Phony Billion-Dollar Suits, Jailing Little Fish: Nothing Changes

[marmar]

from the Working Life blog:



Phony Billion-Dollar Suits, Jailing Little Fish: Nothing Changes
Posted on 25 October 2012.


So, it’s easy to capture our predicament today–though you’d never get that from the transcribers of press releases (formerly known as “journalists”). Here it is neatly summed up: we’ve been robbed, only little fish are being held accountable for relatively small crimes and, even more to the point, in a political rhetorical world where shareholders are revered, the shareholders are being left to pay the bill.

Let’s start with this piece of news

Federal prosecutors in New York sued Bank of America on Wednesday, accusing it of carrying out a mortgage scheme that defrauded the government during the depths of the financial crisis.In a civil complaint that seeks to collect $1 billion from the bank, the Justice Department took aim at a home loan program known as the “hustle,” a venture that has become emblematic of the risk-fueled mortgage bubble. The complaint adds to a flurry of federal and private lawsuits facing Bank of America’s beleaguered mortgage business.

This is nonsense. This suit, if successful, will saddle not the high executives with a penalty, but the shareholders of the banks AND the little depositors. Let me ask a rhetorical question: if the bank pays a penalty of a billion dollars, how long do you think it will take before fees go up for transactions by the average customer? How about ten seconds. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/2012/10/25/phonysuits/