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Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

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Re: Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

#11

Post by glasss »

Unfortunately doing bad things to get rich isn't always illegal, and a lot of the times the parts that are illegal are hard to prove against institutions who have professionally been getting away with it for a while.

Payday loans come to mind - they definitely aren't illegal, have tons of predatory practices built in, but are universally (at least in my experience) seen as a scam.

I've been told by several people that used to work at large payday loans company: "Under no circumstance should you or anyone you care about get a payday loan. Go beg for money, steal food, whatever you need to do to survive, but never get a payday loan".

Re: Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

#12

Post by vkou »

bawolff wrote: post #5

Articles like this never seem to make the case for which crimes were specificly commited. They always talk about the fallout of the financial crisis (losing money on wall street isnt a crime afaik). Idk much about this topic, so im sure crimes could be involved, but its weird how these articles dont start with why didn't someone go to jail for .

It's not weird, it's just populist grousing. Reduce your discontent to a meme, and it will spread to every discussion that ever mentions 2008.

I have some opinions about who should have gone to jail (I'd start with the ratings agencies), but that doesn't rabble-rouse quite as well as 'Burn Down Greedy Goldman Sachs!'

Re: Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

#13

Post by rspoerri »

The worst thing is, that the core of capitalism had to be rescured by socialism.

Not that socialism is bad, or capitalism is bad. But the core of capitalism stand on, what isnt profitable, isnt sustainable. The system hasnt been provitable, but had been rescured by all the goverments and the money they gather from the inhabitants.

Re: Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

#14

Post by AlexandrB »

nickff wrote: post #8

These stories all seem to ride on similar popular sentiments: 'bad things happened, and rich people were involved, so they should go to jail'. Having read a few of the books cited at the bottom, I have been repeatedly surprised at how these financial disasters came to be; it often seems like the people at the top were deceiving themselves more than anyone else. Bethany McLean's other book, "The Smartest Guys in the R…

In many other jobs, gross negligence resulting in billions of dollars of property damage can get you jail time. Why is it ok for the people at the top of these financial disasters to be immune? Whether they're deceiving themselves is irrelevant. Drunk drivers deceive themselves about their ability to drive safely, we still put them in jail.

Re: Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

#15

Post by colpabar »

nickff wrote: post #8

These stories all seem to ride on similar popular sentiments: 'bad things happened, and rich people were involved, so they should go to jail'. Having read a few of the books cited at the bottom, I have been repeatedly surprised at how these financial disasters came to be; it often seems like the people at the top were deceiving themselves more than anyone else. Bethany McLean's other book, "The Smartest Guys in the R…

If I "deceive myself" by thinking I can drive with my eyes closed, and I crash my car and destroy someone's property, aren't I then required to pay the damages or face jail time?

It's odd that we can all agree on cases where the number of participants is small, but for some reason, if an entire economy is affected, we have to pretend that the people responsible weren't actually responsible and shouldn't be punished in the same way.

Re: Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

#16

Post by jessaustin »

nickff wrote: post #8

These stories all seem to ride on similar popular sentiments: 'bad things happened, and rich people were involved, so they should go to jail'. Having read a few of the books cited at the bottom, I have been repeatedly surprised at how these financial disasters came to be; it often seems like the people at the top were deceiving themselves more than anyone else. Bethany McLean's other book, "The Smartest Guys in the R…

...it often seems like the people at the top were deceiving themselves more than anyone else.

Whose interest does it serve, for that to be a common narrative?

Re: Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

#17

Post by actually_a_dog »

bawolff wrote: post #5

Articles like this never seem to make the case for which crimes were specificly commited. They always talk about the fallout of the financial crisis (losing money on wall street isnt a crime afaik). Idk much about this topic, so im sure crimes could be involved, but its weird how these articles dont start with why didn't someone go to jail for .

How about we start with massive amounts of loan fraud?

https://themreport.com/daily-dose/12-08-2020/the-role-of-len...

Re: Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

#18

Post by jollybean »

bawolff wrote: post #5

Articles like this never seem to make the case for which crimes were specificly commited. They always talk about the fallout of the financial crisis (losing money on wall street isnt a crime afaik). Idk much about this topic, so im sure crimes could be involved, but its weird how these articles dont start with why didn't someone go to jail for .

Yes, it's bad populism to talk about crimes and then never bother to explain them.

There's nuance in explaining systematic failure, but not one that most people couldn't grasp if well written in a few paragraphs.

A lot of 'small bad decisions' at the loan level encouraged by an aggressive culture, a failure in ratings, and CEO's to mild to look too intently into the VP Retail Banking's mortgage profits ... and the whole thing can go sideways.

But it'd be nice if the experts gave us more detail when the talked about it.

Re: Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

#20

Post by jessaustin »

rspoerri wrote: post #13

The worst thing is, that the core of capitalism had to be rescured by socialism. Not that socialism is bad, or capitalism is bad. But the core of capitalism stand on, what isnt profitable, isnt sustainable. The system hasnt been provitable, but had been rescured by all the goverments and the money they gather from the inhabitants.

Socialism "for me but not for thee" isn't socialism. That's capitalism, although it does edge toward the super-capitalism that some call fascism rather than sharing any important characteristics with various systems of free enterprise that many people imagine when they encounter the word "capitalism".
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