 skrud
join:2002-05-19
Barrington, IL | Why isnt Wall Street in jail? I thought a nice article by Matt Tiabbi of Rolling Stone.
»www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne···20110216
Can we really do anything about this? I think all hope is lost. |
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 beerbumobscurum per obscuriusPremium
join:2000-05-06
Eastern PA | You heard the term "Too big to fail".. now there is a new one.. "Too rich to jail"..
Guaranteed, nothing will happen to those crooks, except they get richer. |
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 lolwhatYou're getting warmerPremium
join:2001-06-11
PonziWorld
 ·Callcentric
| Well, nothing will happen to those crooks... unless, you know, a sufficient number of people get fed up with it. Consider the French Revolution, just as an example.
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Tutto nelle banche, niente al di fuori delle banche, nulla contro le banche |
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 The PigBazinaPremium
join:2009-09-11 | reply to skrud
MONEY! |
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 John GaltForward, MarchPremium
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp
kudos:3 | reply to skrud
Similar discussion here:
»english.aljazeera.net/indepth/op···806.html |
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 dogmaXYZPremium
join:2002-08-15
Boulder City, NV
kudos:1 | reply to skrud
said by skrud:
Can we really do anything about this? I think all hope is lost.
Anything like what? Get our government to prosecute individuals that are officers and executives of corporations who "may have" been guilty of fraud? I didn't find an instance in the article that said "Executive "X" broke this specific law "Y".
To answer your question, Other than a few showcase CxO's perp-walked to appease the unwashed masses, no. I don't think so. And why does it matter anyway?
Is it a sense of fair play? Do we feel that someone or some group benefited unfairly? Do we feel that we didn't get our fair share? Or even that we, the common citizens, were somehow victimized unfairly by powers both known and unknown?
I once thought in those Pollyannish terms. But now I feel that the common citizenry gets exactly what it deserves. An un-lubricated financial ass-raping. And because the common citizenry is so mentally-lazy, they have proven that they will come back to the same criminal over, and over, and over again, for more abuse.
In psychology, this is known as Stockholm syndrome. A term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims.
said by John Galt  's link :Its arrogance is evident in an email the Financial Times reported was "pinging around" trading desks. It reads in part:
“We are Wall Street: It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable… ... We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive." In our collective heart of hearts, we know that everyone working on Wall Street are dishonest pimps.
But as a culture, we covet Rich People. We want to be like them. We really don't care how Rich folk made their money. An example of that is anyone that owns an Apple product doesn't care that the products themselves are effectively manufactured by slave labor. All they care about is that Apple product ownership signifies some elevated social standing. That's all that matters. That we feel a little richer than the next common citizen.
Over, and over, and over again, every few years, the most wealthy convince the common citizenry that we too can be RICH! Usually this revolves around Wall Street. The people of Wall Street take the same approach that any self respecting street pimp, drug dealer, or mafia boss would; find your marks weakness and then exploit it. Once the sucker has been taken for all s/hes got, leave them holding the empty bag.
Wall Street functions like a back alley crap game. The only people that are attracted to it are those that naively believe they can get something for nothing. Unfortunately, the mentally weak common citizenry falls for this scam every time. As they say, if you are at the poker table, and you can't figure out who the sucker is ... it's you.
Just like we all know nothing good can come of a back alley crap game, we also know there is absolutely no productive need whatsoever for Wall Street to exist in the first place. Period. Yet we accept it's existence as if there is.
Why?
Because we keep going back to this pimp/drug dealer time and time again for our fix. Directly of indirectly. When people were buying homes with no money down and little qualifying, and the home values were rising 20%/year, AND everyone's financial boats were rising with the tide (meaning that everyone felt wealthy at the time, unemployment was low, businesses were seemingly prospering), I don't remember too many of the common citizenry trying to put Corporate & Wall Street executives in jail?? Oh hell no. Even people who tried to expose that the financial emperor had no clothes were castigated as heretics.
Where was the damn common citizenry then? Drunk like a skunk off of the easy-money consumption frenzy. Only now when the piper must be paid is the common citizenry looking desperately for a scape goat. None of this would have ever happened if it were not for the common citizenry who fueled, fed, and made up the lower 98% of the pyramid. No Wall Street pimp held a gun to the collective heads of the common citizenry forcing them to buy into their madness. We were in it to get something for nothing, we did it because we wanted it and now that reality has hit, we want to jail the pimps that convinced us to turn tricks.
I don't blame the pimp, I blame the ho. The ho gets exactly what they deserve. |
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| reply to skrud
People confuse illegal and immoral. What Bill Clinton did with Lewinski was immoral but not illegal. Cheating people out of their life's savings is immoral, but not always illegal. Starting a non-profit and giving yourself a ridiculous salary, may be immoral but may not be illegal. An attorney who takes 50% of crippled person's settlement may be immoral, but it isn't illegal. Playing the system on Wall Street, may seem immoral to some, but it may not be illegal. |
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dogmaXYZPremium
join:2002-08-15
Boulder City, NV
kudos:1 | Exactly. |
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lolwhatYou're getting warmerPremium
join:2001-06-11
PonziWorld Reviews:
·Callcentric
| reply to dogma
Hanky panky |
Let's just start with the one above - it involves Bank of America's acquisition of Countrywide. MAC means "Material Adverse Change." This is Hank Paulson telling BoA not to mention that the acquisition would have a materially adverse impact on BoA. If you or I did that, we'd be spending twenty years in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for securities fraud. However, since it involves high-ranking federal officials, I guess it's OK. After all, the hos deserve it, right?
If you'd like to argue that one, then I can also school you on how Citibank alone admitted, in writing, to over 100,000 counts of felony perjury as related to mortgages.
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Tutto nelle banche, niente al di fuori delle banche, nulla contro le banche |
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dogmaXYZPremium
join:2002-08-15
Boulder City, NV
kudos:1 | I don't disagree with you, if it were us, we would both be Bubba's prison bitch.
However, Corporations play on a different field that includes layers of Corporate immunity for executives, almost limitless batteries of in-house and hired gun counsel, swarms of influential lobbyist, and massive amounts of ongoing capital infusements to governmental officials campaign treasuries.
Are the pimps and drug dealers law abiding? Of course not. My point is we have always known that. These "too big to fail" Corporate pimps are for all intents and purposes untouchable.
I know that position is one of surrender, but it is also one of reality. This isn't the first time the most wealthy have run off with the loot by using Wall Street bubble makers to pump & dump . Remember the 1990's dot.com bubble? The 1980's S&L bubble? The "Nifty Fifty" bubble of the 1970's? The "Tronics" bubble of the early 1960's?
Perhaps a handful of scape-goated front-men went to jail, but that was it. None of the real players were touched. Ever.
Almost 75 years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob."
My point is that we can collectively wag our fingers at the truly guilty and blame people that we have no chance of ever punishing. Or we can come to grips with our lot and stop allowing our own greed and laziness to control us. |
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lolwhatYou're getting warmerPremium
join:2001-06-11
PonziWorld Reviews:
·Callcentric
| The problem is, if the established law enforcement agencies continue not to enforce the law, then groups who hold a certain interpretation of the Second Amendment might make their grievances known - very publicly. Unfortunately, they might not know who's truly behind the curtain; we then get ourselves a Hitler - or worse.
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Tutto nelle banche, niente al di fuori delle banche, nulla contro le banche |
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horsemouthPlease Clarify My CSPPremium
join:2002-03-13
canada | said by lolwhat:The problem is, if the established law enforcement agencies continue not to enforce the law, then groups who hold a certain interpretation of the Second Amendment might make their grievances known - very publicly. Unfortunately, they might not know who's truly behind the curtain; we then get ourselves a Hitler - or worse.
That is what scares me. |
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Reviews:
 ·Comcast
·Comcast Digital ..
| reply to lolwhat
said by lolwhat:Well, nothing will happen to those crooks... unless, you know, a sufficient number of people get fed up with it....
And that is what it is going to take.
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A citizen of The United States of Amnesia. How quickly we forget. |
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 KrisnatharokCaveat EmptorPremium
join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit
kudos:3
·Comcast
| reply to lolwhat
said by lolwhat:The problem is, if the established law enforcement agencies continue not to enforce the law, then groups who hold a certain interpretation of the Second Amendment might make their grievances known - very publicly. Unfortunately, they might not know who's truly behind the curtain; we then get ourselves a Hitler - or worse.
Emphasis mine. What, then, is truly the worse evil? A mis-guided or ignorant pursuit of justice, or capitulating to vast, faceless corporations?
And if we all get bribed into test tubes, a Holocaust will occur either way.
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Will WWIII start today? |
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dogmaXYZPremium
join:2002-08-15
Boulder City, NV
kudos:1 | said by Krisnatharok:What, then, is truly the worse evil? A mis-guided or ignorant pursuit of justice, or capitulating to vast, faceless corporations?
Neither. Because the populous doesn't care about those nonsensical musings.
"...the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddle no more and longs eagerly for just two things — panem et circenses (bread and circuses)."
- Decimus Junius Juvenalis
Thus, bread and circuses/panem et circenses, is a phrase used in the pejorative to deplore a population so distracted with entertainment and personal pleasures (sometimes by design of those in power) that they no longer value the civic virtues and bow to civil authority with unquestioned obedience. Bread and Circuses has also become a general term for government policies that seek short-term solutions to public unrest.
The genpop doesn't look at those of you screaming for justice as self-appointed hero's riding in on white horses prepared to save them from indentured servitude. They look upon you as fools who don't appreciate how good things are...and wondering who you think will win American Idol.
Your sermons about how the wealthy are stealing the common folk blind and going unpunished are received with tepid accommodation in a humoring effort. Just more torch & pitchfork saber rattling that has been warmed over for the past 50 years with ZERO results. As a matter of fact, things have only gotten worse.
Check this out:
Charlie Sheen, 47, is all over the news because he's a celebrity drug addict, while Andrew Wilfahrt, 31, Brian Tabada, 21, Rudolph Hizon, 22, Chauncy Mays, 25, are all soldiers who gave their lives this week with no media mention. We're so ...busy with our pathetically shallow worship of celebrity that we forget our young brothers and sisters who are dying in other lands. Charlie Sheen doesn't give a shit about you or your family, why do we waste precious time out of our lives allowing our attentions to be diverted? Can we spend just one moment of our mindlessly self-absorbed lives and turn the damn TeeeVeee off, to instead Honor THEM for a few moments. Please.
That's the America many of you guys think is worth saving.
Sorry to say, if you think it is, you are sadly mistaken. |
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 kingdome74What Have You DonePremium
join:2002-03-27
Syracuse, NY
kudos:2 | reply to skrud
Answer a simple question: what do you see as a bigger drain on this countries economy - the rich or the poor?
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Carter was to the presidency what disco was to music - me |
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KrisnatharokCaveat EmptorPremium
join:2009-02-11
Earth Orbit
kudos:3 | reply to dogma
That's true, and as a member of the military caste, I can only throw up my hands and say "I can only save it, you (the people) determine whether it's worth saving."
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Will WWIII start today? |
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skrud
join:2002-05-19
Barrington, IL | reply to kingdome74
said by kingdome74:Answer a simple question: what do you see as a bigger drain on this countries economy - the rich or the poor?
I cant answer that I am not a economist. But to me taking 500 mil/per year in a "wink wink" enviroment is wrong. If I cant break the law why can they? |
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 Romney2012Defeat Obama 2012-Chg we can believe inPremium
join:2002-03-03
USA
kudos:4 | said by skrud:said by kingdome74:Answer a simple question: what do you see as a bigger drain on this countries economy - the rich or the poor?
I cant answer that I am not a economist. But to me taking 500 mil/per year in a "wink wink" enviroment is wrong. If I cant break the law why can they? Because of the real "Golden Rule" which has existed for all of civilization. »wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_%27···%27_mean
And even after violent revolutions by the peons, that doesn't change. It only shuffles the deck for awhile on who it is that has the money and eventually the power. |
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| reply to kingdome74
said by kingdome74:Answer a simple question: what do you see as a bigger drain on this countries economy - the rich or the poor?
Define what you mean by "this country's economy". (We are only one country). Are you talking about the national debt, the gross national product, the unemployment rate, the average household income, the average household debt or the value of the dollar? The answer is probably CONGRESS (not one of your choices) but as a class I guess they'd be the rich. |
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