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Iceland jailed bankers, and paid for the citizens' debt. I don't see why the US can't jail people responsible for the crisis, even though the banks are too big

Iceland jailed bankers, and paid for the citizens' debt. I don't see why the US can't jail people responsible for the crisis, even though the banks are too big too fail. In other words, I don't see how banks are 'too big' to receive a new CEO and lose a few employees.

megablast 14y ago
There are too many people who were responsible, and most of them were just doing there jobs. Who would you pick as responsible, especially when laws aren't broken. It is too simplistic to run around decrying the fact that nobody was jailed.
- RexRollman 14y ago
  Just doing their jobs? Who's just description says "fraud" on it?
  - damoncali 14y ago
    The credit crisis was not caused by fraud.
- fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
  >>There are too many people who were responsible, That makes it more important to sort it out, not less. >>and most of them were just doing there jobs. That's never been a good excuse for anyone caught delivering a load of drugs. >>It is too simplistic to run around decrying the fact that nobody was jailed. No, not really. Jailing people is our answer to almost every problem. We imprison people even when it is obvious that imprisonment has a strong counter-productive effect. Yet, in one population where I'd argue that imprisonment would have a strong deterrent effect... nothing. It's not as though there is a lack of evidence of serious crime, either. On the contrary, criminality in finance is so glaringly obvious that people are tiring of pointing it out, while others simply work around it knowing that nothing will be done.
gadders 14y ago
What like Lehmans or Bear Sterns? Banks have lost thousands of employees.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
damoncali 14y ago
The vast majority of the people "responsible" were not doing anything wrong or illegal. Who is responsible? Anyone who: -Sold a house at an inflated price -Bought a house at an inflated price -Sold a mortgage to someone who could not afford it -Bought a mortgage that they could not afford -Sold MBS -Bought MBS -Used or provided leverage to buy MBS -Insured these transactions with derivatives or other instruments Who, precisely, would you like to arrest, and for what? This was not the result of fraud (although I'm sure there was some of that) but the result of a systematic setup for failure. Even if you cleaned up all of the fraud, it still would have happened.
- moe 14y ago
  The problem is not that something illegal happened. The problem is that what happened wasn't illegal. Prosecution is boring and pointless. We should focus on limiting the damage that the next crisis can do. There's the real problem: Nothing happens in this regard. The beneficiaries of the current system have become powerful enough to deflect any external influence on their schemes. That is the question of our time: How can we break this regime before we find ourselves (or rather: our children) living in a dystopia. As of today the odds are not looking good.
  - damoncali 14y ago
    Those are systemic changes, though. Breaking up banks, reinstating Glass Steagall, that sort of thing. I don't think those solutions are out of reach. It will be tough, but it certainly seems doable. It is a shame that politicians are demagoguing with all this "they need to go to jail" talk, because it is a distraction from the actual problem. That is simply that when too much leverage is applied to the same bet and hedged in the same way by everyone, it will blow up catastrophically when things go bad. That has nothing to do with legality or fraud or any such thing, and everything to do with regulation. It was a political and intellectual failure, not a moral one.
    - moe 14y ago
      It is a shame that politicians are demagoguing with all this "they need to go to jail" talk Depending on how cynic you are you could believe this is exactly the message that $wall_street wants them to push. Everyone knows that nobody relevant is going to jail anyway, but it's a nice, superficial "debate" to keep the general public busy with... Nice in the sense that you can apparently drag it out near infinitely. Remember: Lehmann crashed 5 years ago. Yet when you look at the state of discussion in the mainstream media you'd think it happened just yesterday.

megablast 14y ago

There are too many people who were responsible, and most of them were just doing there jobs. Who would you pick as responsible, especially when laws aren't broken. It is too simplistic to run around decrying the fact that nobody was jailed.

RexRollman 14y ago
Just doing their jobs? Who's just description says "fraud" on it?
- damoncali 14y ago
  The credit crisis was not caused by fraud.
fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
>>There are too many people who were responsible, That makes it more important to sort it out, not less. >>and most of them were just doing there jobs. That's never been a good excuse for anyone caught delivering a load of drugs. >>It is too simplistic to run around decrying the fact that nobody was jailed. No, not really. Jailing people is our answer to almost every problem. We imprison people even when it is obvious that imprisonment has a strong counter-productive effect. Yet, in one population where I'd argue that imprisonment would have a strong deterrent effect... nothing. It's not as though there is a lack of evidence of serious crime, either. On the contrary, criminality in finance is so glaringly obvious that people are tiring of pointing it out, while others simply work around it knowing that nothing will be done.

gadders 14y ago

What like Lehmans or Bear Sterns? Banks have lost thousands of employees.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

damoncali 14y ago

The vast majority of the people "responsible" were not doing anything wrong or illegal. Who is responsible? Anyone who: -Sold a house at an inflated price -Bought a house at an inflated price -Sold a mortgage to someone who could not afford it -Bought a mortgage that they could not afford -Sold MBS -Bought MBS -Used or provided leverage to buy MBS -Insured these transactions with derivatives or other instruments Who, precisely, would you like to arrest, and for what? This was not the result of fraud (although I'm sure there was some of that) but the result of a systematic setup for failure. Even if you cleaned up all of the fraud, it still would have happened.

moe 14y ago
The problem is not that something illegal happened. The problem is that what happened wasn't illegal. Prosecution is boring and pointless. We should focus on limiting the damage that the next crisis can do. There's the real problem: Nothing happens in this regard. The beneficiaries of the current system have become powerful enough to deflect any external influence on their schemes. That is the question of our time: How can we break this regime before we find ourselves (or rather: our children) living in a dystopia. As of today the odds are not looking good.
- damoncali 14y ago
  Those are systemic changes, though. Breaking up banks, reinstating Glass Steagall, that sort of thing. I don't think those solutions are out of reach. It will be tough, but it certainly seems doable. It is a shame that politicians are demagoguing with all this "they need to go to jail" talk, because it is a distraction from the actual problem. That is simply that when too much leverage is applied to the same bet and hedged in the same way by everyone, it will blow up catastrophically when things go bad. That has nothing to do with legality or fraud or any such thing, and everything to do with regulation. It was a political and intellectual failure, not a moral one.
  - moe 14y ago
    It is a shame that politicians are demagoguing with all this "they need to go to jail" talk Depending on how cynic you are you could believe this is exactly the message that $wall_street wants them to push. Everyone knows that nobody relevant is going to jail anyway, but it's a nice, superficial "debate" to keep the general public busy with... Nice in the sense that you can apparently drag it out near infinitely. Remember: Lehmann crashed 5 years ago. Yet when you look at the state of discussion in the mainstream media you'd think it happened just yesterday.