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Should the Big Bankers and Wall Street execs get jail time?

Should the Big Bankers and Walll Street execs get jail time?

  • Total voters
    48
  • Poll closed .
Yes, the ones found guilty after a fair trial.
 
DaveFagan said:
Mojo - October 2013 | Mother Jones

Warren to Wall Street Regulators: Put Big Bank CEOs in Jail

http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/10/elizabeth-warren-letter-wall-street-jail"This past weekend, the Department of Justice slapped a record fine on JPMorgan Chase for packaging and selling the mortgage-backed financial products that helped cause the financial meltdown. But Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wants the administration to know that fines are not enough. On Wednesday, she called on Wall Street regulators to hold all those responsible for the 2008 crisis accountable.In a letter to the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Officer of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Warren lauded the overseer of the TARP bailout program for cracking down on financial industry players who wasted, stole, or abused the federal emergency funds doled out to banks during the financial crisis, and implied that the three banking regulators should also punish individuals who helped cause the financial meltdown.Although the budget for TARP's inspector general was "a small fraction of the size of the budgets and staffs at your agencies," Warren pointed out, the program's watchdog has brought criminal charges against nearly 100 senior executives; obtained criminal convictions on 107 defendants, including 51 jail sentences; and suspended or banned 37 people from working in the banking industry.How about you guys, Warren asked. She called on the Fed, the SEC, and the OCC to provide records on the number of people the agencies have charged criminally and civilly, the number of convictions and prison sentences they have obtained, the number of people banned or suspended from working in the industry, and the total amount of fines leveled against Wall Street ne'er-do-wells."

Don't billion dollar crimes deserve jail time?

Is it curious that Warren has been prosecuting with jail time, but FEDS have not?

Is this the result of the revolving door of employees between Wall Street and FED, etc.?

I can't imagine multi million and billion dollar fines and no criminal prosecution, can you?

This smells like fish, and our economy is still suffering, but these crooks remain rich, footloose, and untouchable.

Is the new Mafia the elite bankers on Wall Street?
Click to expand...

Of course they should. But they are part of the Corporate Elite that help run the country and the Republocrats have never met a banker they didn't like. So they get away with whatever they want in most cases. Hell, they can run their business poorly, leverage well beyond reasonable, and when the system crashes they'll just get billions in tax payer bailouts while unemployment soars and the People are left to suffer.
 
DaveFagan said:
Mojo - October 2013 | Mother Jones

Warren to Wall Street Regulators: Put Big Bank CEOs in Jail

http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/10/elizabeth-warren-letter-wall-street-jail"This past weekend, the Department of Justice slapped a record fine on JPMorgan Chase for packaging and selling the mortgage-backed financial products that helped cause the financial meltdown. But Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wants the administration to know that fines are not enough. On Wednesday, she called on Wall Street regulators to hold all those responsible for the 2008 crisis accountable.In a letter to the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Officer of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Warren lauded the overseer of the TARP bailout program for cracking down on financial industry players who wasted, stole, or abused the federal emergency funds doled out to banks during the financial crisis, and implied that the three banking regulators should also punish individuals who helped cause the financial meltdown.Although the budget for TARP's inspector general was "a small fraction of the size of the budgets and staffs at your agencies," Warren pointed out, the program's watchdog has brought criminal charges against nearly 100 senior executives; obtained criminal convictions on 107 defendants, including 51 jail sentences; and suspended or banned 37 people from working in the banking industry.How about you guys, Warren asked. She called on the Fed, the SEC, and the OCC to provide records on the number of people the agencies have charged criminally and civilly, the number of convictions and prison sentences they have obtained, the number of people banned or suspended from working in the industry, and the total amount of fines leveled against Wall Street ne'er-do-wells."

Don't billion dollar crimes deserve jail time?

Is it curious that Warren has been prosecuting with jail time, but FEDS have not?

Is this the result of the revolving door of employees between Wall Street and FED, etc.?

I can't imagine multi million and billion dollar fines and no criminal prosecution, can you?

This smells like fish, and our economy is still suffering, but these crooks remain rich, footloose, and untouchable.

Is the new Mafia the elite bankers on Wall Street?
Click to expand...


People who commit crimes can be prosecuted. Being a greedy a'hole isn't enough.

If they violated the law, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If they didn't, then the law should be changed.

Say I go into a high end retail store and see two items of the same type: one's very expensive and one's pretty cheap. If I were to switch the tags and try to get the expensive one for the price of the cheaper one then I'd be guilty of fraud and could face some serious jail time. It seems to me that's not very different from knowingly taking risky sub prime mortgages and selling them as low risk investments... except that this is about a billion times worse.
 
Mithros said:
People who commit crimes can be prosecuted. Being a greedy a'hole isn't enough.

If they violated the law, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. If they didn't, then the law should be changed.

Say I go into a high end retail store and see two items of the same type: one's very expensive and one's pretty cheap. If I were to switch the tags and try to get the expensive one for the price of the cheaper one then I'd be guilty of fraud and could face some serious jail time. It seems to me that's not very different from knowingly taking risky sub prime mortgages and selling them as low risk investments... except that this is about a billion times worse.
Click to expand...


When a bank is fined $$$$billions of dollars and agrees to pay it, don't you think that a crime must have been committed? Is a little common sense in order?
 
Gipper said:
These are not cases for criminal court, and only a far-left ideologue would disagree. Making bad investments are not felonies.

That is absurd.
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jail should be reserved for people who have to be physically incapacitated so they do not harm others. If people defraud others sue them into the poor house.
 
Would some of you that believe the bankers should be in jail, please pick one or more specific people and name the specific law(s) broke and include the supporting evidence?

Thank you. I look forward to your replies.

.
 
I don't recall any executives from GM going to jail? or farmers? or the dead beats that have been living off the government for years when they could probably work. Liberals always want to jail or steal from working class Americans
 
The problem with putting bankers in jail is the distinction between financial and executive responsibility on one hand, and criminal responsibility on the other. A person can be financially and legally responsible for the criminal actions of others, but cannot be held criminally responsible unless the person ordered, participated in, or otherwise was an accessory to criminal activity. Most of the real crimes weren't done at the executive level, they were done by traders and account managers. Putting CEOs in jail for the misdeeds of their subordinates would be like putting the President in jail because an EPA official took a bribe.

The reason regulators and prosecutors have been taking the path they've been taking is because record breaking fines and huge swathes of new regulations are far more satisfying than making 25-year old traders do a perp walk.
 
DaveFagan said:
When a bank is fined $$$$billions of dollars and agrees to pay it, don't you think that a crime must have been committed? Is a little common sense in order?
Click to expand...

Large organizations create diffuse responsibility to the point where it's impossible to prove who did what. You could say, "Well, just get the CEO, the buck stops with him." The problem with that is that it's not illegal for a CEO to be incompetent and out of touch with his organization. Our own President gets away with claiming he doesn't know anything every time something goes wrong("First time I heard about it was on the news!").
 
Anybody that breaks the law should be punished.
 
Yes without exception. We could even make use of texas justice for once.
 
Absolutely positively YES YES a thousand times YES.
 
TurtleDude said:
jail should be reserved for people who have to be physically incapacitated so they do not harm others. If people defraud others sue them into the poor house.
Click to expand...
So Madoff in your view should be a poor, yet free man? That's absurd. At some point fraud and financial illegalities rise above the level of deserving merely monetary punishment.
 
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So I guess no one really knows who specifically should be prosecuted for what. That's what I thought.

Just feels good to rant against The Man, I guess.

.
 
TOJ said:
So I guess no one really knows who specifically should be prosecuted for what. That's what I thought.

Just feels good to rant against The Man, I guess.

.
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In fact, it is the Mortgage tranches where large numbers of mortgages are grouped together and sold as an investment vehicle. Some group is in charge of this department. Then the investment vehicles are promoted by marketing people as investments that will likely pay a decent return. However, at this point B of A, JP Morgan. etc., bet against their own investment vehicles that they were promoting to their customers. That's fraud or I'm pretty sure it's fraud. Same as a used car dealer telling you a car is fine when he knows it is going to crap out in 600 miles. You have to prove these things, but what I have stated has already been proven. Nowadays, the FED's QE program is purchasing these mortgages to bail out the same criminals, I guess.
 
DaveFagan said:
In fact, it is the Mortgage tranches where large numbers of mortgages are grouped together and sold as an investment vehicle. Some group is in charge of this department. Then the investment vehicles are promoted by marketing people as investments that will likely pay a decent return. However, at this point B of A, JP Morgan. etc., bet against their own investment vehicles that they were promoting to their customers. That's fraud or I'm pretty sure it's fraud. Same as a used car dealer telling you a car is fine when he knows it is going to crap out in 600 miles. You have to prove these things, but what I have stated has already been proven. Nowadays, the FED's QE program is purchasing these mortgages to bail out the same criminals, I guess.
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So someone somewhere broke some laws, I'm pretty sure. :lamo

Like I said, just ranting about The Man and don't have any idea what you are talking about. That's what I thought.

.
 
a351 said:
So Madoff in your view should be a poor, yet free man? That's absurd. At some point fraud and financial illegalities rise above the level of deserving merely monetary punishment.
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how is the public safer with that guy in jail rather than being sued into the poor house. his ability to victimize anyone again was zero once he was convicted
 
TurtleDude said:
how is the public safer with that guy in jail rather than being sued into the poor house. his ability to victimize anyone again was zero once he was convicted
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It's not about safety, it's about appropriate punishment for the crimes committed. Putting him in jail essentially ruins him financially as well, in addition to ensuring that he's not able to resume a life with any degree of comfort. His sentence should be no more lenient than that of an individual who steals in a more conventional fashion.
 
a351 said:
It's not about safety, it's about appropriate punishment for the crimes committed. Putting him in jail essentially ruins him financially as well, in addition to ensuring that he's not able to resume a life with any degree of comfort. His sentence should be no more lenient than that of an individual who steals in a more conventional fashion.
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so you make it about revenge rather than public safety. That works.
 
TurtleDude said:
so you make it about revenge rather than public safety. That works.
Click to expand...

Punishing evildoers is part of the process so that others get the living hell scared out of them if they ever even think about screwing people the way Madoff did.
 
TurtleDude said:
so you make it about revenge rather than public safety. That works.
Click to expand...
Use whatever term you may. Those that steal from and defraud thousands of individuals should not be free to rebuild a life of any comfort or normalcy.
 
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haymarket said:
Punishing evildoers is part of the process so that others get the living hell scared out of them if they ever even think about screwing people the way Madoff did.
Click to expand...

SO you advocate the Wheel or the Pear for Madoff?

I like the line from TRADING PLACES

Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) You know, it occurs to me the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people"
 
TurtleDude said:
SO you advocate the Wheel or the Pear for Madoff?

I like the line from TRADING PLACES

Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) You know, it occurs to me the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people"
Click to expand...

I would imagine lots of rich crooks would feel that way since it leaves them free to try and do it again.
 
haymarket said:
Punishing evildoers is part of the process so that others get the living hell scared out of them if they ever even think about screwing people the way Madoff did.
Click to expand...

Punishment doesn't necessarily mean jail time. The jails are already full of people who are not a threat to the physical well being of others and who should be let out.

Two or three times reparations to the defrauded people plus a hefty fine sounds much more appropriate.
 
Gaius46 said:
Punishment doesn't necessarily mean jail time. The jails are already full of people who are not a threat to the physical well being of others and who should be let out.

Two or three times reparations to the defrauded people plus a hefty fine sounds much more appropriate.
Click to expand...

So where does a Madoff get two or three times to pay these reparations?
 
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