Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? - Always a fun read
New article from Matt Taibbi. Always a fun read.
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Jeez that writer is a joke, makes him/herself sound smart by listing lots and lost of banks and regulation orginizations in an attempt to sound knowledgable. Plus i find it irritating that no one in the media has the balls to call out the stupid people who bought half million dollar houses while making a little over 50 grand a year.
... while a senior banker in a suit with 20 years experience and solid education convinced them that they could do it because of X, Y, and Z very technical and legitimate-sounding reasons. Not to say that people shouldn't take more time to learn the basics of household finance, but I think it's more than "stupid people" at work here.
Ok you are on two completely different ideas of bankers. That also annoys me, it wasnt the IB who told people they could take a loan out that was way to large. If your gonna blame bankers for that blame the comerical side.
I also get pissed when people start talking about bonuses and TARP (like it was just a gift) as if the taxpayer didn't make a huge profit from TARP.
If Taibbi's a joke, you should stick to finger painting kid. The irritation you feel is pretty small compared to the irritation those making $50K a year felt when the likes of Worldcom, Enron, Lehman and Bear disappeared with their life savings over the past decade.
I'm curious if you are just as irritated that Dick Fuld is relaxing in Montana with half-a-billion?
Finance professionals have a fiduciary responsibility which (in the case of Wall Street) they happily ignore for a brief bonus boost. The loan seeker does not have a responsibility to perform due diligence...the broker does.
If you wonder why the media doesn't talk shit to the public it is because laughing at somebody who got fucked over and beat down by someone stronger who they trusted is pathetic and lame. Even the shady ass media is above that sort of behavior. Commoners made the mistakes they made because of their faith in the financial system,a system which has existed to do nothing but fuck them over the better part of the last decade.
What I find irritaiting is that no one is willing to take any of the blame. I am not saying that the street doesnt deserve any blame. What i am saying is that it is childish and totally ridicilous for people to just up and blame the street for everyone of their problems. I know plenty of people who didnt make stupid decisions during the bubble and they came out fine. There is blame that rides with wall street however there is blame that rides with main street as well, and a big chunk that rides with the government as well but i am not going to get into that because I dont need any more stress at before noon.
Yay! I've created controversy.
Tear yourselves apaarrrtt....Yesss...rubs hands together while chortling evilly
People at Enron went to jail as well as other financial criminals. As a result of it SOX upped the reaponsibilty for these guys.
The financial crisis was a dog chasing a tail. WS was as much to blame as people who cashed out equity to buy 10 TVs.
Also, WS felt a ton of pain. Massive layoffs. Major banks failed. Etc. I don't see where WS got away free and clear.
Rollingstone is trash. Why people read that shit is beyond me. If the economist, FP or something similar, above a grade school reading level, wrote the piece I might care.
How is it trash? Did you even read the article? Virtually no one other than Taibbi and RS are even reporting on this shit.
And again, to all the fucking retard prospective monkeys who were potentially in high school when the crisis went down, read up and shut the fuck up. To say that home buyers are more to blame for the crisis than the bankers / AIG is to blame pneumonia for killing someone with AIDS.
Actually you dont die of HIV, you die of something like pneumonia. AIDS doesnt kill you its other things that do.
Also its RS that releases interviews with military people that basicly outline off the record talks about current battle strategy that ends up getting American soldiers killed so yea im with ANT on this one
I think the Rolling Stone is trash because it is a main stream, gossip rage. Nothing about the writer. The audience that reads RS, by and large, is not the same that might read the economist or foreign policy. The articles are going to be more simple, more sensationalized and more biased.
^agreed.
I hate Matt Taibbi, (Although his first name is great). He is so liberal and hates Wall Street. How dare people make money! How dare companies that do well off cycle do well? If GS has record profits during a recession, they should pay record bonuses. Wall Street often predicates the economic upturn/downturn so like 2007, WSO knew shit was gonna go down, and bonuses in 2008 were low, while unemployment had yet to catch up (even with Lehman failing etc.). Now the opposite is occurring. His vehemence towards all bankers is disgusting...I wonder what his compensation is? He literally writes what, once a month? I bet he gets paid more than most people on this board.
If you are looking for scapegoats, there are plenty. The reason investment banks were incentivized to create so many structured products was because of the reach for yield and wave of global savings that were looking for a home. What pisses me off is not that bankers are taking the blame (which they deserve some of) but the ignorance of people who run their mouths off without knowing what the f*ck they are talking about.
^^ Hey look someone read the article!
Because you can't throw a street into a jail cell, duh!
Once again, the article doesn't primarily focus on our recent economy, the mortgage crisis and related turmoil per se....it zeros in on specific instances of illegal actions that should be prosecuted and result in prison terms regardless of the business climate. These are grievous offenses that have fraudulently screwed investors, from blue collar to billionaire, out of enormous amounts of wealth. Decisions are knowingly made by individuals looking to temporarily inflate figures to bring home undeserved bonus pay. Efforts to subvert the general investor are commonplace. Sadly, these lucrative practices will not end until they result in jail time and the revocation of unearned wealth.
If these methods continue then eventually the information we use to weigh the value of financial instruments will be deemed totally unreliable by the global society and rightfully so! Come on, this is Accounting, Auditing and Finance 101. This will result in the devaluation of these instruments until they are worth virtually nothing. For the sake of our free market, this cycle must end.
It should be of no surprise to anyone here that there is an undeniable tendency of people and institutions in a position of power to employ the government as a lever to actually impede the function of a true free market. In this case, wall street has insulated itself from the typical considerations of legality of which the general populace must adhere.
This is not about wall vs main. If wall shot one person and main shot two, they both need to go to jail. It's pretty simple.
The general that got shitcanned for bad mouthing obama got hosed on that deal, he went off the record and then the "journalist" wrote about it. I dont like RS because they tend to act like they are politically neutral yet they are one of the most liberal publications out there.
And as we all know, reality has a strong liberal bias.
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