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>"Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer at a press conference to announce the settlement, "H
by anonymfus 14y ago
>"Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer at a press conference to announce the settlement, "HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."
Why governments can not confiscate or nationalise HSBC and continue legal operations?
- dabeeeenster 14y agoBecause money is power
- anigbrowl 14y agoThat sort of thing leads to investor panics and possibly social instability. Go to the Wall Street Journal website and read the comments on any political story. there's a large number of people who are convinced that Obama is a full-blown Communist and just waiting for his chance to go down the same path as Mao Tse Tung, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez etc. That's why it's safer o work through legislative means. People have wildly distorted ideas about the executive branch. EDIT: see, for example, one of the sibling comments here.
- monochromatic 14y agoMr. Obama, I had no idea you were a HNer!
- Evbn 14y agoOr throw some managers in jail and let the business keep operating.
- notahacker 14y agoIt's a huge, largely foreign-owned and run multinational company that looks after billions of dollars of largely innocent people's financial assets. I think it's fair to say the US government attempting to seize control of a large part of the operation might have a few negative side effects. The US has imposed trade sanctions and even been implicated in coups against foreign regimes responsible for relatively minor nationalizations.