Jim Hightower: Holding Wall Street Bankers Accountable

via CommonDreams:



Published on Wednesday, September 2, 2009 by Creators Syndicate

Holding Wall Street Bankers Accountable
by Jim Hightower


Don't you wish that someone in authority, someone with an ounce of chutzpah, someone with his or her head screwed on right, would direct a few obvious, pointed, even rude questions to the Wall Street honchos who have ripped off America?

Questions like: Who, exactly, in your bank directed the rip-off? Who made these stupid decisions? Who — by name — is accountable for this mess?

The White House really doesn't seem interested in pressing these questions. The chairman of the Senate finance committee and the head of the house banking committee have been too polite to keep probing them. And, of course, Republican leaders don't even want to know the answers.

But, wait a second — who's this guy, this guy in New York who has dared to confront some of the biggest Wall Street elites and demand answers? You've probably never heard of Jed Rakoff, but he's a federal district judge whose Manhattan court gets many of the cases involving the financial powers.

He spent much of August grilling some bankers and bank regulators about the outrageous bonus payments that Merrill Lynch slipped to its top executives in the midst of last summer's Wall Street meltdown. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/02-0