It won’t surprise you that the New York Times thinks it’s important for Obama to start pardoning banksters:
A Wall Street Witch Hunt
By WILLIAM D. COHAN
I’m not saying Cohan doesn’t have a point about a wrongful prosecution here. I don’t know the case that well.
But it’s amazing to me how much we’re supposed to feel sorry when something bad happens to rich white people and how much we’re supposed to blame the victims — even the victims of hurricanes and earthquakes! — when the victims are not rich, white people.
Napoleon
I heard something the other day to the effect that at this point in the savings and loan crisis something like 167 former bankers had been convicted compared to the numer in the current crisis of 0.
The US does not even pretend to follow the rule of law and blind justice anymore (and if Obama suddenly changes his mind on how to try KSM that will just be more evidence of the same).
Napoleon
@Napoleon:
And a PS, along the same lines, the US doesn’t even bother to follow its international obligations as well as domestic law to not torture people.
Bob L
The New York Times is only pandering to our fantasies about the Obama admin hanging bankers from lamp posts.
Mark S.
It would simply be too divisive to prosecute anyone over this. We’ve got to keep our eyes on the ball. Jobs, jobs, jobs. Hey, look! ACORN!
Kryptik
Poor bankers, unable to afford a third summer home anymore. What a terrible tragedy. The obvious answer is a flat tax on everyone so they only have to pay 20%, and thus have enough left over to pay for not only that third home, but that experimental Mazda they were shown!
Christ all, it’s kinda sad when the Op-Ed page of a paper is the least abhorrent thing about it.
slag
@Mark S.: I’m sure some bankster somewhere has, at one point in time, given financial advice to a pimp. If only we had video.
A Mom Anon
They really are daring someone to stop them at this point. They’re not going to stop unless they are forced to. I can’t be the only one who thinks that,am I?
beltane
I’ll have compassion for these people only when they pay me good money to feel compassion for them. Where were their tender feelings when people were losing their homes and retirement incomes?
We live in a world where people are sentenced to years in prison for low-level drug crimes yet the rich bankers who brought the economy to a halt due to their own greed and incompetence are not only walking free, but demand that we be nice to them as well.
El Cid
Yeah, no kidding. I feel bad about having once complained publicly about Ed Meese failing to prosecute many S&L banksters during his tenure (his successor doing more).
Because it was quite more than zero.
Kyle Schmidt
And yet Goldman Sachs still ignores its shareholders anger at their bonuses: http://corporatejusticeblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/goldman-sachs-ignores-its-shareholders.html
geg6
When discussing banksters, I tend to find that adding a little Taibbi tends to remind me of why I hate these fuckers:
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/03/03/santelli-on-predatory-lending-you-cant-cheat-an-honest-man/#more-1384
liberal
@Kryptik:
Well, a flat tax on wealth rather than income (putting aside how practical it would be) would be highly progressive.
Pangloss
According to Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal, Ken Lay died of a broken heart.
celticdragonchick
@Bob L:
I’m sorry to note that it appears that the administration is caving to the Cheny-ites on the prosecution of KSM and others. It looks like military commissions after all…sometime in the dim future.
I would like to say I’m surprised, but I am not.
The broken promises,strategic retreats and ‘practical thinking’ keeps adding up.
Walker
@Napoleon:
That would be because we had laws that could be broken back in the S&L days. Now bankers do worse stuff, but it isn’t illegal because of the old laws were rescinded.
catclub
Luckily there was no blame to St. Reagan for naming Giuliani as US Attorney for New York.
Snarki, child of Loki
Considering the widespread damage inflicted on the country by the banksters, hanging them from lampposts would be an act of grandmotherly kindness.
Why, if the banksters weren’t such pasty-white GOP stalwarts, the first response would have involved air strikes, followed by a helicopter assault, occupation, and eventually a tiny measure of liberty for the survivors, if any.
liberty60
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Oh, lets not be shrill and extreme.
I am thinking more along the lines of turning them over to “America’s Toughest Sheriff” and watching the former Masters of the Universe picking up trash wearing pink jumpsuits.
In Arizona.
In August.
kommrade reproductive vigor
This article will be a great comfort to the men and women who need to insulate the cardboard boxes they now live in thanks to the poor persecuted banksters.
sherifffruitfly
What precisely are you amazed about? White folks in America have always been this way.
Tax Analyst
@Pangloss:
Awww…me so sad.
MikeTheZ
Seriously, its times like this that make me want to go punch someone in the face for all this. Instead I’ll go send in 3 more resumes that no one even bothers to dignify with a response.
Cain
@celticdragonchick:
I was listening about this on NPR which has a fairly balanced view of what happened. Basically, Obama secured an agreement from Michael Bloomberg on prosecuting the KSM in New York, great symbolism yadda yadda. But then they looked at what it would cost for the security, and how it would pretty much shut down the bottom half of manhattan. This of course caused businesses to scream bloody murder so Bloomberg did an about face, which caused members of congress to lose their spine, so now you have the mayor of New York opposing it, the two senators from New York opposing it, what the fuck do you do now?
So I’m not sure how Obama can solve this or even that it is his fault. Frankly, I have NO idea why you would need so much damn security for these guys. Are they worried that someone is going to try to kill them or what? Seems overblown on security in my opinion. They aren’t trying to try Magneto for Christ’s sake.
So yes, Obama may have broken his promise but let’s look at who fucked him over. The current idea now is to have a military tribune with some kind of civilian component to it. Looks like that is the best they can do at this point. Congress FAIL. Bloomberg FAIL. So far, I see most of the shit caused by spineless democrats in Congress. God I hate them.
cain
lol
@Cain:
IIRC, he’s apparently securing the long-delayed funding to close Gitmo in exchange. So not a complete capitulation.
EIGRP
At breakfast today with some friends (Fishers, south-east Rochester), I saw a new BMW SUV with the license plate “LTD GOVT”. The many different levels of irony must be lost on them. It certainly wasn’t lost on us.
Maybe the poor white guy couldn’t get the top of the line BMW (buy American!!) because of government regulations on his company?
-Eric
Dr. Morpheus
And all of this, Cain and lol, is based on unsubstantiated rumors from anonymous “white house staffers”.
That sort of stuff always pans out to be true, right?
Joseph Nobles
Teachers get fired, banksters get pardoned. So it goes.
bob h
New York is in the unenviable position of relying heavily on the tax revenues from an industry that is at best a zero-sum game providing no social value, and at worst outright fraud.