If you want to know why Wall Street wasn't prosecuted when they so clearly committed criminal acts..

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/business/in-shift-federal-prosecutors-are-lenient-as-companies-break-the-law.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=business">This piece by Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story in the New York Times is a must read:



Starting under the Bush administration, our political leaders made a choice to create a second tier of justice for white collar criminals. The Obama administration carried on with this crony kid-glove treatment.

Read the entire article and you will understand why, despite ample evidence and even blatant admissions of wrong-doing, financial sector criminals walked away with billions in stolen money and a slap on the wrist.

indeed

Trials and punishment are for little people, because banks and corps already own the best lawyers, and usually going to get off anyway.

It isn't just politics that have failed in America, it's just about everything that money touches.

The CDS's are not regulated. Phil Gramm got that done.

Claiming that the Feds should prosecute local jurisdiction crimes ??? Why ?

The two cycles of Dot.com scams were not prosecuted. The mortgage and CDS scams were not prosecuted.

Same difference.

Btw: all the tidy paperwork got done to the tee. Ain't SEC or bank regs. And NYSE is a SRO, don'tcha know.

Once again: the problem is that deregulation specifically allows this sort of shit. Complaining that the feds supposedly haven't prosecuted crimes, when you can't actually FIND any crimes, is not useful. Demanding increased financial regulation is useful.

That's a myth.

Federal security laws have nothing to do with local, meaning state laws.

And all this was on the books before computers were invented, before Hollerith cards, before the typewriter.

Conspiracy has a 10-year SOL, if you feel up to filing a criminal complaint. If I was a German pension fund... you betcha !

Loves me some Gretchen Morgenson.

revolving doors is a huge problem. They're all buddies and they're supposed to regulate each other?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom — an industrywide scam that involved the mass sale of mismarked, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities — has ever been convicted. Their names by now are familiar to even the most casual Middle American news consumer: companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling. What's more, many of these companies had corporate chieftains whose actions cost investors billions — from AIG derivatives chief Joe Cassano, who assured investors they would not lose even "one dollar" just months before his unit imploded, to the $263 million in compensation that former Lehman chief Dick "The Gorilla" Fuld conveniently failed to disclose. Yet not one of them has faced time behind bars.

<snip>

But a veritable mountain of evidence indicates that when it comes to Wall Street, the justice system not only sucks at punishing financial criminals, it has actually evolved into a highly effective mechanism for protecting financial criminals. This institutional reality has absolutely nothing to do with politics or ideology — it takes place no matter who's in office or which party's in power. To understand how the machinery functions, you have to start back at least a decade ago, as case after case of financial malfeasance was pursued too slowly or not at all, fumbled by a government bureaucracy that too often is on a first-name basis with its targets. Indeed, the shocking pattern of nonenforcement with regard to Wall Street is so deeply ingrained in Washington that it raises a profound and difficult question about the very nature of our society: whether we have created a class of people whose misdeeds are no longer perceived as crimes, almost no matter what those misdeeds are. The SEC and the Justice Department have evolved into a bizarre species of social surgeon serving this nonjailable class, expert not at administering punishment and justice, but at finding and removing criminal responsibility from the bodies of the accused.

much, much more at link above...

that they had at the time.
Bush certainly didn't want it to be known that this all happened while he was in the White House.
And Cheney admitted within the last year that they knew that General Motors was in dire straits, but they let it go for the next administration to deal with. I think Bush and Cheney were secretly hoping that McCain would win, and then he would break the UAW by letting GM go under.

Thanks for posting this

Well worth the read!

I can see why the US boasts on average some of the lowest voter turnouts in the industrialized world.

...I'm guessing Obama won by 30 million in 2008, not the 3 million the machines came up with.

They've owned both parties for the last 30 years.

Boy have we got lots of work to undo.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2011/06/09/book_exposes_how_democrats_brought_about_the_financial_crisis



I can link you to her interviews with the wingnuts if you don't yet believe.

Last ditch effort from one who is incapable of addressing the substance of the article.

You posted a link to some commentary from Rush Limbaugh, who clearly stated that he had not even read the book, but he believed it would make Obama look bad. And this is supposed to be an indictment of Morgenson?

Yes, please link to as many interviews with Gretchen Morgenson as you can. She is an excellent investigative reporter covering the financial beat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FXU-B-WanQ

(Morgenson at 2:28)

She deserves no respect as she enables the lies of Republicans.

Many Democrats do deserve blame for their part in exacerbating the crisis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FXU-B-WanQ#t=2m28s

Just add #t=2m28s to the link

this shit is rather transparent by now....

:rofl:

read yet as the authoritative guide to the content of the book?

Any book on the topic of the financial crisis is going to boil down to the democrats being to blame according to him! Furthermore any analysis which casts some culpablity on regulatory agencies as well as the banks is going to be selectively quoted to make the regulators look like the main culprits. That's what having no intellectual integrity is all about, and we know that's Limbaugh's MO, so you know he adds nothing but smoke to this conversation.

so they can blame Democrats for the 2003-2008 mortgage crisis is the "tool" part.

The wingnuts used her and she willfully went along (to sell books).

:shrug:

online poker has been a high priority as well

:patriot:

What's with this softball second tier crap?

I would expect that on RW sites, but not here. I'm generally dismissive about claims regarding troll infestation but posts like this make me wonder.

They "acted irresponsibly" according to Obama.

So, logically, either Obama is deficient in his duty, or else he doesn't believe any laws were broken. QED. :hi:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2132968&mesg_id=2132968

I guess you got your wish. :thumbsup:

Looking forward? :silly:

Another subject change? :shrug:

:rofl: :hi:

:hi:

:rofl:

Of course, since Obama never said that, we are in for a long wait......

Perhaps you meant to post a different link?

Or did Obama never actually say "no-one broke the law"?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first on the issue of prosecutions on Wall Street, one of the biggest problems about the collapse of Lehmans and the subsequent financial crisis and the whole subprime lending fiasco is that a lot of that stuff wasn’t necessarily illegal, it was just immoral or inappropriate or reckless. That’s exactly why we needed to pass Dodd-Frank, to prohibit some of these practices.

I gave a summary of the meaning of what he said.

Nice try though!

There are plenty of other websites for that kind of thing!

you can argue that the corporations and banks that benefitted are pro government intervention, who else would have saved them? You may say the taxpayers, yes, by proxy of the government. I don't recall anyone asking me if I thought these corporations and banks needed or deserved a bailout.

Thanks.

Could I get a specific name of a perpetrator, a specific crime, and evidence that they committed the crime?

Just wondering if it was really all as clear as you said it was.

It's linked in the piece. Which is the point of the piece. All the people spinning their wheels and railing against messengers as usual can download and read it. Or not. They can just distract and disingenuously pretend it's not even there. But it is.

Here's the thrust:

"In certain instances, it may be appropriate, upon consideration of the factors set forth herein, to resolve a corporate criminal case by means other than indictment. Non-prosecution and deferred prosecution agreements, for example, occupy an important middle ground between declining prosecution and obtaining the conviction of a corporation. These agreements are discussed further in Section X, infra. Likewise, civil and regulatory alternatives may be appropriate in certain cases, as discussed in Section XI, infra."

K & R.

Which would seem to indicate that they believed a significant number of crimes had been committed.

FBI warns of mortgage fraud 'epidemic'

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/09/17/mortgage.fraud/

Bill Black has hammered on that fact since forever.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-k-black/the-two-documents-everyon_b_169813.html

Now we know, thanks to guys like Alan Grayson explaining in "Fraud Factories" just how pervasive and epidemic so much of that was.

Somebody up high had to eventually "do something."



DU props:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2137812#top

Operation Stolen Dreams
Hundreds Arrested in Mortgage Fraud Sweep

06/17/10

From industry insiders to straw buyers, nearly 500 people have been arrested in a nationwide mortgage fraud takedown that reflects the coordinated efforts of law enforcement to address the growing problem of crime in the housing industry.

“Mortgage fraud ruins lives, destroys families, and devastates whole communities,” Attorney General Eric Holder said this morning at a press conference to announce the results of “Operation Stolen Dreams.” Launched on March 1, 2010, the multi-agency initiative has led to a total of 485 arrests. More than 330 convictions have been obtained, and nearly $11 million has been recovered. Losses from a variety of fraud schemes are estimated to exceed $2 billion.

Operation Stolen Dreams is the government’s largest mortgage fraud takedown to date. But FBI Director Robert S. Mueller cautioned that there is still much work to be done. The Bureau is currently pursuing more than 3,000 mortgage fraud cases, he said, which is almost double the number from the last fiscal year.

“The staggering totals from this sweep highlight the mortgage fraud trends we are seeing around the country,” Attorney General Holder said. “We have seen mortgage fraud take on all shapes and sizes—from schemes that ensnared the elderly to fraudsters who targeted immigrant communities.”

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/june/mortgage-fraud-sweep

On edit..oops wrong FBI program.

BY MOE BEDARD ON OCTOBER 18, 2011 IN SCAMS


(Source: FBI) – David B. Fein, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that ANDREA J. PALMUCCI, 50, of East Haven, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Christopher F. Droney in Hartford to two years of probation, the first eight months of which PALMUCCI must spend in home confinement, for participating in a mortgage fraud scheme in New Haven County. Judge Droney also ordered PALMUCCI to perform 200 hours of community service.

According to court documents and statements made in court, PALMUCCI was employed by ATZ Realty, located at 612 Main Street in East Haven, which was owned and operated by Abdelghany Antar. From June 2006 to October 2007, Antar and PALMUCCI conspired to purchase 11 properties in New Haven County in PALMUCCI’s name. As part of the conspiracy, Antar and PALMUCCI made false statements to various mortgage lenders, including statements about PALMUCCI’s income, assets, liabilities, employment, and intention to occupy the home as a primary residence. In addition, the deposits and down payments for the properties were paid out of bank accounts in PALMUCCI’s name with funds owned and controlled by Antar. After the closings, PALMUCCI quitclaimed the properties back to Antar or to entities that Antar owned or controlled. Antar paid PALMUCCI a few thousand dollars for each home she purchased.

Through this scheme, Antar and PALMUCCI obtained approximately $2.759 million in fraudulent mortgages. All of the properties they purchased have been foreclosed on, or are currently in foreclosure.

http://www.loansafe.org/connecticut-real-estate-brokerage-employee-sentenced-for-mortgage-fraud

and eight months of home confinement is the price Palmucci will pay. Martha Stewart went away for longer than that.

At least Antar got three years.

According to a press release, Maurizio Lancia, 48, of Trumbull, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, and Stacey Petro, also known as Stacey Moises, 37, of Branford, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Lancia, a licensed attorney and licensed mortgage broker, controlled and operated Royal Financial Services, LLC, and Petro, a licensed mortgage broker, controlled and operated First Source Mortgage Solutions, Inc. From approximately 2004 to 2007, Lancia, Petro, Jose Guzman, William Athan and others used these and other mortgage brokerage companies, as well as property management and home improvement companies, to arrange for individuals (“borrowers”) to purchase real estate, primarily residential housing properties located in New London Country, by obtaining funding from various mortgage companies and mortgage originators after submitting false information on the borrowers’ mortgage loan applications.

The fraudulent information included information regarding income, assets, employment, rent history, as well as the borrowers’ intention to make the properties their primary residence. The borrowers, who typically were individuals who had good credit but were of modest means with low levels of income, were compensated for participating in the scheme.

In 2004, Lancia, Guzman and Athan purchased a property at 349-351 Broad St. in New London and formed Broad Street Investment Group for the purpose of buying and selling properties.  Both Royal Financial Services, LLC and First Source Mortgage Solutions, Inc. operated out of 349-351 Broad St.

http://trumbull.patch.com/articles/trumbull-man-admits-mortgage-fraud

It still awaits.

(Source: FBI) UTAH COUNTY— A federal grand jury returned an eight-count indictment Wednesday afternoon charging Portia R. Louder, age 40, and Chad Louder, age 41, both of Highland, with criminal violations of federal law in connection with what the indictment alleges was a scheme to profit from loans fraudulently obtained from mortgage lenders.

Portia R. Louder is charged in the indictment with three counts of false statements to financial institutions; three counts of wire fraud; and one count of money laundering. Chad Louder is charged with two counts of false statements to financial institutions.

“Prosecuting mortgage fraud cases continues to be a priority in our office. It’s a problem that has cost banks, borrowers, and homeowners in Utah tens of millions of dollars. As today’s indictment demonstrates, we will continue to aggressively prosecute those individuals we believe have exploited the mortgage and real estate process for their own personal gain,” Acting U.S. Attorney Carlie Christensen said.

“Multi-million-dollar schemes, such as the one alleged in today’s indictment, contributed to the collapse of the housing market. The FBI is committed to investigating this type of egregious fraud. This indictment charging the Louders alleges they fraudulently obtained millions of dollars by providing false information to lenders, sellers, and others. Through the hard work of the FBI, the IRS, the United States Attorney’s Office, and others who have contributed to the investigation, this couple now faces serious federal charges,” FBI Special Agent in Charge David J. Johnson said.

http://www.loansafe.org/utah-couple-who-targeted-for-sale-by-owners-charged-with-mortgage-fraud

or the diligence even of the FBI. Although that's probably another whole subject for another day. It's about what comes or not of the investigations, arrests and indictments, but especially about the choices about prosecutions or not of large corporations especially. Already amply noted that the FBI has known it's had this raging epidemic of mom and pop fraud on their hands, along with much bigger entities. For years.

David B Fein, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that ANDREA J PALMUCCI, 50, of East Haven, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Christopher F Droney in Hartford to two years of probation, the first eight months of which PALMUCCI must spend in home confinement, for participating in a mortgage fraud scheme in New Haven County. Judge Droney also ordered PALMUCCI to perform 200 hours of community service.

According to court documents and statements made in court, PALMUCCI was employed by ATZ Realty, located at 612 Main Street in East Haven, which was owned and operated by Abdelghany Antar. From June 2006 to October 2007, Antar and PALMUCCI conspired to purchase 11 properties in New Haven County in PALMUCCI’s name. As part of the conspiracy, Antar and PALMUCCI made false statements to various mortgage lenders, including statements about PALMUCCI’s income, assets, liabilities, employment, and intention to occupy the home as a primary residence.

In addition, the deposits and down payments for the properties were paid out of bank accounts in PALMUCCI’s name with funds owned and controlled by Antar. After the closings, PALMUCCI quitclaimed the properties back to Antar or to entities that Antar owned or controlled. Antar paid PALMUCCI a few thousand dollars for each home she purchased.

Through this scheme, Antar and PALMUCCI obtained approximately $2.759 million in fraudulent mortgages. All of the properties they purchased have been foreclosed on, or are currently in foreclosure.

http://7thspace.com/headlines/397144/east_haven_woman_who_participated_in_mortgage_fraud_scheme_is_sentenced.html

fraud going on routinely for years. Aware as far back as 2003. YEARS!

Inspector General: FHFA Was Aware of Robo-Signing and Other Abuses

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=2072809&mesg_id=2072809


(pdf)
http://www.fhfaoig.gov/Content/Files/AUD-2011-004.pdf

Some mary jane helps relieve stress and pain and people are serving life sentances

Because evidently the federal government doesn't see it that way.

of the S&L scandal.

It seems incredibly curious that no one was touched following the near-collapse of our economy in 2008, and this goes a long way to explain why.

K&R.