Yep. I agree wholeheartedly with you Shuffle. So should I vote for republicans now?

you only managed to confirm that you are on your high horse for political expediency, rather than actual policies or actions that will fix anything.

do you think prosecuting one banker, or even a hundred bankers, will make the rest of them less likely to make a risky trade? i don't think so, it will make some scared, but the next most desperate trader trying to make $100m will still be incentivized to take that risk. there's about a million of those guys in manhattan alone.

gambling was illegal in a lot of places, but underground poker rooms still existed. surely not enough gamblers were behind bars for booking a bet with a mobster who once loaned to a terrorist, no? lol.

as far as the bolded, you have absolutely no idea who would go to jail. i'm bringing up the fairly relevant point that each trader hawking incorrectly priced CDOs was probably acting completely within the law, and although fraud existed, those who understood what's fraudulent about it were smart enough to not actually put their signature on any contracts. the fact that the economy would have collapsed apparently means nothing to you, nor the implication that the wealth of all taxpayers actually goes up and down depending on whether the government can be seen as playing favorites for one corporation vs another. you know actual corruption. or whether the government starts to manipulate the strength of the dollar.

there's a reason why the fed and the fdic are not political offices. throwing republicans vs democrats into that would make the US economy around election time very similar to Greece of the last 10 years.

all those pension funds that lost 40% of the value in 2008 certainly got it all back, and the taxpayers didn't actually see a raise in taxes (rich and poor alike).

seriously, everyone itt should *try* to work at a bank, even just as a teller, for a month. your whole perspective would change.

Subfallen still claiming he's smart. Incredible.

Well, I'll cya later.

If arresting some execs threatened the public interest (it wouldn't, other people would just get promoted) the feds could temporarily take over the company.

i am not hopscotching. the discussion in that current affairs article was about failure to prosecute over 1) money-laundering and 2) 2008 crisis. both were on obama administration watch.

you are hopscotching to a forex fraud now? do you even understand anything about currency markets? honest question.

Sylar,

Lol at money being the best motivator for honesty to these people. If they are crooked, they are just doing a risk v reward analysis and factoring in the chances of getting fined. A reasonable chance of doing just one year in prison would be a bigger deal than fining these people into the kind of debt (never goes that far) where they still manage to live like kings.

They are doing cost benefit analysis regardless. They teach this stuff to traders. Themoreyouknow.gif

Wouldn't it work in your favor if the chance of being penalized and the size of the penalty didn't have a positive expectation?

just imagine if Hillary was president and fired Comey over bengahzi or emailz.

Wat? Things change so fast these days tho. Like Trump could drop a MOAB's on the south side of Chicago tomorrow or choke to death on a taco bowl. Or maybe Paul Ryan is blowing McConnell and Trump decides twitter should know about it. Either way I've got no reason to ever give up. Bernie and MLK would agree methinks.

For sure, I can tell you you're wrong.

The deterrent effect of fines on the uber-wealthy pales in comparison to the deterrent effect of prison. They understand money; the CBA is clear. There is no way to quantify the public humiliation, downstream consequences, and literal lost life that prison entails.

My day is complete, week and maybe even my month. I agree with Mico here.

I would throw in both fines and prison would be the best outcome.

Learn to read. Uber wealthy is not the same as financial institutions.

Ok who do you put in prison then? Which exec do you think orchestrated the whole scam? Are you confident that any investigation would have found even a single perpetrator who left enough evidence of deliberate fraud? Or are you just jailing groups of people connected to series of transactions or firms?

I am not advocating no prosecution. I just don't know enough about what each trader or group of traders did that was actually a violation of the law. And even as we should create such laws and regulations after the fact, retroactive charges are just about the worst possible outcome for due process.

Sylar,

No, you're not arguing for no prosecution. You just said that it would destroy America. That's all.

Oh wow. Geez microbet, you are a good guy and your heart is in the right place, but let's not pretend we actually know all the nuances of financial jurisprudence. Hey, quick question about that FDR thing someone posted, how many rockefellers did he put behind bars?

Sylar you're wrong about the whole fines v prison. Prison would end brokers' and bankers' careers.

The major thing is though, how do you prosecute people who were doing things which were legal at the time?

I'm sure there are quite a few Wall Street people who were doing things outside the law. But the majority of it was legal.

Let's say you are the chief trading officer of a large bank. You want to sell some scammy options, and you are going through the scenarios of getting caught. On the one hand, a huge fine might bankrupt or cripple your whole enterprise. On the other hand, some low or middle level cog who actually signs the contracts might lose his license and go to jail. Hmm... I can see your point, the latter might deter the guy from putting his name on any paper, just as his 20 lawyers told him not to do.

To ruin a bankers career the banker doesn't need to go to prison. He just needs to lose a couple of billion in a trade. Honestly, he's probably more scared of bankruptcy as far as career is concerned. He might be wrong obviously, and he might regret "choosing" prison, but go buy one of them a drink and ask him.

That's not what happened though. No bank has been crippled by fines related to the 2008 crisis or any major illegal activity and, in fact, larger fines have been argued against because the major players are 'too big to fail'.

Ok I agree penalties should be higher. Overall US banks forfeited (depending on how you count) $200-300b, and a bit more in suit settlements. I'm happier about the Dodd-frank regulations that came after, than I am mad about how it should have been $1T+ in penalties.

You're the one with the radical positions in this thread.

1. Jailing the heads of banks will cause banks to fail and wreck the economy.

2. Political appointees at the Department of Justice would be out of line to enforce federal law.


I haven't called for anyone in particular to be jailed. I think the possibility of jail for breaking the law would especially be a deterrent for rich bankers and that it's unjust for rich and powerful bankers (and the like) to be impossible to jail. You disagree with these as concepts. Quit trying to misdirect.

Those fines don't really translate into anything when it comes to the Dick Fuld types though. After Lehman went under, he ended up in another firm. Life went on for him. Should he have been prosecuted for his part? By legal definitions, and accounts in documentaries, probably not. But the current system doesn't (or didn't until regulations came online) deter guys like him when they know they're somewhat insulated when their firms get into sketchy transactions like derivatives.

There already is a very real possibility bankers go to jail! Plenty of their possible actions are a violation of federal law. The causes of 2008 banking crisis were not one of them!

I advocated that after an investigation of money laundering by HSBC, it would have been disastrous to charge the sitting executives. It would necessitate to shut that bank down, secure deposits, nullify obligations, etc. and there is an overwhelmingly high probability that the charges would get beaten! Yeah, I don't think it's wise for the DOJ to recklessly go after bankers. It makes more sense to defer to non-political agencies actually in charge of the industry, settle with the banks, and impose tougher financial rules going forward.

Looks like we're right back to the collateral damage strategy

Good 'ol Shylar.

You don't think it's wise for the DOJ to recklessly go after bankers.

You also don't think it's wise for the DOJ to carefully and thoughtfully go after bankers.

Here's the problem with the calculus of fines:

I have a 10% chance of making $100 million if I'm a crook. I have a 10% chance of being prosecuted and fined $1 billion.

That's an easy go on risk v. reward. And if it's my company that gets the fine, who cares? That stops individual actors about as well as civil lawsuits against cities stop cops from shooting people.