4 ms·

Not sure he was a CEO, but Bernard Madoff was prosecuted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

• quarterto 13y ago
  Ah, but his crimes were against Wall Street, not the proletariat^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H general public.
  • asgard1024 13y ago
    Though it's a counterpoint to the argument that U.S. doesn't prosecute business decisions.
    • konstruktor 13y ago
      Madoff ran a Ponzi scheme and was convicted for fraud.
      • asgard1024 13y ago
        There are economists, like Steve Keen, who argued that subprime mortgage crisis and financial crisis in general was a Ponzi scheme. And I would say it's pretty obvious to most people that it essentially was. Madoff could say, in his defense, "I don't know this was a Ponzi scheme, I was just incompetent". At that's similar to what these bankers are saying. We don't accept it as a defense, though; we just prosecute it. The point is, there is no strict line between incompetence and fraud. Every fraud can claim incompetence. The unfortunate truth is that the U.S. indeed prosecutes _obviously_ bad business decisions. Just not in the cases where the fish is big enough. (The same is actually true in my country, Czech Republic.)
      • fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
        Eventually...