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McClatchy Newspapers: Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

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  • McClatchy Newspapers: Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

    No new information is contained in this article as far as I know, but it is certainly refreshing to see the general theme appear in a mainstream entity. The McClatchy Company is still under majority control of the McClatchy family. In 2008, the company bought Knight Ridder.

    To see the full list of McClatchy Co. newspapers, check this map of the U.S.: http://www.mcclatchy.com/102/story/354.html

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story...ents_Container

    By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
    WASHINGTON — More than a year into the gravest financial crisis since the Great Depression, millions of Americans have seen their home values and retirement savings plunge and their jobs evaporate.

    What they haven't seen are any Wall Street tycoons forced to swap their multi-million dollar jobs and custom-made suits for dishwashing and prison stripes.

    There are plenty of civil and class-action lawsuits from aggrieved investors angered by the losses in their mortgage bonds, hedge funds or pensions. Regulators have stepped up their vigilance after the fact. But to date, no captain of finance tied to the crisis has walked the plank.

    There have been some high-profile arrests and federal convictions of financial giants — such as Ponzi scheme king Bernard Madoff and Stanford Financial Group chairman Robert Allen Stanford. They weren't among the causes of the financial meltdown, however, just poster boys for an era of lax enforcement, weak regulation and devout faith in free markets.

    "A lot of people who are responsible (for the crisis) seem to have gotten awfully rich in the process," said Barbara Roper, the director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America.

    The absence of what many would call justice stands out all the more because past financial crises always had their villains. The depression-era had electricity and railroad magnate Samuel Insull, who partly inspired the movie "Citizen Kane." The savings and loan crisis of the 1980's had banker Charles Keating. Energy giant Enron Corp.'s spectacular collapse offered the late CEO Kenneth Lay, a Texas crony of President George W. Bush.

    Yet there's no such poster child for the Great Recession, as today's crisis is now called.

    One may yet emerge. The FBI has more than 580 large-scale corporate fraud investigations under way. At least 40 of them are scrutinizing players in sub-prime mortgage lending, which was the first domino to fall and triggered a global financial crisis...

    cont.
    Last edited by Slimprofits; September 22, 2009, 10:43 AM.

  • #2
    Re: McClatchy Newspapers: Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

    There are persistent but unconfirmed reports that the FBI and grand juries are looking at the e-mails of executives of failed institutions such as Bear Stearns, which pioneered the process of pooling subprime loans for sale to investors, and Lehman Brothers, which was a leader in these toxic products when it collapsed.

    Records from AIG, which the Federal Reserve saved from collapse on Sept. 17, 2008, are also thought to be under review. The FBI reportedly is also looking at rating agencies Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poor's to determine if they knowingly gave pools of subprime mortgages AAA investment-grade ratings, the best possible, despite evidence to the contrary.

    Carter, the FBI spokesman, declined comment on ongoing investigations.

    The lack of any prosecution to date doesn't mean authorities aren't investigating, said Ian McCaleb, a spokesman for the Department of Justice.

    "There are ongoing cases. But from a prosecution standpoint, it takes a significant amount of time to develop these things. Most financial fraud cases are very complex and it could take a while to unravel the specifics of each case," he said. "I would characterize financial fraud as one of our top priorities."

    Another possibility is that a new politically appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission could turn up something that leads to prosecution. The 10-member panel, created by Congress this month, began probing the origins of the crisis, has subpoena power and could compel testimony. But this could lead to conflicts with ongoing legal investigations.

    Another reason that there have been no arrests of the perpetrators of the financial meltdown is that agencies such as the SEC, which regulates trading in stocks and bonds, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees the trading of contracts for future delivery of energy and farm products, lack powers of criminal prosecution.

    They can bring civil charges that result in fines or pass information to federal prosecutors or the FBI, which under the Bush administration was reorganized to focus less on white-collar crime and more on national security matters and crimes against children.
    Should we be glad that Goldman isn't a failed institution ?

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: McClatchy Newspapers: Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

      Although the Masters-of-the-Universe on Wall Street don't act like it, their days are numbered. It's kind of like a family whose house has burned down that moves back into the ruins and finds a couple of family photos untouched by the conflagration. That's basically what these morons up there are doing now, giving each other high fives for dodging the big one thinking that they can now just get back to business. The problem is that they are all on government life support (its kind of hard making that Mercedes payment on unemployment), and there are many landmines ahead in Alt-A, CRE, and all other forms of debt. With the expectation that it will take 10 years for the economy to heal itself, expect many of these places to be put out of their misery along the way. All except the GS boyz, of course. Everything they touch turns to gold, or crap, or something like that. After all, the folks in government need their "expert" opinion on how to turn things around. Like that guy over in Treasury who doesn't know how to do his own taxes...Turbo Timmy, that his name.

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      • #4
        Re: McClatchy Newspapers: Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

        I sent the reporter an email:
        In a press conference about 2 months ago, Obama said,
        "We were on the verge of a complete financial meltdown, and the reason was that Wall Street took extraordinary risks with other people's money. They were peddling loans that they knew could never be repaid. They were flipping those loans and leveraging those loans. Higher and higher mountains of debts were being built on loans that were fundamentally unsound . . . and all of us are now paying the price."
        I expected front page stories the next day, such as "Obama Admits Wall Street Fraud", but nothing happened. I was shocked.

        Thank you for reporting on this story in your article: Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

        The public is getting all riled up over Health Care, when they should really be asking, "Why are we losing our jobs, lost half our retirement savings, and being kicked out of our homes?" This is the real story, and those responsible need to be exposed and put in jail.

        I keep wondering if this news story does not get more coverage because of media suppression . . . .
        raja
        Boycott Big Banks • Vote Out Incumbents

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: McClatchy Newspapers: Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

          I would love to see some of the 21st century robber barons prosecuted.:cool:

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: McClatchy Newspapers: Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

            Originally posted by bcassill View Post
            Although the Masters-of-the-Universe on Wall Street don't act like it, their days are numbered. It's kind of like a family whose house has burned down that moves back into the ruins and finds a couple of family photos untouched by the conflagration. That's basically what these morons up there are doing now, giving each other high fives for dodging the big one thinking that they can now just get back to business. The problem is that they are all on government life support (its kind of hard making that Mercedes payment on unemployment), and there are many landmines ahead in Alt-A, CRE, and all other forms of debt. With the expectation that it will take 10 years for the economy to heal itself, expect many of these places to be put out of their misery along the way. All except the GS boyz, of course. Everything they touch turns to gold, or crap, or something like that. After all, the folks in government need their "expert" opinion on how to turn things around. Like that guy over in Treasury who doesn't know how to do his own taxes...Turbo Timmy, that his name.

            Blankfein: At Goldman Sachs, we already mark our assets to market daily, and have a capital ratio of 16 percent. So, it's easy for me to say: "Let's start with the new rules today." But, the rest of the system may not be able to handle such requirements.

            http://www.spiegel.de/international/...650289,00.html

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: McClatchy Newspapers: Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

              although the banksters are crooks, the gvt is the enabler. no one except a few token will see prison.

              Comment

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