Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
What difference does it make anyway? Talk, talk, talk, and talk is cheap.
No body is going to jail, because as usual we won't do anything. We sit and take whatever is crammed down our throats, and that is that.

We are helpless little sitting ducks, sitting in front of our computers complaining. We don't even know how to orchestrate change anymore. We don't know how, and I'm not sure we have the testicular fortitude to act on it, even if we did.

We deserve what we get. We're raped and robbed, and apparently we don't mind. Pathetic.

you a lady in real life?
be careful what you wish for. these people are not behaving rationally. they want to just kill. doesn't matter who or what, just as long as it can be anybody else's fault, so they can kill kill kill. and after that, kill.

reply to post by Dance4Life

What? No one should go to jail? What are you drinking? Or have you been keeping up?

In other words, of 260 trading days in 2010, the firm lost money on 8, or 3.1%. In yet other words, the firm made money 96.9% of the time. We'll repeat that: JPM made money 96.9% of the time.

www.zerohedge.com...

Or, speaking of JPMorgan, how about this?

On March 23, 2010, GATA Director Adrian Douglas was contacted by a whistleblower by the name of Andrew Maguire. Maguire is a metals trader in London. He has been told first-hand by traders working for JPMorganChase that JPMorganChase manipulates the precious metals markets, and they have bragged to how they make money doing so.

www.zerohedge.com...

Tip of the iceberg. Goldman Sachs is the iceberg.

Originally posted by Raist
reply to post by jacobe001

 

So advertising is to blame now?

People have no way to say no I cannot afford that? Where is the personal responsibility anymore?

The banks and all that know the score that they can produce yes. However, the consumer knows better than any their financial status. Most were either too lazy to figure it out, or just did not care.

Sadly yes there are some who got caught in the middle for other reasons, they should be given help. Those though that obviously played the system (someone making $40k a year trying to buy a $300k home) should have to pay the price, as well as those who enabled them to sign the papers to begin with.

In the end they can advertise until their face turns blue, if I know I cannot afford it I am not buying it.


Raist

Not everyone went into foreclosure because they tried to buy to much, in fact it was a very small percent, and only involved the subprime market, rather than the prime market. Most people did not fall for it and they don't need everyone though to fall for their propaganda, just enough to get the ball rolling and inflate housing prices.

But the actions of Wall Street inflated housing costs by telling everyone it was an investment, and everyone should use some of that equity to spend on a vacation, or beef up your house to make it worth more.

These were the things being sold then. They were playing a game with peoples lives to rake in the bucks, and they won, while everyone else looses.

They don't care about you, the best interest of the country or anyone else, but only how much they can extract from you. What is happening was intentional and was to take us much wealth as possible from everyone. One big last party since, they knew from the numbers where we were headed following the dot com crash.

reply to post by undo


Nobody is talking about murder, Undo. I know I'm not. I'm talking about our inability as a nation, to rectify injustices through the use of the criminal justice system. It begins with a criminal investigation, followed with a grand jury investigation, followed with an indictment, and ends with a trial. Perpetrators of wrong doing go to jail. That system.

We've never formally initiated step one, to my knowledge.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
They had no reason not to assume that their Harvard trained lawyers and finance dudes had not evaluated the quality of these products. Their job is to understand trends in any market and to buy low and sell high. These gents did nothing wrong and many of them lost their jobs.

So why is it you can use this argument for college educated traders, but its inappropriate to make the same argument for the average American involved? Many of whom were NOT that educated, and certainly did not have the day to day contact because they worked in the field.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
My problem with this whole mess is that there is a rush to judge "Wall Street" when the folks who caused this mess number in the hundreds, not the tens of thousands of hard working folks who are in the asset management business.

Honestly, I agree. I personally felt at the time that those who orchestrated this should be lined up and shot. Im only marginally more inclined to offer life in prison now.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
This entire business could easily have been avoided with effective government regulation.

And this is my prime complaint with the defenders of big business. They have been using every possible means to ensure that big money can buy politics. This campaign to corporatizing America has been going on for decades. You cant expect politicians bought and paid for by the wealthy to regulate the behaviors of the wealthy. It just doesnt work that way.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
I'm sorry, but I don't buy the "predatory lending" business, whether it is a bank, morgage company or payday loan shop. Nobody forced these folks to sign the documents and give the little guy a bit of credit. He knew exactly what he was doing and that was try to make some money.

Thats fine. You dont feel sorry for the borrowers, and I dont feel sorry for all the poor traders who didnt take the time to do their homework on what they were buying and selling since thats what they were paid to do.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
Rather than continue to rail on who is to blame on what happened, how about we focus on who is failing to take steps to see to it that it does not happen again and that burden is squarely on the government.

The government wont act, cant act, until we undo some of the damage done to our electoral process by decades of case law and lobbying, and buying influence. We need to get corporate money out of our campaign process, and we need to get big corporate media out of it as well.

If we dont do that, we are just wasting our breath.

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
reply to post by undo

 

Nobody is talking about murder, Undo. I know I'm not. I'm talking about our inability as a nation, to rectify injustices through the use of the criminal justice system. It begins with an investigation, followed with a grand jury investigation, followed with an indictment, and ends with a trial. That system.

We've never formally initiated step one, to my knowledge.

start at the beginning of the thread. it doesn't matter if that's what you're talking about or not.
that's what the thread is saying.

first, it's the fault of wall street and all their little minions (who knows how far out the definition of minion stretches?).

then it's the fault of all the poor people who got suckered into taking subprime loans, with huge balloon payments in fine print.

and of course, it's the fault of the investors like little old ladies and men who saved up in banks, that were crashed by mr.ponzi scheme himself (forget his name), thereby losing all their savings (the fall under definition of minions of wall street).

what you are witnessing is marxism holding hands with a few other world power groups, hoping to grab the rest of what little power the usa has left, by staging a revolution and KILLING, KILLING KILLING.

killllllllllllllll.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Yes. When you meet with the "financial" professionals, they require documentation out the booty from you, in order to make an informed decision, based on your credit reports and financial history, and current situation, as to whether or not you can afford a particular piece of real estate.

They are supposed to know what they are doing. If they made inappropriate recommendations, and approvals, then they should carry part of the burden when it flops. People rely on their decisions.

It's like.....malpractice.

Originally posted by pajoly
...because they have not been convicted...because they have not been indicted...because their ranks fill the investigating agencies (SEC, FTC, DoJ, etc.) and then come back to the private sector in a revolving door...because they pay off the politicans with campaign loot..which they got from the TARP and QED (1 and 2) money...because they control the f'ing world, including the giant corporations who run the private prisons they'd otherwise be sent to.

I think that answers the question in the OP beautifully, succinctly, and completely.

Congratulations on seeing right to the heart of the matter!

Originally posted by Stewie
reply to post by buddhasystem
Where are the guys that got Glass-Stegall repealed?
Well, Boehner is still around.

Glass-Steagall repeal is a more clear case. I think it was insane.

reply to post by undo


It matter to *me* what I am talking about. If you disagree, so be it.

There are solutions and non-violent revolutions though social change, the implementation and legislation of new laws, and checks and balances within financial institutions.

The thread title is "Why isn't wallstreet in Jail". Not "Why hasn't wallstreet been slaughtered".

reply to post by ladyinwaiting

There will not be much of an investigation. How can I say that you may ask?
It is relatively easy for a mafia to take over a town. Then a city. Then a state. Then a country. It all progresses "naturally" you might say. The ruling class uses whatever control mechanisms that work, and the mafia works quite well left alone.
That is where we are. The ability of the individual in government is no match for a mafia. They will kill you, but worse, they will kill those you love to warn you first.
NO, we can't talk about killing on a public forum, and we shouldn't. But when the powers that run a country are so thoroughly corrupt that there is no law that governs them that is enforceable...
people use whatever tools they have to see justice prevail.
Just don't talk about it.

Originally posted by ladyinwaiting
reply to post by undo

 

It matter to *me* what I am talking about. If you disagree, so be it.

There are solutions and non-violent revolutions though social change, the implementation and legislation of new laws, and checks and balances within financial institutions.

The thread title is "Why isn't wallstreet in Jail". Not "Why hasn't wallstreet been slaughtered".

there is, i agree, but that's not what this thread is calling for, overall, and saying people will never rise up to make a change is a goad. a push in the direction, which the thread is stating is violent revolution, complete with beheading, lynchings, imprisonment, of people, poor and rich alike. it's right in your face.

reply to post by dolphinfan


The Federal Reserve privately owned banks issue money that we pay them to print and they charge us a percentage for their troubles > When we have a big failure they then buy small banks the go bankrupt on the people and call loans that you can not pay off . They then liquidate these small banks and some how come to own the properties . They have just traded monopoly money for real property and know own all the assets that we have paid for to start with . The Rothschilds and their cohorts are consuming America piece meal . We kill the poor Indians the actual owners take their land and they trick us out of it . They must really laugh about how stupid we are . Then after they rob the treasuries they rebuild us a a part of their NWO .

reply to post by SimonPeter

Spot on, my man.
If only more people understood this grand scam.

reply to post by Stewie


Means must be peaceful and lawful, otherwise you are much worse than anybody on wallstreet.

The problem can be solved, if people would raise their voices. If they still have one.

Evil comes in different layers. Fight it, don't join it. The same goes for stupidity.

reply to post by buddhasystem


The law is the Community Reinvestment Act which was put in place in 1977 under Jimmy Carter.

www.ask.com...

In a nutshell the law stipulates that banks must provide loans in all neighborhood in which they do business, which was to include essentially poor and minority neighborhoods. The threshold placed on the banks was 50% of loans. If they failed to meet that criteria they would get red-lined, which essentially put them out of business. At the beginning it was not a problem. The banks opened up branches in these neighborhoods and hired loan officers who would find working class folks who were good credit risks and they got loans.

Under the Clinton administration, Janet Reno increased the percentage of the loan portfolio to over 60% and at that point the banks had trouble finding borrowers that qualified for normal loan terms and conditions. Keep in mind that the government oversees the debt portfolio of banks under FDIC and certain ballance sheet requirements held. Those requirements were not relaxed despite the governments insistance that the banks make what amounted to lousy loans. Not wanting to get red lined, the banks came up with these interest only, no money down, etc loans. Now the banks knew that a vast majority of these loans were bad but they had to make them to stay in business. Their response was to securitize the loans and sell them, those securities were called CDOs which were essentially a three tiered debt instrument of increasing quality. The lower tier of debt was almost assumed to be worthless as folks would likely default, but that default would be made up by the top two tiers of loans who were made to conforming standards, e.g. credit worthy folks. When the middle tier began to collapse along with the housing market there was nobody willing to take the counterparty risk associated with the CDOs and the market collapsed.

With no counterparties willing to trade the banks had insufficient cash flow to meet their daily redemption obligations, mostly in terms of their money market funds and that started the ball rolling downhill

Excellent Post

I concur, we need to get rid of all lobbyist for starters. Did you know there are 5 financial lobbyist for each congressman?

We need Campaign Finance Reform so that Mega Corps and Investment Banks can't media fund via propaganda whom for us to pick from, as they fund both sides of the equation.

We need to pull all 761 military bases back from the world that provide safety and stability for their financial and economic dealings. They can send their own sons and daughters to die and pay for it. The Welfare Gravy Train ends here. For our own national protection, we can beef up our borders with the National Guard

We need to end the corporate government welfare state, by granting multiple contracts when needed, to small business of America, that make up the majority of this countries jobs, and not to traitorous multinational corporations who have no loyalty to this country.

All special favors and loopholes for taxes end.

If your too big to fail, and a risk to the best interest of the country, your too big to exist. Break them down into smaller pieces where they will no longer pose a risk.

Reinstate the Glass Steagul-Act and add any other regulations to those things that could pose a risk to the system.

Greenspan thought that the free market would take care of fraud if it ever popped up, and admitted he was wrong in a congressional hearing that regulation is needed, and the free market is not the answer. His Ayn Rand ideology failed him.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
It depends on your perspective, but one thing is for certain and that is if nobody wanted drugs there would not be a pusher.

Come on. You sound like an educated person. Did you never take a marketing course? You know damn well demand is and can be manufactured. Otherwise how could there ever be a market for something new? Something people have never experienced and could not possible know they wanted?

Lets not get ridiculous in our writing off of the power of advertising. You think all those firms pay millions of dollars for advertising just out of the kindness of their hearts? They just want to make sure the children of poor marketers dont go hungry?

reply to post by ladyinwaiting

Lawful?
What laws?
The Egyptians were "unlawful" according to the law.
LOL.
Lawful.
Our government has abandoned all pretext at law. Try prosecuting anyone powerful. They have the money and the money buys the law.

reply to post by jacobe001


Absolutely. It has to begin with getting corporate money out of our political system.