Congress, Courts, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Justice, Lawyering, Media, Politics, Society, Uncategorized

Bankers Make a Mockery of the Law, and No One Goes to Jail

200px-Jamie_Dimon

Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contibutor

It has happened again.  Several big banks have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and are paying billions in fines for their admitted transgressions.

“On Wednesday, four large global banks — Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland — pleaded guilty to a series of federal crimes over a scheme to manipulate the value of the world’s currencies. The Justice Department accused the banks of collusion in one of the largest and yet least regulated markets, noting that at one bank one trader remarked “the less competition the better.”

That lack of oversight, coupled with the pressure to squeeze profits from a relatively middling business, set the stage for this scandal, one that unfolded nearly every day for five years. The crimes described on Wednesday also painted the portrait of something more systemic: a Wall Street culture that enabled many big banks to break the law even after years of regulatory black marks after the crisis.” New York Times

These banksters have once again been fined billions of dollars, but not a single executive is going to jail.  How can a corporate “person” admit to multiple felonies and not go to jail?  Some of these felons have been “caught” before and are repeat offenders.  I guess we should be happy that least this time the Justice Department forced the parent companies to be named.

“In announcing the cases, the Justice Department emphasized that the banks’ parent companies entered the guilty pleas rather than a subsidiary, representing a new frontier in efforts to punish Wall Street misdeeds.” New York Times  I have asked this question before, but it bears repeating.  Could any other person admit to multiple felonies and not expect some jail time?

The New York Times reported that the banks worked hard to make sure that they could keep doing business as usual, even after admitting to multiple felonies.

“For the banks, though, life as a felon is likely to carry more symbolic shame than practical problems. Although they could be barred by American regulators from certain activities, the banks scrambled behind the scenes to persuade those regulators to grant exemptions. That process, which delayed the Justice Department’s announcement by a week, already led to the Securities and Exchange Commission providing a number of waivers that allow the banks to conduct business as usual.” New York Times

It amazes me that the Securities and Exchange Commission would allow waivers to these felons who have shown time and again a disregard for our laws.  I wonder how many former employees of these felonious banks are on the Securities and Exchange Commission?

As we have written about before, the fines that these felons are ordered to pay are often tax-deductible and the actual out-of-pocket fine is much smaller than advertised. The taxpayers and the shareholders are the ones paying for these felons to continue their illegal activities.  It seems obvious that no matter how large the fines are, they have not induced lawful behavior from the felonious banks.

What will it take for the Justice Department to actually prosecute these repeat offenders and put them in jail?  Will jailing some bank executives cause a change in the banks repeated illegal activities?

If the Justice Department refuses to jail any executive, is there a way the executives could be fined personally?  Something needs to be done to stop these felons from continuing to fleece the marketplace.   What do you think?

“The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.”

42 thoughts on “Bankers Make a Mockery of the Law, and No One Goes to Jail”

  2. Isn’t it interesting how the Republican’s get blamed for covering and protecting the big banking corporations, yet our Democratic DOJ doesn’t give these glorified mafiosa crooks anything more than a big fine.
    We should pull all our money out of the big banks and put our money in our local banks. Also, credit cards through these banks need to be cut up.

  3. Fining doesn’t affect anyone when a bank or corporation has billions of dollars at their disposal. Jail time and loss of position and loss of any future positions in the banking system makes a definite impact on the crooks.

  4. Here ya go, Nick.

    Elliot is going to destroy the duopoly and has created your longed for third party – the answer to all our problems.

    I didn’t catch his foreign policy, but maybe it will be such that even Jill will find something to love.

    Have a blast fellows. I look forward to your first administration.

  8. So,
    Ok, now that the five biggest banks in the world have PLED
    GUILTY TO FELONY CRIMINAL MISCONDUCT, the People who they robbed, all PEOPLE of US, should sue the crap out of them civilly for the damages they have caused by rigging the system to make trillions stolen from our home equity, our bank accounts, businesses, etc. Shake them down through a RICO for every penny they stole and return the money to the people and in one minute our country will turn around financially and a few overly fat fat cats will sit penniless in prison. Now that Justice dept has got them to plead guilty to felonies and pay criminal fines it is time for us the PEOPLE to sue them civilly for the DAMAGES to the people and they have no legal defense now that they are felons. The gov parking ticket fines to get out of jail for free basically is fine but now the PEOPLE must RICO and RECOVER and takeover the banks and other institutions involved and CLAWBACK every last red cent of stolen BONUSES they took for bankrupting our nation,
    ripping off the PEOPLE and thinking they are getting away with it. Hit them where it hurts, their pocketbooks and you will stop their insanity and funding of such continued abuse of the PEOPLE. In fact now that they are felons they cannot vote or participate in elections and should be stopped from all PAC /Superpac election rigging schemes they belong to. All these billionaires and multimillionaires who made monies from ripping people off and not developing a thing that made them monies, Also get rid of the lawyers, judges and politicians (many now just criminals in disguise) who are protecting them. Look at Iceland for a model to follow, see articles below, they actually jailed the bankers, forgave
    peoples loans, seized the banks and others and returned their economy overnight and now the strongest economy in fact. So get your rocks America, file a class action civil lawsuit and take them over and throw out any politicians or bankers or judges or courts or US attorneys or Politicians of this or that Perversion and get back you and your families monies stolen from you by a handful of UNPATRIOTIC traitors. Try them and fry them, then RICO and
    RECOVER and as always, Frying Pans Free @ http://www.iviewit.tv

    FRAUD Against the People–‘Color of Law’
    U.S. Code › Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 13 › § 242:
    (Cornell University Law School) ~Deprivation of rights under color of law:
    Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily
    injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned
    for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

  9. I Annie, I was saying that some love you only surface deep and are offended if by you if you look awkward or have no teeth and thus cannot see your inner beauty as they are focused on surface appearance and thus typically deemed superficial. Thus those that love me without teeth love me with them and those who don’t take me seriously due to my teeth or lack thereof and care what I look like or where my dentures were on that day may be focused on the wrong part of the videos, as it is what I say that has meaning and depth not what I look like when I say them.

    And Glenn, it is two words RICO and RECOVER! As in recover the stolen booty.

  11. Eliot, since I don’t know you, I can’t say whether you’d be someone that anyone could love, or trust. I certainly think that those who loved you before your unfortunate accident should still love you afterwards. That would be the decent human thing to do.

  12. I. Annie, well that is a good question, the dentures on the dates in question are just temporary to posts for permanent implants which because having had an inch of jaw removed from both sides of face after extreme car accident and death cause tremendous pressure on the temps which explode every so often from the force and thus are in for repair for weeks at a time and during those times I am teethless, although I do have very sharp implant posts as you can see in the video. I do now have the tops permanently in and the bottoms will hopefully soon be permanently implanted, we needed to make all titanium implants to make them impervious to explosion so they are unique and only have porcelain painted on them in front, otherwise I would like Jaws from Bond.
    However, at the times those were done, the country was in need of new and exciting plan to fix it and it needs it even more now. Had I won, with or without teeth and I believe it was Lincoln who was seen oft with his wood partials out from the problems dentures can cause, well the country would be back in black economically and we would have a truly unique new party, the People party and it would truly be a democratic system by the People for the People and I as President would have had very little influence and so the status of my teeth should not have had impact. If you can’t love me without teeth then you should not try without them. When I walked the earth with a hundred wires sticking out from my head after walking out of a coma in striker bed in traction and looked like the elephant man for months, well it was then that I learned who were the people who loved you despite your appearances for who you really are and those that are surface deep.
    Thank you for kind consideration, Eliot

  13. Can’t find your dentures, why should you be trusted to run a country? Serious question.

  14. There’s also this angle to consider: “http://wallstreetonparade.com/2015/06/jpmorgan-tech-workers-have-new-conspiracy-theories/”

    Lot of young people committing “suicide” at some of these same banks. Ask yourself why that might be?

    As an aside: the site I linked to above is often uncritical about Democratic “savior” politicians like Warren or Sanders. They usually provide a great deal of excellent information so I just ignore their cheerleading for team savior Democrat! Also, I think the film “Inside Job” is an good look at what is happening, as it isn’t letting Republicans or Democrats off the hook for their actions.

  15. For a new political system that changes everything overnight, a real by the people for the people system see,

    Eliot for President in 2012 Campaign Speech 1 with No Top Teeth, Don’t Laugh, Ok, laugh but very important
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuIHQDcwQfM

    Eliot for President in 2012 Campaign Speech 2 with No Top OR Bottom Teeth, Don’t Laugh, Ok, laugh again but more important
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbOP3U1q6mM

    Eliot for President in 2012 Campaign Speech 3 most important
    https://www.facebook.com/iviewit?ref=tn_tnmn#!/note.php?note_id=319280841435989

  16. Both sides, Republican and Democrat are chickensh*t and ignorant when it comes to the banking and Wall Street sector. When the mess started to stink in 2006/7/8 it was the big boys that dictated to the three stooges about how if Wall Street and the banks were held accountable for their actions, the average guy, the voter, would suffer most. In the end the government has little to no idea what is going on. The guys that know are sometimes CEOs and sometimes government leaders. The fox travels to the henhouse for lunch and then sits down with the farmer for supper. Chicken is served both times. We are the chickens.

    It is worth noting, however, that the two greatest recessions since the 30s were both caused by Republican administrations. Dr. Feel Good caused a seven year recession and the little cowboy’s is still going on. You can point the finger all you want but it seems that the lessor of the two evils are the Democrats. The economy of the US has repeatedly done better under Democratic administrations and the Democrats have not been responsible for messes as big as those created by the GOP. All the rest: destroying the Constitution, ignorance, graft, etc goes on in both parties. That is the legacy of the two party system.

    The way out of this dysfunctional system of government is to detach the Presidency from the two political parties. Obligate those running for President to be totally detached, financially. Then the Congress and the Senate will be truly disconnected from the President or King/Queen. Americans seem to want a King/Queen. Then the King/Queen should not be an extension of one or the other corrupt parties.

    This might lead to a more democratic system with the establishing of the necessary, at least, two more parties. This country seems to contain the same distribution of opinions as do most other advanced democracies: far left, middle left, far right, middle right. There should be a party for each and if Americans remain so stubborn as to resist a proper Parliamentary system and wish to retain a monarch then that monarch should not be an extension of any party.

    Money for campaigns should be disallowed if privately sourced. The government should pay for the obtaining of its participants based on voting records. It works in Canada and Great Britain and they have far less corruption and elected puppets than do the US.

    Well one can hope. The one thing that is certain is that the present system stinks to high heaven.

  18. “Something needs to be done to stop these felons from continuing to fleece the marketplace.”

    There’s the rub, Rafflaw. If the DOJ won’t do anything, what is there to be done?

    Can a new administration (that actually cares about the law) do something or has the time/ability to do something passed?

    We cannot make the supposed enforcers actually enforce the law. Would charging the DOJ with dereliction of duty effect change?

  19. Amen, Jill. Brilliant! The political parties are now merged into a Ruling Class which needs to bury and destroy any upstart reformers. Notice, NO Democrat is challenging Hillary. They are all afraid of her private detectives and politics of personal destruction. The Old Guard Republicans have caved in to raising taxes, growing government, Pavlovian/Skinnerian/Dewey mental health conditioning for servility in our schools, situational ethics, and statism. They allowed Herman Caine to be lynched, Ron Paul to be branded an extremist, Michelle Bachman and Governor Palin to be “dumb broads,” and I dread what they are cooking up for Carly, Ted, Rand, and Dr. Carson.

  20. “Ron Suskind tells a remarkable story from March of 2009. Three months into Barack Obama’s supposedly progressive, left-leaning presidency, popular anger at Wall Street was intense and the nation’s leading financial institutions were weak and on the defensive in the wake of the financial collapse and recession they had created. The new president called a meeting of the nation’s top 13 financial executives at the White House….

    In the end, however, the anxious captains of high finance left the meeting pleased to learn that Obama was totally in their camp. For instead of standing up for those who had been harmed most by the crisis—workers, minorities, and the poor – Obama sided unequivocally with those who had caused the meltdown. “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks,” Obama said. “You guys have an acute public relations problem that’s turning into a political problem. And I want to help…I’m not here to go after you. I’m protecting you…. I’m going to shield you from congressional and public anger.”

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/15/the-liberal-apologies-for-obamas-ugly-reign/

    My point is this. If the people in the US do not stop genuflecting to their corrupt “leadership” we don’t have a chance in hell. I don’t care if you are a Republican or a Democrat. Pay attention to what your beloved “leaders” are doing and protest them, especially when they are from “your” party. Most elected officials aren’t running things but they are doing the bidding of those who are truly powerful. A good prosecutor starts at the bottom (our elected officials) and rolls them to get at the more powerful. A ethical citizen stops mindlessly rooting for their sports team to win and starts caring about what is actually happening to other people on this planet.

    Be that person. There isn’t another way out of this.

Comments are closed.