Pierce writes: "...over the course of a decade, a bunch of cheats, thieves, and suited mountebanks stole most of the national economy and then wrecked whatever was left of it. But what's most extraordinary about the whole thing is that, after they swindled their swindles and heisted their heists, and got paid off by the rest of us for having looted our national economy, they all kept doing the same things they were doing before."
A Citibank branch in New York. (photo: Reuters)
Livin' in a Bankster's Paradise
17 February 12
f all the things for which I have little patience - Willard Romney, lottery machines in convenience stores, and the current state of the Montreal Canadiens, to name only three - the notion that the best way to deal with things is to "look forward, not back" is right at the top of the list. This is especially true as regards the undeniable fact that, over the course of a decade, a bunch of cheats, thieves, and suited mountebanks stole most of the national economy and then wrecked whatever was left of it. But what's most extraordinary about the whole thing is that, after they swindled their swindles and heisted their heists, and got paid off by the rest of us for having looted our naional economy, they all kept doing the same things they were doing before. These included extravagant bonuses and, of course, continued crimes of capital that ought to be capital crimes.
This is extraordinary. All this Citigroup fraud and thuggery took place after the events of the great meltdown had taken place. This whisteblower's co-workers, instead of checking for fraud or making reports about underwriting defects to the FHA as required, argued with her over the soundness of the loans, she said. Employees who acted as "gatekeepers" applied "what they describe as 'brute force' to pressure Citi's quality control managers" into downplaying defects, according to the government's complaint.
Some colleagues had pay incentives tied to reducing the number of reported problems, and they spent hours trying to get her to relax her warnings, including those about the most basic deficiencies, Hunt said. "They started beating us up over the quality-control reports," she said. Last year, she said, she became convinced she was being asked to look the other way on serious flaws. That's when she decided to become a whistle-blower.
Last year. The more I think about it, the more I believe that we, as a society, gave up on the pillory too soon. And $158.3 million is tip money for CitiGroup.
This is what happens when real punishment for real crimes is considered to be too inconvenient, or too difficult, or too traumatic for the nation, which is made up completely of candyglass children incapable of existing with the knowledge that their financial lords of the universe are really no different from stick-up kids in a bodega. This is what happens when nobody goes to jail. This is what happens today.
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I've notices the same. It looks as though Chase made out like gangbusters from the financial crisis, at everyone else's expense.
I'd rather the banksters got theirs in THIS life rather than in the 'next.'
But that's the way the cookie crumbles.
The US started out with some good first or universal principles. There were some bad ones as well, such as slavery. But the statement "all people are created equal" would have to -- sooner or later -- apply to all people, male and female, all races, all sexual orientations. Well it has been 236 years since that universal principle was written and I don't see that we are anywhere near equality in any sense of the word.
Have you read Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. When the old Jim Crow or racial apartheid laws were no longer viable after the 60s, the racist elite in the US just switched strategies to create a regime of laws that keep African Americans in the same old racist and unjust and unequal conditions.
How long do we have to wait. I prefer Malcolm X's speech "The Ballot or the Bullet." Power never concedes anything peacefully. I don't mean the bullet literally, but I do mean full non-cooperation with the goal of making the horrible and unjust system that runs the US unworkable.
True dat if choice has anything to do with it - and then when FDR had a banking holiday in 1933 and declared US citizens holding gold as enemies of the state - we learned that those with monopoly power of government guns make the rule.
we need a little background on this person, yes?
great article - too short - not enough details.
I started wondering the same thing. He is best known for being a sportswriter, but has written books on other subjects such as Alzheimer's, Hubble telescope, and Ted Kennedy to name a couple. Here's a link to a short (and tongue-in-cheek ) biography on him:
http://www.charlespierce.net/aboutPage
....'Elementary', when you 'properly buy' the legislature, presidency, High Court. and most Major media outlets.....
Welcome to the Outcome of the Reagan Revolution and the eternal, relentless quest for Less and Less and Less and Less and Less and Less and Less Government (of ourselves) through Less and Less and Less and Less and Less and Less Regulation and Taxation (of the Global Corporate Class).., along with and More and More and More and More and More and More Corporate Contracting of Government Functions on all levels into a million bits and useless pieces.
We the People have reduced Ourselves to We the Consumers in what is supposed to be OUR Country.
It was done because clever and cunning Conservatives repeatedly said-- OUR Government is evil, and Illegal Immigrants are robbing us, and Gays are bad, and Welfare Moms are bums, and the Disabled are opportunists, and Iraq needs to be destroyed and rebuilt, and Social security is UnAmerican, Environmentalis ts are whackos, Women's Rights are ridiculous, and those without Health Insurance are stupid, and the homeless are lazy, , and Government spends too much, and the nonexistent liberal media is destroying America, and Jesus is being insulted..., etc..,etc.
HEY..!-- LOOK..!-- Now its 1984 everyday in America Inc..!
This is Amerikkka. The old confederate apartheid south now runs the whole country. The aristocrats in the banking plantation are beyond the law. The rest of us know that if we get even a little outside the lines, we are going to prison.
The American justice system!
"Those that hold the gold rule"???? Which is exactly why democracy was embraced - so every man would be equal. You can write about the money but that is only a sign of the loss of democracy. The game is over. "Those that hold the gold rule."
So where do we go from here?
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