Not So Fast!

Filed by BF Koch
ITITY Investigative Reporter 



Tweed Courthouse NY


In response to recent events, economists and other contrarians have increased their calls for putting bankers behind bars; as satisfying this may sound however, some consideration should be given to identifying and holding accountable those who actually caused our current financial crisis. Let’s just be sure we’re locking up the right culprits.

Forget the sixteen trillion in emergency Fed lending, four and a half trillion in bailouts, two trillion and counting in quantitative easing, and a couple trillion more in loans and guarantees, it’s the money earned by hard working citizens and handed over to freeloaders who are too lazy to help themselves that really adds up.

Never mind the predatory lending practices and the innumerable counts of perjury committed by presenting robosigned affidavits and other defective documents in foreclosure court proceedings, the real criminals are all those parasitic public sector employees who expect the rest of us to pay for their pensions.

Disregard the million dollar bonuses, the money laundered for drug cartels, and the shorting of funds sold to clients that were designed to fail. The real injustice is that the guy who talked a convenience store clerk into letting him pay for a six pack and a scratch off with food stamps isn’t in jail.

Ignore the evidence that for years banks have systematically coerced agencies into rating subprime mortgage backed securities as investment grade instruments, colluded to rig auctions in municipal bond markets, and skimmed profits from derivative contracts by manipulating the largest interest rate base used in worldwide commerce.

Perp-walks and prison sentences seem a bit harsh when one considers bankers have already had to endure the inconvenience of the occasional inquiry, suffered settlements that don’t require them to admit they did anything wrong, and had fines forced upon them that probably caused them to collect all the spare change from under their sofa cushions.