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I made no claim that there is a small cabal of powerful people controlling everything brought down the system. There are, however, Goldman Sachs people that li

I made no claim that there is a small cabal of powerful people controlling everything brought down the system. There are, however, Goldman Sachs people that lied to their own customers in order to make money, for example. That is the kind of behaviour that can be persecuted, mostly along the conflict of interest or fraud lines. Those are specific laws. Oh, by the way, heard of the Libor scandal? Not specifically related to the crash, but interesting reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libor_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libor_scandal

JackFr 13y ago
Fair enough -- 'cabal' was my loaded word. I have no problem with Fabulous Fab going to jail, although I don't thick it's quite as cut-and-dried as you imagine. I'm familiar with the Libor scandal. But in both those cases particular people did specific things which were actionable.
- afterburner 13y ago
  How many have gone to jail over these actionable items?
  - JackFr 13y ago
    AFAIK Fab has yet to be sentenced, and note that as a foreign national, he's not eligible for the country club prisons. At the same time, the you don't see prosecutors going after the hundreds of thousands who lied to obtain mortgages they would otherwise not have qualified for. That is the real irony of the comprehensive settlement of the investment banks -- the banks are paying billions in fines because of borrowers misrepresenting themselves.
    - afterburner 13y ago
      One guy? Wow, justice at work. We are clearly over-targeting bankers. Oh I see, you're of the "blame the borrowers" mentality. All those slick willies/poor bums scamming the naive banks out of money. Not at all the banks packaging bad debt with full knowledge of the bullshit they were participating in, due to perverse personal incentives on their own staff trading off huge institutional risk for guaranteed short term personal gain. Nor them taking side bets on the whole system crashing so seeing a win-win either way (those of the GS variety). Not to mention the banks are supposed to know what they're getting into, they are after all the experts. Last I checked the ones suffering after the crash are most definitely not the banks, but rather the middle and lower class who have not seen effective wage increases in 30 years and now have even more trouble finding a job. Wow they really pulled a fast one on the banks.

JackFr 13y ago

Fair enough -- 'cabal' was my loaded word. I have no problem with Fabulous Fab going to jail, although I don't thick it's quite as cut-and-dried as you imagine. I'm familiar with the Libor scandal. But in both those cases particular people did specific things which were actionable.

afterburner 13y ago
How many have gone to jail over these actionable items?
- JackFr 13y ago
  AFAIK Fab has yet to be sentenced, and note that as a foreign national, he's not eligible for the country club prisons. At the same time, the you don't see prosecutors going after the hundreds of thousands who lied to obtain mortgages they would otherwise not have qualified for. That is the real irony of the comprehensive settlement of the investment banks -- the banks are paying billions in fines because of borrowers misrepresenting themselves.
  - afterburner 13y ago
    One guy? Wow, justice at work. We are clearly over-targeting bankers. Oh I see, you're of the "blame the borrowers" mentality. All those slick willies/poor bums scamming the naive banks out of money. Not at all the banks packaging bad debt with full knowledge of the bullshit they were participating in, due to perverse personal incentives on their own staff trading off huge institutional risk for guaranteed short term personal gain. Nor them taking side bets on the whole system crashing so seeing a win-win either way (those of the GS variety). Not to mention the banks are supposed to know what they're getting into, they are after all the experts. Last I checked the ones suffering after the crash are most definitely not the banks, but rather the middle and lower class who have not seen effective wage increases in 30 years and now have even more trouble finding a job. Wow they really pulled a fast one on the banks.