6 ms·

There is mountains of evidence of serious criminal activity on the public record without any need to resort to leaks. The problem is not lack of evidence. The p

There is mountains of evidence of serious criminal activity on the public record without any need to resort to leaks. The problem is not lack of evidence. The problem is lack of prosecutorial action by the state.

anonymoushn 16y ago
I want to upvote this more than once.
Stormbringer 16y ago
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
yummyfajitas 16y ago
Could you link to some of the public records proving criminal activity?
- roadnottaken 16y ago
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/opinion/14krugman.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/opinion/14krugman.html
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    I'm not sure how the opinion of a columnist (and not just any columnist, but one well known for being dishonest) qualifies as "evidence of serious criminal activity".
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - irickt 16y ago
      Please point to evidence of this alleged dishonesty.
      - phillmv 16y ago
        He's an economist that is not a raving libertarian!
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        His hit job on Paul Ryan: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html Rebuttals: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/krugman-is-wrong-on-ryan-and-the-cbo/61110/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/krugman-... http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/paul-krugman-is-still-wrong-on-paul-ryan-and-the-cbo/61236/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/paul-kru... Here is a his attempt to debunk the hypothesis that job losses are concentrated in a few sectors. Of course, he doesn't actually present job loss numbers, but instead ratios of people who want a job and are actively looking to people who have one: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/whos-unemployed/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/whos-unemployed/ Of course, if you look at actual job numbers, you see huge losses in construction and much smaller losses in other sectors: http://crazybear.posterous.com/structural-shift-in-the-economy http://crazybear.posterous.com/structural-shift-in-the-econo... Here is Krugman relying on Simpson's Paradox to argue that education is better in Wisconsin than in Texas: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/opinion/28krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/opinion/28krugman.html?par... Here are more detailed numbers: http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/longhorns-17-badgers-1.html http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/longhorns-17-ba... Claims that our current budget deficits are not caused by government spending: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/why-have-deficits-exploded/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/why-have-deficit... Rebuttal: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/10/krugman-wrong-about-cause-of-exploding.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/10/krugman-wrong-abou... These are just a few that spring to mind.
        pessimizer 16y ago
        That's disagreement, not dishonesty. Dishonesty is easy to show - and a link avalanche is rhetorically a good way to make it seem like you've shown it, at least to people who don't follow the links. People like me, who are curious and do, will end up resentful of the waste of time. I have no opinion on whether Krugman is dishonest or not, but if know you can't make a case, please don't respond with a link avalanche. If you can: quote a statement, reference it, quote the evidence that it is factually incorrect, reference it. Argument made. Sorry for being snarky, but this technique irritates me when I fall for it.
- anonymoushn 16y ago
  http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-economy/2010/09/allys_gmac_unit_withdraws_fore.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-economy/2010/09/a... Filing documents containing claims that are false is perjury. Filing 10,000 documents containing false claims is 10,000 instances of perjury. Other corporations have taken similar actions, filing tens of thousands of documents in court, withdrawing the documents, and admitting that they were factually incorrect. Additionally, knowingly originating securities that do not meet the representations made in their prospectuses is securities fraud. We know because of FCIC-related testimony that this was done at BofA at the very least. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20gret.html?_r=1&ref=gretchen_morgenson http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20gret.html?_r=1&... (article is related but not about BofA) I would normally recommend that you read something at market-ticker.org, but for the most part KD's been light on the evidence lately so I'd be hard pressed to sift through his recent angry rambling to find something substantial.
  - Kadin 16y ago
    It's not perjury if it's not willful; the issue with what you're describing is proving that the factual errors were willful misrepresentations and not, as I'm sure the banks claim, honest mistakes that they made a good-faith effort to correct once discovered. I can imagine that filing documents with errors in them would really annoy the hell out of a judge, but it doesn't seem on its face like it necessarily crosses into perjury. The securities fraud seems much stronger, maybe via some sort of breach of duty claim by the bondholders who got stuck holding the bag? They pretty much got sold a bill of goods, so they would seem to have the clearest path to getting their pound of flesh out of the originators.
    - anonymoushn 16y ago
      Regarding the perjury, you're right. I find it somewhat upsetting that after a few years of courts responding to these organizations "accidentally" filing factually incorrect documents by allowing them to foreclose anyway the most we can do is prevent them from gaining anything through further "accidents," but what I think is immaterial to the law. On the securities fraud side, some action is being taken along those lines. My impression from what I've read is that a group of bondholders whose combined share is a large portion of the offering has to be assembled before they can take any action, so it's moving fairly slowly.

anonymoushn 16y ago

I want to upvote this more than once.

Stormbringer 16y ago

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

yummyfajitas 16y ago

Could you link to some of the public records proving criminal activity?

roadnottaken 16y ago
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/opinion/14krugman.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/opinion/14krugman.html
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  I'm not sure how the opinion of a columnist (and not just any columnist, but one well known for being dishonest) qualifies as "evidence of serious criminal activity".
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - irickt 16y ago
    Please point to evidence of this alleged dishonesty.
    - phillmv 16y ago
      He's an economist that is not a raving libertarian!
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      His hit job on Paul Ryan: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html Rebuttals: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/krugman-is-wrong-on-ryan-and-the-cbo/61110/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/krugman-... http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/paul-krugman-is-still-wrong-on-paul-ryan-and-the-cbo/61236/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/paul-kru... Here is a his attempt to debunk the hypothesis that job losses are concentrated in a few sectors. Of course, he doesn't actually present job loss numbers, but instead ratios of people who want a job and are actively looking to people who have one: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/whos-unemployed/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/whos-unemployed/ Of course, if you look at actual job numbers, you see huge losses in construction and much smaller losses in other sectors: http://crazybear.posterous.com/structural-shift-in-the-economy http://crazybear.posterous.com/structural-shift-in-the-econo... Here is Krugman relying on Simpson's Paradox to argue that education is better in Wisconsin than in Texas: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/opinion/28krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/opinion/28krugman.html?par... Here are more detailed numbers: http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/longhorns-17-badgers-1.html http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/longhorns-17-ba... Claims that our current budget deficits are not caused by government spending: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/why-have-deficits-exploded/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/why-have-deficit... Rebuttal: http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/10/krugman-wrong-about-cause-of-exploding.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/10/krugman-wrong-abou... These are just a few that spring to mind.
      - pessimizer 16y ago
        That's disagreement, not dishonesty. Dishonesty is easy to show - and a link avalanche is rhetorically a good way to make it seem like you've shown it, at least to people who don't follow the links. People like me, who are curious and do, will end up resentful of the waste of time. I have no opinion on whether Krugman is dishonest or not, but if know you can't make a case, please don't respond with a link avalanche. If you can: quote a statement, reference it, quote the evidence that it is factually incorrect, reference it. Argument made. Sorry for being snarky, but this technique irritates me when I fall for it.
anonymoushn 16y ago
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-economy/2010/09/allys_gmac_unit_withdraws_fore.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-economy/2010/09/a... Filing documents containing claims that are false is perjury. Filing 10,000 documents containing false claims is 10,000 instances of perjury. Other corporations have taken similar actions, filing tens of thousands of documents in court, withdrawing the documents, and admitting that they were factually incorrect. Additionally, knowingly originating securities that do not meet the representations made in their prospectuses is securities fraud. We know because of FCIC-related testimony that this was done at BofA at the very least. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20gret.html?_r=1&ref=gretchen_morgenson http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/business/20gret.html?_r=1&... (article is related but not about BofA) I would normally recommend that you read something at market-ticker.org, but for the most part KD's been light on the evidence lately so I'd be hard pressed to sift through his recent angry rambling to find something substantial.
- Kadin 16y ago
  It's not perjury if it's not willful; the issue with what you're describing is proving that the factual errors were willful misrepresentations and not, as I'm sure the banks claim, honest mistakes that they made a good-faith effort to correct once discovered. I can imagine that filing documents with errors in them would really annoy the hell out of a judge, but it doesn't seem on its face like it necessarily crosses into perjury. The securities fraud seems much stronger, maybe via some sort of breach of duty claim by the bondholders who got stuck holding the bag? They pretty much got sold a bill of goods, so they would seem to have the clearest path to getting their pound of flesh out of the originators.
  - anonymoushn 16y ago
    Regarding the perjury, you're right. I find it somewhat upsetting that after a few years of courts responding to these organizations "accidentally" filing factually incorrect documents by allowing them to foreclose anyway the most we can do is prevent them from gaining anything through further "accidents," but what I think is immaterial to the law. On the securities fraud side, some action is being taken along those lines. My impression from what I've read is that a group of bondholders whose combined share is a large portion of the offering has to be assembled before they can take any action, so it's moving fairly slowly.