We have a Have/Have Not justice system. If you shop lift food you go to jail, if you steal billions, we let it go. Wall Sreet has had so many scams and schemes come to light lately, but no one goes to jail. You are a former POTUS or VPOTUS who commits war crimes envolving torture/rendition, nothing. To big to fail and too big to bust!

Why does AG Holder still have a job?

Corporate lobbyists have been writing our laws for so many decades now, hardly any corporate crime is actually illegal anymore. So upon what basis is Holder supposed to act if the "law" expressly authorizes corporations to commit any crime they want?

But when it comes to prosecuting the Bush administration for it, to Eric Holder it's simply "policy differences."

I'm not trying to suggest that Holder doesn't drag his heels for political reasons, he certainly does. I'm just saying that, when it comes to corporate America, there's bloody little that's still illegal and corporate lobbyists are continuously chipping away at even those last few remaining laws.

and where they may be working in the future. Seems there is a tight circle between those who write the laws, enforce the laws and defend the laws.

I have a friend who worked in the environmental enforcement division of DoJ, handling superfund litigation against industrial polluters. When Bush was appointed president, the first order of business there was to promptly demote all of the lead counsels on superfund cases to mailroom duty and replace them with appointees who, up until the previous week, had been working for the very same corporations who were named defendants in those actions. Astonishingly enough, they immediately concluded that there was insufficient evidence to proceed further with those actions and settled out of court for a six pack of Bud and quart of pork fried rice and that was the end of all those lawsuits. Never let it be said that contributing to political campaigns didn't yield dividends in spades.

Holder was a partner at he Washington office of Covington & Burling, a top-tier law firm with an elite white-collar defense unit, from 2001 to 2008, after which he was Obama's AG.

"Covington & Burling's clients included:

But Holder's was not the only face at Justice familiar to Covington clients.
Lanny Breuer, who had co-chaired the white-collar defense unit at Covington with Holder, was chosen to head the criminal division at Obama's Justice. Two other Covington lawyers followed Holder into top positions, and Holder's principal deputy, James Cole, was recruited from Bryan Cave LLP, another white-shoe firm with A-list finance clients."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/why-can-t-obama-bring-wall-street-to-justice.html

There goes yet another nail into the coffin of my idealism. Sigh. But thanks for posting this anyway.

but..we gotta know the true problem before we can address a fix.

to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign really paid off.

head of the Justice Department, reports to.

"Hey, boss! Do you want me to investigate Goldman Sachs?"

"No."

"Hey boss! Do you want me to investigate the Bush administration for torture?"

"No."

"Hey boss! Do you want me to go after medical marijuana dispensaries?"

"YES!"

... yet understand fully well that the plutocracy protects its own.

We really do live in two Americas these days, regardless of the Obama presidency:
one for the power elite, one for the rest of us schmucks.

Makes me think of a line from a Woody Guthrie tune: "The gamble man is rich and the workin' man is poor."

the Democratic Party (at least the DLC) grabs its ankles and shouts, "Thank you sir. May I have another."

The corruption runs far, wide and deep. How much worse does it have to get before you are willing to take to the streets in protest???
Pitchforks and torched people, pitchforks and torches.

and don't get prosecuted. Steal $200, feel guilty about it, turn into police next day, go to prison for seven years

Each time this happens the number of real players in the market drops. Till it becomes a circle jerk with nothing but the big players (who have no actual assets) trading fake money to each other. The sources of real revenue are drying up to feed the fake markets.

would prosecute Goldman Sachs? What a fucking farce.

this election cycle.

Who are we kidding? This is the United States of Goldman Sachs.

That Bush Policies, the repeal of Glass-Steagall and Reagans Deregulation Etc ALLOWS this Theft to occur Legally and without consequence.
Give Obama a Huge Majority in the House and 65 Dems in Senate and Hound Them To Fix this shit!
I don't know too much about the laws that cover this, but I have learned enough to understand Very Little of what happened was done so Illegally!
The fact that most of us still don't understand this is concerning.

Last edited Fri Aug 10, 2012, 12:14 PM - Edit history (1)

in the 80's. From failing to properly underwrite loans, to interest rates for black people higher than for whites, to the fraud of the rating agencies, their work was quite clearly criminal, and the American people are still paying for it. They have destroyed more lives than any movie theater shooter or building bomber here has ever dreamed of doing, and the current administration refused to fund the investigative arms of the FBI (like the did for the S&L fraud) and let these banks (who contributed large amounts to their political campaigns). Perhaps they hope that by kicking the can down the road they can keep everyone from just going crazy mad.

Remember, this president told the banks in 2009 "I am the one standing between you and the pitchforks"? That tell you who he thinks is more important? On he other hand, they HAVE closed down and arrested people trying to sell marijuana to the ill and dying. Real leadership in action, eh?.

They industry perpetuated a massive control fraud, on top of the instances where there is out and out ordinary criminal fraud, and the only reason they are not in jail is because the administration and other elected officials, who got BIG money for their campaigns from these people, along with their too fat and lazy constituency, may have been too afraid of living with the consequences. Perhaps it is easier to coast and leave everyone at the mercy of these greedy and dishonest bastards than it is to stand up and go after them.

William Black spent years in the government building cases and jailing those folks, and has explained how the fraud was carried out, and how we deliberately have withheld funding from the very investigative agencies that would handle this.

http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2012/02/william-k-black-explains-control-fraud-at-length.html You can listen to him here, he has books out, etc.`Naked Capitalism has some good information too.

And now we are getting exactly what we deserve.

I will absolutely check your links out-but (b4 I've looked) didn't the continuing DeRegulations by Reagan (and maybe Bush-I) and finally the Repeal of Glass-Steagall Allow for Fewer prosecutable offenses?

I am not, as I stated, very informed about the "inner workings" of this---but IF Holder Could have prosecuted And didn't, isn't He then guilty of violating the Laws?
If so, what can We do about that?

transactions of reckless leverage against what most knew were worthless assets, without which the size of the fraud would not have been what it was. Clinton says he regrets taking the advice that led to him signing it. But that didn't make the banks abrogate their responsibility and break our trust, which is the proximal cause of the depth of this ongoing disaster. What made it worse was the preceding 30-40 years of closing factories and stealing the results of decades of people's labor.

As far as Holder, one person can't marshal those resources. He serves at the pleasure of the President, who works with Congress, all of whom serve at the pleasure of the people. We are all responsible. How many people said "Sure we'll stand next to you as you dismantle these banks, (it would be a disastrous time, but worse than living as a serf to the wealthy as we are now?) and watch our lives crumble, trusting the government to help us rebuild!" (After they watched Katrina on the telly? HA) I don't think you can hold one person responsible for doing or not doing what needed to be done. If one wants to finger point, stick it out at the American people - we either run this place or dodge responsibility.

But you asked what we could do.

Finger pointing won't get us anywhere. People need to learn how they were manipulated and begin to see the financiers as the tyrants that they are. They have not only gotten away with the biggest scam in history, but we are still sending them checks. They stole and not enough wanted to stop it or hold them accountable. They are laughing at us. I wonder if they pay people to say they are scared of the protests. .

There is plenty we can do to help ourselves, such as organize and fight. Won't be easy, the tyrant has a lot of arms, legs, and eyes out there, even among our friends. But the alternatives are worse. Ask the Native Nations what life is like in a concentration camp, see if that doesn't describe life in many of our communities outside their boundaries.

Black outlines the fraud clearly in his writings, but the things that needed to happen were not done. Congress allocates money, the president can direct, just like in the 80's they could staff the FBI for an investigation of this magnitude and bring justice to the people, security to the country. But maybe they saw what happened to Carter when he tried to exhort the country to act like adults, in their own best interests. Maybe the pols are scared, or paid for? Could that explain why they are still subsidizing these criminals to the tune of $76 BILLION a year.
seekingalpha.com/article/701081-big-banks-76-billion-per-year-federal-subsidy-and-what-we-need-to-do-about-it.

Can you think of anyone who is more desperately in need of $76 billion year?

Regardless, since Carter it has been a steady diet of capital being more important than people, and much of the country seems to have adopted that philosophy. So our financial lives have been re-structured around the feeding of our labor to the wealthy through fees and markets, with the financial sector continuing to grow all out of proportion to the rest of our lives.

We are playing the role of serfs to the tyrant. But doesn't have to be this way. The tyrant isn't just people, it's also an idea, a philosophy, that capital is more important than people. But that idea is put into action by people, and we know who they are by their words and actions.

There is a solution. Old, but it works.

That's good advice. Maybe start using that $76 billion to provide opportunity for working people in communities instead of subsidizing criminal behavior by banks and their political cronies. Make it easier for the average person to learn about how their money is used in their economy. Make it a virtue to live with less stuff. Realize this isn't 1950, and the whole industrial economy that supported a lot less people then is GONE AND IT A'INT COMING BACK, that we are living on a foundation of debt and need to figure out how to let everyone thrive in the absence of the consumer-driven economy we are used to. Encourage people to be a little more physical, less sitting. Plant a garden, eat the food - that removes a couple processed meals or some imported veggies meals from their profit-seeking greedy tentacles, eh?

Use co-ops to amass assets that are then harder to loot, use local sources of financing. Quit selling city and state assets to the banks that are controlling our lives, find ways for the interest to stay in the community. Try to support local economies where we can, and where we can't try to start something. Get people more involved in their communities, address security and rebuild the communities to make that easier.

These are the kind of things that remove support from the tyrant, but they will require a lot of public support, and that is going to require training, education, and consciousness-raising. That was done in the 60's, and see where we are now? So it might be impossible, Quixotic even, except for small groups, because being a serf has certain advantages - ask the slaves who had such a hard time breaking away from a far more miserable and painful existence.

But I still think it's worth the fight.

Bill Black was a bank regulator whose work put people in jail in the S&L fraud of the 80's.



Serfs up!

consider it.

He lays it out in a fashion that I think most people can understand. The banks got us to trust them, then used that trust to lay money on the table with no restrictions. When we picked it up, they shuffled all the blame onto us, as if we were just as knowledgeable as them in the consequences. But they knew we weren't. And the politicians that helped them knew we weren't.

They robbed us.

I have real trouble understanding why most people don't get enraged about this.

It is really scandalous and is hurting people not only in the U.S., but everywhere.

These big banks are like a group of giant leeches sucking the blood from our economy.

I've tried to talk to people, too, but their eyes really glaze over.

Maybe a film like "Wallstreet" or the HBO series "Barbarians at the Gate" done from a Bill Black perspective would be more interesting and informative for manyu people.

Someone in the film industry must be trying to put something together.

for this education-I think people like me Are very outraged but don't, like me, fully understand why nor who to direct the outrage to-and yes, I agree-WE totally contributed via complacency, to this crises and for a lot of different reasons. And yes, it is only us who can fix it. Further we can't expect a "speedy" resolution, this didn't happen overnight and it won't be fixed overnight-but determination and perseverance does prevail. I also agree this is a fight worth fighting, not for me personally but for my kids/grand-kids-both of which I have.

The republicans are so very bad. We have to let this go and just plan on winning. Yeah, that's it. Winning. Then everything will be better - you know, change and all that. We can't even think that we are being had and screwed by our own. We might not win. Then the wall street guys and banksters will be able to do horrible things and then not be prosecuted. Uh. Never mind.

.. the talking heads on the Dian Rehm show explaining how "complicated" these cases are and how justice dept is "afraid" they will lose the case and so doesn't prosecute.

BULLSHIT.

The idea that one could not find a jury ready willing and able to hold these banksters accountable for what they have done is LAUGHABLE. It is revolving door regulatory capture, our government has finally been bought lock stock and barrel.

And this is but one of many similar cases. Justice has an OBLIGATION to try these cases with the best effort they can mount and let the chips fall where they may. But they DON'T because they are AFRAID THEY WILL WIN.

You guys can make excuses for Obama all day long, he and his administration are GUILTY of letting OBVIOUS CRIMINAL ACTS go unpunished.

He is still a 'corporate guy', but the alternative is akin to facism.

Holder is completely worthless, as I've been saying here since 2009.

Well, besides us plebes, that is.

This Justice Department is pathetic.

Eric Holder and the White House Justice Department is very busy right now
keeping America safe from the threat of Medical Marijuana Smokers.
Resources are limited.
AFTER America is safe from the pot smokers,
I'm sure Holder and the Justice Department will go after the people who knowingly crashed the economy to feather their Billion Dollar nests.
Priorities!



[font size=4]Cherish your memories, SUCKERS!
because we're TAKING everything else,
and ain't NOBODY gonna stop us!!
Hahahahahahaha!
[/font]


[font size=5 color=firebrick]Solidarity99![/font]

... and give a green light to these rapacious bankers.

Wonder how many of these folks from the Justice Department are hoping for lucrative jobs with big Wall Street and D.C. firms after they leave their current employment?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/egan-jones-downgrades-goldman-sachs-bbb

or do they not even bother with scapegoats anymore