for the masses and make a fine example of the idea that all men are subject to the same laws.

[onethatcares]

24. break their fingers too, maybe kneecap em.

that'll teach em.

[nichomachus]

25. I voted No

Every time corporate America is threatened, something bad happens.

[yurbud]

37. that's why it would be better if their maids just smothered them in their sleep

so it looks like a natural death.

[Laelth]

26. Yup.

It would make me feel better. I am not advocating doing so, of course. I advocate due process of law, but it would make me feel better.

:dem:

-Laelth

[tbyg52]

28. I would feel better if they got exactly what is coming to them.

Stripped of their assets and thrown in jail.

[yurbud]

34. and strip their asses before throwing them in jail to make sure prisoners remember what to do with

them.

[tbyg52]

40. I would not go that far. I think what happens in, so I understand,

most prisons, is a disgrace. I would not wish it even on W.

[yurbud]

41. if it's going to happen to anyone, it should be those guys.

[tbyg52]

43. Oh, absolutely, "if" nt

[tomreedtoon]

30. NO! Lose their assets and their LIVES. ON TV.

Take four of those useless "tough Ford trucks" that no one in his right mind would buy, and tie the bastard's limbs to them. Have them all drive in four different directions. While we watch on a multi-camera setup.

Why are you guys such wimps? Why do you believe bastards like this deserve to live? They have essentially killed our country and many of our countrymen. They deserve the humiliation of torture death and we deserve to be satisfied by watching it.

[BreweryYardRat]

36. Yup.

And if you could make a successful case for high treason due to their economic irresponsibility, I'd be in favor of giving them the death penalty.

[Thothmes]

38. Not particularily, sorta like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted

If confiscation of personal assets is currently prescribed by law, so be it. If not, changing the law to attach these assests may be an ex post facto law and therefore unconstitutional.

[cloudbase]

42. Yes, since you asked.

I just have an aversion to seeing people benefit from ill-gotten gains. I can't help it, though. My parents raised me that way.