Quote Originally Posted by yodajazz View Post
They did have to pay a 500+ million dollar fine to the SEC, yet they paid it on the condition that they did not have to reveal exactly what the fine was for. I can tell you that it was not for stealing bicycles. The names of convicted bicycles are published in some of our local papers.

Some of GS's actions, along with others, resulted in people losing a majority of their life savings for retirement. Yet many consider gay marriage to be a bigger sign of the world's moral decline. I know someone who was directly affected by the financial crisis. Meanwhile gay couple's relationships, have absolutely none.
THe point of needless laws governing the behavior of thers that has no adverse impact on society.

The fines and no contest continuum that industry goes through with government is joke on so many levels.

Using the Goldman example the fine itself was far lower than the profit from the default swaps that were backed by the government since AIG was going down.

The fines are simply a cost of doing business, a game with a complicated chessboard of deny, delay to cost the AG tons of hours. Then when the AG wears out you cut you best deal, you stock takes a hit for a day and you move on, profit in hand.

For the corporation one of the most important judical understanding/interpertation is that corporations are people. And corporations use this when it best serves them, liability for corporate actions being the key. When it doesn't fit like the 2005 Bankruptcy Laws, corporations become exempt, so in essence they get to be person under the law when it suits them.

It is sad to say but all indictions are that markets will not police themselves as Greenspan naively thought they would. We have gone from the S and L crisis, to a partner of pumping stock/ giving false q reports and insider trading in the for of Tyco and Enro, And then the CDOs etc nearly took down the world and caused huge pain to millions of human beings around the world.

It is time to take a criminal corporation all the way through the justice system and name as many key individuals as possible.

This is where IMHO Timothy Geithner blew was he saw holding banksters accountable would hurt the markets and he saw it as Old Testament Justice.

It is simply the moral hazard of a system with banks too big to fail. Corporations get broken up into pieces (often good for shareholders) and a handful of executives that have so much greed, hubris and disregard for others peoples money that they break the law for profit should spend 3-5 years of incarceration.

That would make the next head of Goldman-Sachs think twice about having your organization sell CDOs as being as good as bonds w/ 8% return, while calling AGI to bet against what they sold their customer via a credit default swap.

But a $500M parking ticket?