How is Wall Street NOT guilty of extortion?

First, the definition of extortion, from wikipedia.

"Extortion, outwresting, or exaction is a criminal offense, which occurs, when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups. The actual obtainment of money or property is not required to commit the offense. Making a threat of violence or a lawsuit which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence or lawsuit is sufficient to commit the offense. Exaction refers not only to extortion or the unlawful demanding and obtaining of something through force,<1> additionally, exact in its formal definition means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or to make somebody endure something unpleasant.<2>"


At first it was "buy our bad assets" or the entire system will go screaming into the abyss.

Now it is "buy our bad assets with no strings attached" or the entire system will go screaming into the abyss.

If I went to someone and asked them to take my debt away or I would cause a crisis as bad as the Great Depression, I would be thrown into jail.

So where is my analogy wrong?

Help?

Cassius23

I'm sure that the perspective from Wall Street is, "I'm drowning, and unless you throw me a line I'm going drown and die." They're not threatening to drown. They don't want to drown. In my view there's some truth in both perspectives.

Consider that they don't want to add any form of regulation to the bill(including oversight of how the money is spent or executive compensation). If they were really in a bad spot then they wouldn't care what provisions were in the bailout. They would just want the bailout.

The weather man does not 'threaten' you with rain tomorrow.

If there was a way open to the players to forestall disaster unilaterally they would have jumped ion it a while ago.