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And who among us doubts for a second Barry’s admin would not have already done so (prosecute tangible crimes) with great fanfare were it even tangentially supportable?

d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”

“And who among us doubts for a second Barry’s admin would not have already done so (prosecute tangible crimes) with great fanfare were it even tangentially supportable?”

I do. The guy raised more money than from Wall St than anyone else. Though I also suspect that that targets for valid prosecution are pretty scarce. Why chop down the money try over small potatoes when it will get you dropped like a hot one?

In most cases, the criminal law is overkill.
But if a bank executive took in millions of dollars of “performance bonuses” for bringing in sub-prime loans that later went bust (requiring a bailout), what is wrong with a civil “clawback” of the fraudulent earnings? We have heard much of “moral hazard” recently; this kind of restitution would reduce it.

In a speech about his Nobel Prize, John Steinbeck said he was amazed that New York bankers financed the making of the film “Grapes of Wrath” based on his novel of the same name. A major element of the novel was the devastation imposed on ordinary families in Oklahoma by cold hearted profit seekers in New York. Steinbeck did not understand that finance was a mechanism that let economic forces play out. The Joads were driven off their farm by a caterpillar tractor that could do the work of 100 men. The mechanization of agriculture had the same effect in the Soviet Union, which nation had no New York bankers.

Our economic problem, shared with Europe and England, stems from the rapid aging in the world. People want to save for retirement, but there are insufficient opportunities for the investment of their savings. Wall Street made CDOs and other esoteric instruments based on houses to absorb some savings and provide AAA securities required by bank regulators. Houses have real rental value, but only to the extent that people can afford the rents. The excess housing, driven in large part by bank regulation, was vulnerable to the leverage of marking to market, and trillion of dollars disappeared in short order.

Despite Senator Levin’s harangue against big shorts, extensive hearings and numerous books did not find the crooks that caused the problems. Nothing would be gained, except for delight in lynchings, by having witchcraft trials of Wall street executives. It would be better to increase tax rates on high income folks to reduce savings and to do lots of infrastructure spending as investments. Teachers and schools would be good too. OWS is just moronic.

@William Nuesslein–

The disaster of Stalinist collectivization had nothing to do with mechanization, everything to do with Party control of the villages. It was the *most* efficient farmers who were deported to the GULag.

http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/

Isn’t the default position here that really no one from Wall Street can even commit crimes? That white collar crimes really aren’t crimes. Sure, you guys can be flipped on something that is so far over the top but if O.J. worked on Wall Street instead of just pitching for Avis, you would have found the evidence against him ridiculous.

Can’t we just argue individual cases on the merits? If for no other reason, John Steinbeck would want it that way.