Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain

Post by ptaipale » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:49 PM UTC

jokull wrote: post #22

melling wrote: post #4

There's a lot to read. Can someone explain the details of actual crimes for which they were convicted? The whole "finance crimes" always seem a little fuzzy. If you run up $70 billion in debt, for example, and need a bailout, is that a crime? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-29/puerto-ric... It almost seems like a game.

My uncle is one of the jailed, mentioned in the article. One of Iceland’s most respected lawyers and teacher at the University of Iceland has gone on paper, and on radio, and on TV, saying that the Al Thani trials did not make any sense, for more than one reason. The most obvious mistake was that by the time the case went from local courtrooms to the federal level the prosecution had completely switched the focus of…

Post by melling » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:50 PM UTC

TheBiv wrote: post #6

melling wrote: post #4

There's a lot to read. Can someone explain the details of actual crimes for which they were convicted? The whole "finance crimes" always seem a little fuzzy. If you run up $70 billion in debt, for example, and need a bailout, is that a crime? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-29/puerto-ric... It almost seems like a game.

Market manipulation http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iceland-bankers-idUSKBN0LG...

Post by hownottowrite » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

Post by forgetsusername » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 2:58 PM UTC

iheartmemcache wrote: post #36

forgetsusername wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well no bankers anyway. Please point to the convictions. We don't throw people in jail because we don't like their business practices. The idea that the government wasn't absolutely salivating at the opportunity to throw some bankers in jail is one of the funniest things I read on the internet. People don't seem to understand that the government and banking industry are often at odds on many things. Of course, ofte…

Let's be honest, for every overworked DA who is ambitious enough to attempt to prosecute a banker, you will immediately have ten 6th year associates out of their top 1/3rd from UChic, Yale and Stanford willing to put in 90 hours because junior partner at Cravath or Skadden is so close they can taste it. TARP was absolutely necessary (we absolutely would have had a complete and total systemic failure had relief not be…

Post by rosalinekarr » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 3:01 PM UTC

deepnet wrote: post #16

Exactly, the problem has got worse. Banks are larger and more centralised, the offenders unpunished know they can act with impunity, legislation is unchanged. Banking/ finance types now know that if they are losing money they must simply lose big enough to trigger more bailouts and the taxpayer pays. This is despotic anti-capitalism: they keep the winnings and losses are generational debt on which they again profit.…