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At this point I'd much rather see these banks keep their $5-$10 billion in fines, but have at least the top 10 executives imprisoned. That would be a way better
by mtgx 10y ago
At this point I'd much rather see these banks keep their $5-$10 billion in fines, but have at least the top 10 executives imprisoned. That would be a way better incentive for the banks to stop defrauding people, and they wouldn't lose nearly as much money, so if they are indeed in financial troubles, they can survive it.
What I definitely don't want to see anymore is letting big banks get away without any punishment "because that would endanger the economy." It's ultimately a poor excuse for not punishing criminal behavior, because failure to punish is defacto condoning of the crime, and it will happen again in the future. If you want to stop that, then some form of effective punishment must be done.
- maxxxxx 10y agoAbsolutely right. It's pretty clear that the fines don't prevent misbehavior.
- thefastlane 10y agothe primary knock-on effect is probably that it accelerates the process of offshoring back- and middle-office teams to less expensive jurisdictions.
- javajosh 10y agoPutting aside the personal bias that very much agrees with you, if you look at a bank as a machine, then the "top 10 executives" are very expensive, difficult-to-replace components of the machine. I don't know where you find people to run a bank of that size and complexity, and perhaps it's easier than I think, but I'd like to get a sense of how much damage those removals would make. Additionally, would making corporate leadership personally, criminally liable for the banks actions make finding a replacement even harder? (Of course, that's not a great argument since any standard you apply is going to make it harder to find a replacement. E.g. if we say "no sex offender can be a teacher" then it makes it harder to find teachers, but no-one would argue with that.)