Why Goldman Sachs, Other Wall Street Titans Are Not Being Prosecuted

[sd'sker]

The Justice Department's decision not to prosecute Goldman Sachs in a financial-fraud probe is another sign of the cronyism that has kept Attorney General Eric Holder from taking action against other big Wall Street firms, says Peter Schweizer.

The news is likely to raise the ire of the political left and right, both of which have highlighted one of the most inconvenient facts of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department: despite the Obama administration’s promises to clean up Wall Street in the wake of America’s worst financial crisis, there has not been a single criminal charge filed by the federal government against any top executive of the elite financial institutions.

 

Why is that? In a word: cronyism.

something we can all be upset about.

[Ziggy]

Honestly this is the last in a long list of failures by Obama's Justice department.

[sd'sker]

Honestly this is the last in a long list of failures by Obama's Justice department.

i think this is bigger than that, though. this says a lot about who is really electing our representatives. do you see pressure from anyone to prosecute these guys? i am not being an apologist for obama here, i am concerned about the whole system.

[Ziggy]

The problem is the whole thing happened so long ago in a whole different political world than now. American voters picked Obama thinking he would go after banks, like he promised during the election. But instead, like every politician does he took money from the very banks he was supposedly going to investigate and prosecute. But Eric Holder is supposed to go after criminals regardless of what Obama tells him to keep his nose out of.

[sd'sker]

The problem is the whole thing happened so long ago in a whole different political world than now. American voters picked Obama thinking he would go after banks, like he promised during the election. But instead, like every politician does he took money from the very banks he was supposedly going to investigate and prosecute. But Eric Holder is supposed to go after criminals regardless of what Obama tells him to keep his nose out of.

i agree, but ag's do have broad discretion. unfortunately, holder is using his discretion to protect the powerful instead of the people.

[Ziggy]

100%. agree. But its obvious Obama has no problem with the way he (Holder) runs the Justice department otherwise he would have been asked to retire long ago.

[JJ Husker]

Honestly this is the last in a long list of failures by Obama's Justice department.

Well, hopefully it is the last but, if I had to bet on it, I would say there are plenty more failures to come from Holder and Obama's JD.

[strigori]

Think it would be any different with Romney? Or anyone else? Unlikely. Too few of our politicians actually have the balls to do what's right as opposed to what's better for their own bank/reelection accounts.

 

My opinion is damned near every single exec at these wall street banks needs to be in prison. Why couldn't they just have had the mindset of the some bankers from the Great Depression? Then we wouldn't even need the conversation.

[Ziggy]

Because the US government bailed them out they didn't need to jump out of the windows. It was set up when the US government forced banks to offer lower income families the ability to buy a house they most generally couldn't afford. From there it was a matter of time before the bubble burst.

[sd'sker]

Because the US government bailed them out they didn't need to jump out of the windows. It was set up when the US government forced banks to offer lower income families the ability to buy a house they most generally couldn't afford. From there it was a matter of time before the bubble burst.

is that how you remember it? i think there was a little more to it than that. like mortgage lenders committing massive fraud on loan applications and using tricky adjustable apr's.

[Ziggy]

I remember plenty of people I know who got loans they should never have gotten. Sure banks should have done a better job and there is plenty of fraud that should be prosecuted. But if you read my whole comment and not just a fraction of a sentence, you would see that I said that is how it was set up to happen and not that it was the whole problem.

[sd'sker]

I remember plenty of people I know who got loans they should never have gotten. Sure banks should have done a better job and there is plenty of fraud that should be prosecuted. But if you read my whole comment and not just a fraction of a sentence, you would see that I said that is how it was set up to happen and not that it was the whole problem.

i did read it all. i only put in bold the pertinent part. you really did not say, explicitly or implicitly, that there was more. you said that the gov't forced banks to give loans, then it was inevitable for the bubble to burst. you did not leave much to the imagination for what went on in the middle.

[Ziggy]

Sorry next time I will write you a 2 page research paper to properly explain every step from start to finish how the whole debt crisis happened (continues to happen). I made a valid point about how the crisis was started. If you want to read more into it than that its up to you.

[Comish]

I remember plenty of people I know who got loans they should never have gotten. Sure banks should have done a better job and there is plenty of fraud that should be prosecuted. But if you read my whole comment and not just a fraction of a sentence, you would see that I said that is how it was set up to happen and not that it was the whole problem.

i did read it all. i only put in bold the pertinent part. you really did not say, explicitly or implicitly, that there was more. you said that the gov't forced banks to give loans, then it was inevitable for the bubble to burst. you did not leave much to the imagination for what went on in the middle.

sd'sker, the pertinent part as I remember it was the huge push for "affordable" housing by the government, basically threatening banks with penalties if they did not go along. Of course, for the banks, the loans weren't risky at all since they were eventually backed up/ bundled/ or folded into papers taken over by freddie and fannie. Please enlighten me if you don't recall it that way.

[sd'sker]

Sorry next time I will write you a 2 page research paper to properly explain every step from start to finish how the whole debt crisis happened (continues to happen). I made a valid point about how the crisis was started. If you want to read more into it than that its up to you.

what?

 

i do not want to read more into it, i want to be able to understand what you are saying with the statements you make. the validity of your point is very much up for debate. if you want to write a 2 page research paper for me than that is up to you. however, if you place blame in the most simplistic possible way to one of the most complex debacles in american history that is also up to you, but i will challenge your assertion.

 

i am not ready to forgive you, also.