Laundering $800 Mil in Drug $, How Did HSBC Execs Avoid Jail?

[an8150]

"Free markets" have created some of the worst scams and economic destruction of the many for the benefit of the few through out modern history.

"Free markets" allowed Goldman-Sachs to sell toxic bundles of debt to their customers as though they were AAA bonds and then bet against those same bundles. Because it was "free" / unregulated, opaque activity investors had no idea that investment was shit, that AIG had insured so much of the shit that if it failed they could not payoff and that Goldman has invested in SCDOs that bet that the product they sold to that investor was shit.

That is typical of dark, unregulated markets. Unregulated markets will sell rancid meat as fresh, employ 10 year olds, manipulate markets and do anything they can to make a buck with as much concern for the victims as a serial killer has for his victims.

Private enterprise is good but in absence of rules it can and has historical done great harm to the masses. And few examples are greater than what the financial industry has done to the world economy through credit default swaps in an opaque unregulated market. They have injured millions of people and even nation states. They are far more dangerous and criminal than the pot smokers incarcerated through out America in privatized prisons.

And yet Goldman's name remains untarnished and it remains in business. Well, at least you and I know not to do business with it.

[buttslinger]

short and sweet:

BUSH INC had an eight year party and we got stuck with the bill

while Bush and Cheney rode out of town with only their reputations scathed.

UN -doing that damage is not so easy, Big Business is an important part of the economy, and they are calculating to make sure the recovery recovers them first. I think my Savings are going to keep earning <1%
until Hillary has her party.

[hippifried]

Wow! Mine was blue, but that looks just like the car that won me a 1st place trophy in the Pinewood Derby, back in '59.

[fivekatz]

And yet Goldman's name remains untarnished and it remains in business. Well, at least you and I know not to do business with it.

If it were only that easy. JP Morgan, HSBC the list goes on and on.

These are smart folks and they'd figure out how to make reasonable profits within reasonable regulatory constraint. But once you create an opaque market, historical folks have figured out how to game the system to arbitrage which is a nice word for creating excessive profit through extraordinary circumstance.

The sheer volume of scandals from the dawn of the Reagan-Thatcher movement forward is stunning. We had the S and L crisis in the US, followed illegal market manipulations by firms like Tyco and Enron and the on going banksterism with the London Whales just being the most recent exposed rip-off.

It is criminal what these people do but unregulated free markets are the moral equal of leaving the doors of a pawn shop wide open in a economic repressed neighborhood with cash pilled on the counters. Difference is the common man that roams into that shop and takes the money gets 10 years in a privatized prison with annual returns of 15% for its shareholders. Meanwhile, the bankster gets a federal bailout since the downfall of his institution would be the downfall of all. The lobbyists of these bankster then enrage Americans about the market interference, throw around words like freedom, add a few wedge issues like the President's race, gun control and abortion and collect their $25M bonuses and repeat at will.

It is about time some high level white collar criminals do some time IMHO!

[fivekatz]

To put personal face on the damage, for those who have access HBO's American Winter is a must see.

It personalizes through the lives of a few families in Oregon the impact the Great Recession has had on every day folks who work hard and play by the rules. The pain and humbling of the human spirit no longer becomes an intellectual argument but instead becomes the end result of what happens when a society prioritizes military defense over the defense of its most vulnerable citizens and allows a small group of elite plutocrats bring the modern economy to brink, while paying a fraction of their fair share of taxes, destroying housing markets and becoming all the richer for the poor behavior.

It is all very academic until you see how good people get ruined by the likes of Jamie Dimon and the Koch Brothers.

[fivekatz]

PS.

Dimon's sentence for his part in the London Whale in a perfect world would be that all his assets would be frozen and he would do 5 years as a Wal Mart greeter as his sole income. And he should be held exempt from the provisions of Obama Care and ineligible for Medicaid.

That would be justice.

[buttslinger]

I watched about 10 minutes of the Dick Cheney cable interview before I got sick to my stomach and had to turn it off, If they had a Federal Prosecutor doing the interview, now that would be a show. I think it's good that American businesses try and make all the money they can, but having Federal Regulators answer to the likes of Dick Cheney is worse than cheating at Monopoly, the only way I can swallow it is to hope it's just one more test for us to take, this nation needs glasses.

My Cub Scout car was blue with red firebolts, we did experiment with weights and special axles, the guy who won had a real ugly car.

[fivekatz]

I watched about 10 minutes of the Dick Cheney cable interview before I got sick to my stomach and had to turn it off, If they had a Federal Prosecutor doing the interview, now that would be a show. I think it's good that American businesses try and make all the money they can, but having Federal Regulators answer to the likes of Dick Cheney is worse than cheating at Monopoly, the only way I can swallow it is to hope it's just one more test for us to take, this nation needs glasses.

My Cub Scout car was blue with red firebolts, we did experiment with weights and special axles, the guy who won had a real ugly car.

I thought that the World According to Dick Cheney was pretty wonderful because RJ Cutler did not press Cheney too much. In the process Cheney demonstrated not just a lack of remorse but a lack of self reflection that was stunning.

In one of the most stunning moments Cheney defends torture by saying "are you going to stand on honor..."

He got more than his share of free passes like his and Bush's connections to Enron and the California electricity heist and all those no bid contracts to Halliburton. Like to one to do laundry because no bid assumes no other providers could provide and everybody knows that only Halliburton can wash uniforms in the desert. Or his involvement in writing regulations where Halliburton does not have disclose what leathal chemicals are used in its fraking solutions and can't be held liable for any damages they may cause.

While points like these and greater picture of Cheney as war criminal were glossed over in Cutler's work, I doubt if he had tried to "nail" Cheney that the documentary ever could have come together.

As it was it gave a portrait of a cold, immoral man, who was not just comfortable in his lies and participation in a deceptive war, but defiantly proud of that role and man who can see no faults in spite of his many flaws.

I thought Cutler did a brilliant job of standing back and letting Cheney be the DICK he is in front of an unbiased lens.

[hippifried]

My Cub Scout car was blue with red firebolts, we did experiment with weights and special axles, the guy who won had a real ugly car.

Mine was bright blue with black (magic marker) grill & pipes. Managed to have the weight at exactly 5 oz @ race time (2 washers if memory serves), but the real trick was getting the axles (nails) lined up precisely.

By the way: The head of the driver on the trophy made a perfect night time chewing gum resting place for years. Mom hated it of course, but the job of pre-teens is to give their parents gray hair. I was a journeyman @ the craft, without need of apprenticeship.

[yodajazz]

And yet Goldman's name remains untarnished and it remains in business. Well, at least you and I know not to do business with it.

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.