Just for fun, let's round up these yahoos and brake out the tar and feathers!


/wish we had the collective balls to actually do it

downstairs: Weaver95: I can't drive down the f*cking street to work without breaking at least 2 or 3 laws

Huh?

There is almost no law that a police officer cannot bring a person up on charges of - legitimately. Almost anything is illegal SOMEWHERE. It's just making the charges stick that's the problem.

/I say just throw them in a holding pen for 24 hours and tell the regular inmates that the CEOs rape babies and run over grandmas... problem solved.

jjwars1: I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. When bad men walk free something is wrong. It doesn't matter whether or not someone thought to make a rule specific to the situation or not. People should be held accountable for their actions.

They are held accountable. check how much they paid for lobbyist and the bribes ... err donations to congressman and you can see the amount paid.

Weaver95: look - if we let a group of arrogant insiders run billion dollar corporations into the ground then walk away from the flaming wreckage with golden parachutes and go on to their next million dollar an hour jobs without facing any consequences then eventually the people who keep getting screwed over are going to start looking for payback. And if they don't have recourse to satisfaction via the courts, then they're eventually going to just start looking for revenge on their own terms. Don't screw people over and then piss on their heads...not when a lot of the peons in this country are pretty heavily armed.

i'm just sayin that it could happen.

Considering most of these CEOs/companies have the ability to hire out their own heavily trained and armed security forces, or just outright buy the police into their private army - how would you go about this? :p

Meh, what a biased, cherry picking article. Lehman was looking for capital but they thought the prices offered were too low. They saw home prices and mortgage debt prices deteriorating but they didn't think it would get as bad as it did (obviously).

Funny, the people calling lehman criminals because they didn't foresee the financial crisis that killed them would call goldman sachs criminals because they did foresee the crisis and hedged their risk.

Weaver95: And these people aren't in a jail cell...why?

Because they didn't commit any crimes. No matter how angry you are, or how many times you pound your tiny fists of rage into the table screaming for the heads of bankers, you can't prosecute anyone who hasn't committed a crime. And making poor business decisions (orawriting emails in the style of a 12-year old) isn't a crime.

MrDebacle: Their e-mail writing skills appear on par with a typical pre-teen.

Welcome to every workplace in America.

Weaver95: look - if we let a group of arrogant insiders run billion dollar corporations into the ground then walk away from the flaming wreckage with golden parachutes and go on to their next million dollar an hour jobs without facing any consequences then eventually the people who keep getting screwed over are going to start looking for payback. And if they don't have recourse to satisfaction via the courts, then they're eventually going to just start looking for revenge on their own terms. Don't screw people over and then piss on their heads...not when a lot of the peons in this country are pretty heavily armed.

i'm just sayin that it could happen.

Luckily, so far anybody who is stupid enough to think that such a "revenge on their own terms" action is warranted or justified is also apparently too much of a pussy to wipe the cheeto crumbs of his mug, climb out of his mom's basement, and put his revenge fantasies into action.

"in the same breath as LB should go fungoo themselves!!!"

Holy hell, I haven't heard that word in decades.

Weaver95: look - if we let a group of arrogant insiders run billion dollar corporations into the ground then walk away from the flaming wreckage with golden parachutes and go on to their next million dollar an hour jobs without facing any consequences then eventually the people who keep getting screwed over are going to start looking for payback. And if they don't have recourse to satisfaction via the courts, then they're eventually going to just start looking for revenge on their own terms.

I truly, honestly, seriously hope that happens. All it would take is for one or two of these ultra-wealthy, Tuscan-villa-owning bankers to be bludgeoned or shot to death in the street by someone who lost their home or their 401(k), and the malfeasant a-holes on Wall Street would begin to pay attention. Because we've already seen how much they don't fear legal repercussions.

These people run the world, they will not be held accountable because the ones who could hold them accountable are the same type.

Frontline has been doing an investigation into this. Here's a link to the shows.

I watched them when they aired and I'm still shaking my head over what these douchebags not only got a way with, but continue to get away with.

/Line them up and shoot them one by one. It's the only way these guys will understand.

thomps: Debeo Summa Credo: Meh, what a biased, cherry picking article. Lehman was looking for capital but they thought the prices offered were too low. They saw home prices and mortgage debt prices deteriorating but they didn't think it would get as bad as it did (obviously).

Funny, the people calling lehman criminals because they didn't foresee the financial crisis that killed them would call goldman sachs criminals because they did foresee the crisis and hedged their risk.

what about all of the repos they were creating in order to hide their mounting losses for the 3-4 quarters leading up to their final crash? what about them doubling down on their MBS holdings going into the summer of 07 under the assumption that they would be bailed out if things went south?

The repos were them taking advantage of an accounting rule. Not sure if that reaches the level of illegality, after all the repos did comply with GAAP (which has since been changed to close the loophole), but yeah it was a pretty shiatty thing to do.

Doubling down on MBS holdings in 2007? Citation please. In any event, nobody in the financial industy was relying on betting bailed out. The shareholders and senior execs (who held a ton of stock) got crushed in BS, LEH, and AIG.

Crusader: FlashHarry: has anybody gone to jail yet?

THIS. All of the memos, emails, and presentations don't mean a damn thing if no one is held accountable for their actions.

Is gross negligence a criminal offense? Or should Fuld be facing a massive shareholder suit?

You don't even what to know what's going to happen to the unfortunate ones.


they need to be raped raped by rabid burros until they are a quivering pile of shredded flesh

These assholes really screwed up the country and they are going to get away with it? They need a dose of street justice.

/likes rape, in this case

Jackson Herring: sweetmelissa31: Jackson Herring: [goo.gl image 600x446]

One of those barrels of food is inside that dog, intact.

Silly dog, all of those barrels contain cat food

cat fud

I think there were several cats, and he/she/it ate all of them.

Weaver95: look - if we let a group of arrogant insiders run billion dollar corporations into the ground then walk away from the flaming wreckage with golden parachutes and go on to their next million dollar an hour jobs without facing any consequences then eventually the people who keep getting screwed over are going to start looking for payback. And if they don't have recourse to satisfaction via the courts, then they're eventually going to just start looking for revenge on their own terms. Don't screw people over and then piss on their heads...not when a lot of the peons in this country are pretty heavily armed.

i'm just sayin that it could happen.

I'm with you...but think about it. A large percentage of the voters will be perfectly willing to cast a vote in November for one of these arrogant insiders who prides himself on destroying perfectly sound businesses. It's pretty much hopeless. The American people have gotten that dumb.

I love the argument that they have to be paid more than your average nobody since "how will we attract top talent?"

If this is top talent they need better HR.

My high school students sound exactly like this. We shud get A's cause were ausome sauce!!!!!

It occurs to me that if this type of douchebaggery happened in my father's era, he and his like-minded friends would have dragged these a-holes out of their Wall St. offices by their faces and Beat.The.Living.shiat. out of them for their irresponsible behavior. Crimes committed or not. This is partly what made them the "Greatest Generation"

They have to have picked the dumbest shiat they could find out of everything. I mean, I expexted dumb from financial sec. CEOs but goddamn.

I wouldn't team up with someone writing at that level for a doubles game of MtG, much less put them at the helm of the farking global economy.

downstairs: Bio-nic: downstairs: Weaver95: I can't drive down the f*cking street to work without breaking at least 2 or 3 laws

Huh?

There is almost no law that a police officer cannot bring a person up on charges of - legitimately. Almost anything is illegal SOMEWHERE. It's just making the charges stick that's the problem.

/I say just throw them in a holding pen for 24 hours and tell the regular inmates that the CEOs rape babies and run over grandmas... problem solved.

Still not getting it. If I drive just under the speed limit, make complete stops, and always use a signal... what can you get me on? Serious question.

I understand the sheer majority of drivers go 5 over, and cops almost always look the other way until you approach 10-ish over.

I don't though (because by and large, our ancient streets aren't too safe to speed on).

Have some dirt on your plate? Driving with an obscured tag.
Driving below the speed limit under "normal" conditions? Checking for the safety of the drivers.
Driving at night? Checking for impairment.

It doesn't matter if it's LEGAL - it's a JUSTIFICATION.

elffster: These assholes really screwed up the country and they are going to get away with it?

Yes. Yes they are.

If the angry shouts of the mob get so loud that someone's head is going to roll, they will throw some middle manager scapegoat out and that will be the end of it. We will never get any meaningful reform out of the financial sector because Socialism.

schief2: [img716.imageshack.us image 640x480]

According to Google: 呆氣

thomps: Debeo Summa Credo: The repos were them taking advantage of an accounting rule. Not sure if that reaches the level of illegality, after all the repos did comply with GAAP (which has since been changed to close the loophole), but yeah it was a pretty shiatty thing to do.

the repos did not comply with GAAP, they were determined to have been created solely for the purpose of manipulating financial information. and senior executives were aware of this because one of their VPs blew the whistle on the practice to both them and their auditors but was ignored.

Then why did the FASB change sale accounting rules to eliminate the excess collateral loophole that Lehman used? Why did their auditors sign off on it? It's high hurdle to reach criminality when your financials technically comply with GAAP.

Debeo Summa Credo: Doubling down on MBS holdings in 2007? Citation please.

my citation is the valukas report, which gives multiple citations for instances where Fuld expressed a sincere belief that the government would step in to help lehman were things to go south, so the upside potential of the market recovering outweighed the potential collapse.

Fuld may have expected a similar Bear Stearns like bailout for Lehman, but are you telling me that they were actually going LONG RMBS in 2008 or 2008? The Bear Stearns bailout went pretty shiattily for senior management, their stock price dropped by 90% or something and they lost their jobs. Even if he did expect a governmental bailout that would protect his creditors, Fuld wouldn't have taken on additional risk that would increase the likelyhood of that bailout that would have been professionally and economically catastrophic for him anyway.

So basically these companies are populated by frat boys? Kinda what I thought.

timujin: Serious Black: FlashHarry: has anybody gone to jail yet?

personally, i think the justice dept should go after some of these CEOs and CFOs for multiple-count grand theft and seek triple-digit sentences.

Unfortunately, as Aasif Mandvi pointed out on TDS last week, you can't get convicted of a crime for something that isn't illegal.

Isn't fraud illegal?

Not for the past few years. SCOTUS ruled that it was unconstitutional to convict Jeff Skilling of "depriving shareholders of honest efforts" or something similar (Enron crook)

So. Vote republican and appoint more criminals to the bench

Rent it. Watch it. Weep.

Magnanimous_J: elffster: These assholes really screwed up the country and they are going to get away with it?

Yes. Yes they are.

If the angry shouts of the mob get so loud that someone's head is going to roll, they will throw some middle manager scapegoat out and that will be the end of it. We will never get any meaningful reform out of the financial sector because Socialism.

If they were gonna toss out a sacrificial lamb the woulda done it at the height of the occ protests. For whatever reason, TPTB are feeling more bludgeon-y than conciliatory.

Someone at least managed to punch Fuld in the face right after LB bancruptcy announced.

Bio-nic: downstairs: Bio-nic: downstairs: Weaver95: I can't drive down the f*cking street to work without breaking at least 2 or 3 laws

Huh?

There is almost no law that a police officer cannot bring a person up on charges of - legitimately. Almost anything is illegal SOMEWHERE. It's just making the charges stick that's the problem.

/I say just throw them in a holding pen for 24 hours and tell the regular inmates that the CEOs rape babies and run over grandmas... problem solved.

Still not getting it. If I drive just under the speed limit, make complete stops, and always use a signal... what can you get me on? Serious question.

I understand the sheer majority of drivers go 5 over, and cops almost always look the other way until you approach 10-ish over.

I don't though (because by and large, our ancient streets aren't too safe to speed on).

Have some dirt on your plate? Driving with an obscured tag.
Driving below the speed limit under "normal" conditions? Checking for the safety of the drivers.
Driving at night? Checking for impairment.

It doesn't matter if it's LEGAL - it's a JUSTIFICATION.

Oh, you can think of more than that.

How about having a sticker on your window?
How about having an unrepaired ding on your car?
How about having insufficient tread on your tires?
Did you start using your turn signal at least 500 feet before the intersection?

A couple of decades ago, Minneapolis cops started randomly stopping black drivers to check IDs. The Minnesota Supreme Court said not to do it. So they started citing black drivers for anything they could think of, and letting them go with a warning if they weren't wanted or carrying drugs. Some reporter made a list of everything people were being stopped for. The one I remember the best was having too many mirrors on the car, but all the ones I listed were used too.

well.


is everyone happy....being a serf? i hope at some point we wake up and realize what is happening.

Weaver95: And these people aren't in a jail cell...why?

They're all filled with OWS protesters.

bionicjoe: Debeo Summa Credo: Because they didn't commit any crimes. No matter how angry you are, or how many times you pound your tiny fists of rage into the table screaming for the heads of bankers, you can't prosecute anyone who hasn't committed a crime. And making poor business decisions (orawriting emails in the style of a 12-year old) isn't a crime.

If the represented financial products that were risky as A+ there are still some regulations for securities fraud. There are also some grounds for just outright fraud.

Not if they really thought these were good assets. These banks didn't go under because they sold all their risky assets. They went under because they held on to risk that bit them in the ass. Why did they hold on to it? Because they thought they were good assets.

The really amazing cases are the banks that were outsourcing mortgage documents to 'signing warehouses.' People were paid $6 an hour to sign mortgage & bank officer names to documents. Boxes and boxes of mortgages and financial papers signed by temp workers in rented office space.
I know different subject, but related.

This is a technical point and bad practice, but I really don't see any reason for outrage. 99.99% of people being foreclosed upon were being foreclosed upon because they were many months behind on their mortgage. Who cares whether a $6 per hour clerk signed the docs rather than a lawyer. And the other .01% should be made whole. Maybe its because I' live in the northeast where liberal laws make it very difficult to foreclose, but I just can't see a situation where someone who is current on their mortgage could actually get kicked out of their house. The law gives mortgagors a half dozen chances to go to court to get things straigtened out before foreclosing.

A few luckily people have been foreclosed upon only to find that the bank can't figure out who owns what because there a papers signed by *BANK NAME HERE* (not kidding. It really says that). These people may live in their homes for free for decades.

The bank probably knows who owns it because the mortgage payments were being sent to pools to pay off certain RMBS bonds that were held by investors (401ks, insurers, pensions), but they don't have the legal documentation to prove it in court, so the RMBS bond suffers.

So those 'lucky people' are stealing.

thomps: Debeo Summa Credo: Then why did the FASB change sale accounting rules to eliminate the excess collateral loophole that Lehman used? Why did their auditors sign off on it? It's high hurdle to reach criminality when your financials technically comply with GAAP.

well we'll see, the SEC started investigating the repo 105 treatment after its use at lehman was exposed, and E&Y is currently facing fraud charges from the NYAG over its assistance in lehman's use of it.

Okay. Interesting about fraud charges for E&Y.


Debeo Summa Credo: Fuld may have expected a similar Bear Stearns like bailout for Lehman, but are you telling me that they were actually going LONG RMBS in 2008 or 2008? The Bear Stearns bailout went pretty shiattily for senior management, their stock price dropped by 90% or something and they lost their jobs. Even if he did expect a governmental bailout that would protect his creditors, Fuld wouldn't have taken on additional risk that would increase the likelyhood of that bailout that would have been professionally and economically catastrophic for him anyway.

i'm almost positive that they did continue to go long MBS post-bear. fuld was super optimistic about a recovery. he wasn't banking on a bailout as a preferred exit but saw it as a great safety net as he worked on other capitalization avenues.

Alright, I'd be shocked if it were so.