4 ms·

Is it their failure you believe they should be jailed for or something else? Do you believe that the CEO of any company that fails should be jailed or just ban

Is it their failure you believe they should be jailed for or something else? Do you believe that the CEO of any company that fails should be jailed or just banks? There was undoubtedly plenty of hubris, greed and incompetence to go round. I also believe that some of what occurred should, in hindsight, have been illegal. But having some sort of sacrifice to appease the gods is a little outdated. Oh, and yes, all the CEOs were replaceable. Irreplaceability is a very silly argument.

andrepd 8y ago
The companies didn't just "fail", which implies accident or even incompetence but not malice. What happened was that the elite of the financial services industry arranged a nice little cash cow for themselves, enabling them personally to live lavish lifestyles, knowing perfectly well the consequences in the end (which, for them, due to their complicity with the regulators and governments, were none).
raesene9 8y ago
As to CEOs being irreplaceable sure, but they're also very focused on not going to jail. Personal liability for top execs which might actually result in jail time is a powerful incentive for those execs to ensure their companies don't engage in that kind of behaviour.
- Ntrails 8y ago
  No. It's an incentive to change the corporate structure. Sorry, but it's simply not that simple.
gutnor 8y ago
> I also believe that some of what occurred should, in hindsight, have been illegal. That is the main issue. Nothing you can do against individuals that acted legally. However hindsight happened very quickly, almost from day 1. There is no excuse that the bailouts didn't come with extremely punitive string attached only loosened after the law had been updated. That did not happen. There is no moral to the story, no happy ending. Worse, hindsight works both ways. Maybe the current generation of financial company executives have learned their lesson, but the next one will have no such reserve.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
  >That is the main issue. Nothing you can do against individuals that acted legally. We can punish them for actions deemed wrong even if legal. We do it to the poorest of criminals all the time, through creative legal maneuvers that judges have decided don't violate ex post facto. It is telling that we never do this for white collar crime.
imgabe 8y ago
It was not failure. It was at the very least gross negligence, if not outright theft and fraud.
- pas 8y ago
  Civil society decided that retroactive application of laws is a very bad idea. So prevention is the name of the game. But that requires competent regulators and oversight. Compliance and reporting laws, and so on. Investigators with staff and time, prosecutors willing to chase a case, and of course independent judges. The SEC and DoJ could have tried to bring more charges, and they got billions in deferred prosecution agreements, maybe not enough though. (They - I mean DPAs - are not shiny like a jail time verdict, but they do work pretty well https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/soci-t-g-n-rale-sa-agrees-pay-860-million-criminal-penalties-bribing-gaddafi-era-libyan https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/soci-t-g-n-rale-sa-agrees-pay... see also https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?httpsredir=1&article=1377&context=ncbi https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?httpsred... ) If we want to make up for the money lost by the innocent, then we can chose to tax those we think benefited. But that's completely different than blind vengeance.
  - imgabe 8y ago
    It would not have to be retroactive. I don't believe that there weren't existing laws violated that could have been pursued. For instance, there's a documentary called "Small Enough To Jail" about Abacus bank - a small family run bank that was the only one to be prosecuted for mortgage fraud due to NINJA loans, although practically every bank was doing this at the time. That's just one example.
compcoffee 8y ago
>Do you believe that the CEO of any company that fails should be jailed or just banks? Watch Silicon Valley scramble to adjust their moral compass if Tesla fails in the same manner.
maxxxxx 8y ago
"Do you believe that the CEO of any company that fails should be jailed or just banks?" At a minimum they should have lost all their money and not walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars.
voodootrucker 8y ago
No new laws are needed. The credit ratings agencies fraudulently mislabeled loans. This was criminal behavior and was not prosecuted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agencies_and_the_subprime_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agencies_and_the...
- umanwizard 8y ago
  Regardless of whether that's true, the posters above were talking about employees of investment banks, which are not the same thing as credit rating agencies.
  - voodootrucker 8y ago
    Perjury then? https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-lied-2011-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-lied-2011-5

andrepd 8y ago

The companies didn't just "fail", which implies accident or even incompetence but not malice. What happened was that the elite of the financial services industry arranged a nice little cash cow for themselves, enabling them personally to live lavish lifestyles, knowing perfectly well the consequences in the end (which, for them, due to their complicity with the regulators and governments, were none).

raesene9 8y ago

As to CEOs being irreplaceable sure, but they're also very focused on not going to jail. Personal liability for top execs which might actually result in jail time is a powerful incentive for those execs to ensure their companies don't engage in that kind of behaviour.

Ntrails 8y ago
No. It's an incentive to change the corporate structure. Sorry, but it's simply not that simple.

gutnor 8y ago

> I also believe that some of what occurred should, in hindsight, have been illegal. That is the main issue. Nothing you can do against individuals that acted legally. However hindsight happened very quickly, almost from day 1. There is no excuse that the bailouts didn't come with extremely punitive string attached only loosened after the law had been updated. That did not happen. There is no moral to the story, no happy ending. Worse, hindsight works both ways. Maybe the current generation of financial company executives have learned their lesson, but the next one will have no such reserve.

PurpleBoxDragon 8y ago
>That is the main issue. Nothing you can do against individuals that acted legally. We can punish them for actions deemed wrong even if legal. We do it to the poorest of criminals all the time, through creative legal maneuvers that judges have decided don't violate ex post facto. It is telling that we never do this for white collar crime.

imgabe 8y ago

It was not failure. It was at the very least gross negligence, if not outright theft and fraud.

pas 8y ago
Civil society decided that retroactive application of laws is a very bad idea. So prevention is the name of the game. But that requires competent regulators and oversight. Compliance and reporting laws, and so on. Investigators with staff and time, prosecutors willing to chase a case, and of course independent judges. The SEC and DoJ could have tried to bring more charges, and they got billions in deferred prosecution agreements, maybe not enough though. (They - I mean DPAs - are not shiny like a jail time verdict, but they do work pretty well https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/soci-t-g-n-rale-sa-agrees-pay-860-million-criminal-penalties-bribing-gaddafi-era-libyan https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/soci-t-g-n-rale-sa-agrees-pay... see also https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?httpsredir=1&article=1377&context=ncbi https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?httpsred... ) If we want to make up for the money lost by the innocent, then we can chose to tax those we think benefited. But that's completely different than blind vengeance.
- imgabe 8y ago
  It would not have to be retroactive. I don't believe that there weren't existing laws violated that could have been pursued. For instance, there's a documentary called "Small Enough To Jail" about Abacus bank - a small family run bank that was the only one to be prosecuted for mortgage fraud due to NINJA loans, although practically every bank was doing this at the time. That's just one example.

compcoffee 8y ago

>Do you believe that the CEO of any company that fails should be jailed or just banks? Watch Silicon Valley scramble to adjust their moral compass if Tesla fails in the same manner.

maxxxxx 8y ago

"Do you believe that the CEO of any company that fails should be jailed or just banks?" At a minimum they should have lost all their money and not walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars.

voodootrucker 8y ago

No new laws are needed. The credit ratings agencies fraudulently mislabeled loans. This was criminal behavior and was not prosecuted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agencies_and_the_subprime_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agencies_and_the...

umanwizard 8y ago
Regardless of whether that's true, the posters above were talking about employees of investment banks, which are not the same thing as credit rating agencies.
- voodootrucker 8y ago
  Perjury then? https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-lied-2011-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-sachs-lied-2011-5