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No-one will go to jail. I sometimes struggle to figure out why the political system is such a mess in the US, being a recent citizen, coming from another count

No-one will go to jail. I sometimes struggle to figure out why the political system is such a mess in the US, being a recent citizen, coming from another country and system. Disengagement is obviously a huge factor, as it gives extremists disproportionate influence. Corruption is another, directly, as in directly steering policy in directions contrary to the directly stated will of the people in their voting. However corruption has a nefarious influence on the first factor - disengagement. When the average joe on the street lives in a world where laws are almost arbitrarily vague and enable arrest and detention on a whole host of grounds - for example, relevant to this community, the hounding do death of folks like Aaron Swartz, but most communities have ehtir own examples - and where jobs are being lost and real hardship is experienced by large percentages of the country... it is not surprising that when we see these huge crimes, terrible consequences on the common man from dramatic misbehavior among the wealth elites who remain largely unscathed suffering few consequences of their actions... and when we see the wealthy and connected elites absolutely immune to legal recourse - no jailtime, nothing more than slaps on wrists, on companies forced to shut up shop... is it really surprising so many people just give up?

pekk 14y ago
People usually don't go to jail as a result of civil suits. What did you expect, the cultural revolution?
- richardjordan 14y ago
  Indeed. I suppose it's the broader point that concerns me, and that I was really focused - the fact is that the tanking of the economy based on fraud and negligence resulted in no jailtime. I feel, and folks may think I'm wrong in this, that this is very visible to ordinary men and women in America and has a corrosive effect on the nation and its body politic.
  - _delirium 14y ago
    I understand the sentiment, but I'm personally skeptical that jailtime in particular is the solution. I also have the same instinctive reaction to "we jail people for X, but not [worse Y]?!", but I think in many of those cases, when I think about it more, I'd rather jail fewer people to equalize that, rather than more. And when it comes to tanking the economy, I'd like to figure out how it happened and put systemic reforms in place, more than I really want specific heads to roll. There are some well-run countries that don't tolerate corruption that don't jail people very often— they just see to it that anyone corrupt is shown the door. If you can do that consistently, it hardly matters if you show them the door into jail or a quiet retirement. I.e. keeping a hold on the situation directly, rather than trying to deter malfeasance with jail time.
    - richardjordan 14y ago
      My instinct is to reduce people in jail too. The land of the free shouldn't be so dramatically worse in terms of incarceration rates than ALL other countries in the world. That's messed up. That being said there are zero consequences of impact to disincentivize widespread corruption and illegality in the financial sector, and that is the biggest systematic failing. So long as you can make $100MM screwing people over, then retire with it all when you get caught, and effectively zero chance of any sanction even if your actions were criminal, people will take that bet every time.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    It's because every single person was in on it. I'm not one of those people who lays the blame at the feet of low income people buying homes, but everyone enjoyed the benefits of mortgage securitization, low-interest HELOCs, adjustable rate mortgages, etc.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Also because when you send high-level executives of major financial firms to prison, you risk creating run-on-the-bank scenarios that harm more people than the prosecution could possibly help. That this TOTALLY SUCKS does not change the actual facts on the ground, which the DOJ and the President have to evaluate and judge before acting on.
philwelch 14y ago
The turning point was probably the time that Ford pardoned Nixon. That was when the American system publicly put the illusion of everything working above bringing people to justice. That said, I don't see anything criminal here.
- richardjordan 14y ago
  Yes - as the other comment reply said too. You're both right, of course. It's civil not criminal. I suppose I was making a broader point about the crisis in general and its aftermath. The fact that all of the shenanigans, fraud and outright illegality that led to the financial crisis and its life-ruining effects on millions of Americans, resulted in more wealth for the perpetrators and no significan punishments or disincentives for future bad behavior is a very troubling thing.

pekk 14y ago

People usually don't go to jail as a result of civil suits. What did you expect, the cultural revolution?

richardjordan 14y ago
Indeed. I suppose it's the broader point that concerns me, and that I was really focused - the fact is that the tanking of the economy based on fraud and negligence resulted in no jailtime. I feel, and folks may think I'm wrong in this, that this is very visible to ordinary men and women in America and has a corrosive effect on the nation and its body politic.
- _delirium 14y ago
  I understand the sentiment, but I'm personally skeptical that jailtime in particular is the solution. I also have the same instinctive reaction to "we jail people for X, but not [worse Y]?!", but I think in many of those cases, when I think about it more, I'd rather jail fewer people to equalize that, rather than more. And when it comes to tanking the economy, I'd like to figure out how it happened and put systemic reforms in place, more than I really want specific heads to roll. There are some well-run countries that don't tolerate corruption that don't jail people very often— they just see to it that anyone corrupt is shown the door. If you can do that consistently, it hardly matters if you show them the door into jail or a quiet retirement. I.e. keeping a hold on the situation directly, rather than trying to deter malfeasance with jail time.
  - richardjordan 14y ago
    My instinct is to reduce people in jail too. The land of the free shouldn't be so dramatically worse in terms of incarceration rates than ALL other countries in the world. That's messed up. That being said there are zero consequences of impact to disincentivize widespread corruption and illegality in the financial sector, and that is the biggest systematic failing. So long as you can make $100MM screwing people over, then retire with it all when you get caught, and effectively zero chance of any sanction even if your actions were criminal, people will take that bet every time.
- rayiner 14y ago
  It's because every single person was in on it. I'm not one of those people who lays the blame at the feet of low income people buying homes, but everyone enjoyed the benefits of mortgage securitization, low-interest HELOCs, adjustable rate mortgages, etc.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Also because when you send high-level executives of major financial firms to prison, you risk creating run-on-the-bank scenarios that harm more people than the prosecution could possibly help. That this TOTALLY SUCKS does not change the actual facts on the ground, which the DOJ and the President have to evaluate and judge before acting on.

philwelch 14y ago

The turning point was probably the time that Ford pardoned Nixon. That was when the American system publicly put the illusion of everything working above bringing people to justice. That said, I don't see anything criminal here.

richardjordan 14y ago
Yes - as the other comment reply said too. You're both right, of course. It's civil not criminal. I suppose I was making a broader point about the crisis in general and its aftermath. The fact that all of the shenanigans, fraud and outright illegality that led to the financial crisis and its life-ruining effects on millions of Americans, resulted in more wealth for the perpetrators and no significan punishments or disincentives for future bad behavior is a very troubling thing.