http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/mason/39495/racketeer-influenced-and-corrupt-organizations-ricoThe term “criminal banksters” has become an established part of our language to refer to the people who operate the too big to fail (TBTF) multinational Wall Street banks that practice an especially virulent and destructive form of worldwide predatory capitalism in which their profits are privatized to pay multimillion dollar bonuses to their CEOs disbursing the rest to investment managers and bank shareholders while their losses are socialized. That is, covered by the United States taxpayers without their consent.
This relationship basically functions like a super efficient vacuum cleaner sucking all the wealth out of the economy and redistributing it among the wealthiest 1% of the population, and especially the top 0.1%. As such, it imperils the economy and constitutes a clear and present danger to the Rule of Law, particularly the notion of equal justice under law, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and democracy itself.
This parasitic relationship came into being during the Reagan Administration when regulatory oversight of the banks relaxed and disappeared as enforcement of the banking laws ended with the exception of an occasional slap on the wrist that amounted to a forgettable mosquito bite-sized chunk of money removed from a massive flow of capital cascading through a fire hose under high pressure.
Coupled with the repeal by the United States of the Glass-Steagall Act that prohibited investment banks from lending money and their development and sale of novel and exotic financial instruments based on real estate mortgage backed securities as a form of insurance with which to hedge bets in the world wide casino, the banks invented and financed a new game to play in which the sky was the limit and the risk of failure all but extinguished. Or so they thought.
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