As Paul B. Farrell says in a recent column, it's too late to jail bankster CEOs; only a revolution could accomplish that.
"Put Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein in jail for six months, and all this will stop," a former congressional aide tells Matt Taibbi in his latest Rolling Stone attack, "Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? Financial crooks brought down the world's economy -- but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them."
Taibbi's right in one respect: everyone knows Wall Street's run by a bunch of dictators who are doing more damage to democracy and capitalism than North Africa's dictators. But jail the CEOs of Goldman, Citi, B of A or Morgan Stanley? It's too late for that.
Only a revolution will stop Wall Street's self-destructive form of capitalism
During the S&L crisis two decades ago America had a backbone, indicted 3,800 executives and bankers, and put a thousand of them behind bars. But today's leaders don't have the backbone to do something like that. Besides, jail time for them won't take away the darkness consuming Wall Street's soul. In addition, most Americans today are still politically asleep, in denial about the moral crisis facing America. Only a revolution will wake them up.
Jail time for banksters? Journalists have been beating that dead horse for three years. Yes, jailing a few CEOs made sense, in early 2009. But our still-wet-behind-the-ears president missed that opportunity, and for safety's sake surrounded himself with Wall Street insiders, just as Bush did with Blankfein's predecessor and others like him.
Taibbi got it right in one respect: Washington's error was in protecting Wall Street's billion-dollar crooks when it should have been prosecuting them for their criminal role in getting us into the 2008 mess. But today the political statute-of-limitations has run out. The jail solution is wishful thinking, like praying to the tooth fairy for a miracle. Now is the time for a revolution, beginning on Wall Street.
Jail Wall Street? Old news. They got away with it. Obama chickened out. End of story.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
10
9
4
