By TRB
Remember the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980s and 1990s? That was when half of the savings and loan associations around the country suddenly closed their doors. It seems they had been committing accounting fraud for years and it had finally caught up with them. On the whole this case of banking fraud, which was considered "massive" at the time, cost the U.S. taxpayers approximately $87 billion total.
People were outraged, especially politicians, who were, for the most part, not being financed by the banking system as they are today. They are, in fact, owned by the banks today. That is not an exaggeration or a political opinion. It is an observation based on the facts as reported to federal election regulators. The facts are this: The banking and financial industry paid for the election campaigns of most of the Republicans and some of the Democrats. When it wasn't banking it was insurance companies, with heavy ties to banks.
Still, lets take a moment to remember what happened back during the Savings and Loans scandal. First off, a lot of bankers were arrested and jailed, thousands, in fact. Charles Keating who was the chief of the nation's savings and loans associations went to jail for 10 years. Over 1800 savings and loans officials were charged with accounting fraud. Half of them went to jail. Over 2500 bankers went to jail. All of this over $87 billion. In the past several years we have seen banking and other types of financial fraud ruin our economy. We know who did it, we know who is criminally responsible for costing the U.S. taxpayer trillions of dollars.
And guess what? There has not been one arrest.
This is why Eric Holder, who has failed to indict the big cases that led to the financial meltdown of 2010, has to step down. He has sworn to do his duty to protect the citizens against the bad guys. That is the most important duty he has. And he has failed miserably.
And this isn't anything new. It was also the case in the Bush Administration. In 2005 when Fannie Mac was caught with its hand in the till, no one was indicted. AIG was caught stealing a few years later. No indictments. Then it was Goldman Sachs and all of these trumped up "AAA mortgages" still no indictments. Finally,the financial bust that rocked the U.S. and the world, most if not all of it caused by criminal fraud. No indictments.
By the standards of only a few decades ago, thousands of bankers should be either on trial or sitting in prison cells right at this very moment. But Nada. What has changed? What seems to have immunized banks and investment houses from government regulation and criminal law? First, we have to understand the primary law that has been broken - something everyone can agree upon.
Accounting fraud is the specific crime. Fraud occurs when someone knowingly - and sometimes unknowingly - sells a thing that is not what the seller claimed it was. For the purpose of the indictments that AG Holder should have issued a year ago, the "thing" sold was financial instruments, most of it "bad paper," failed mortgages and the like, and rating all this garbage as triple A, i.e., a good investment. And the sellers knew damn well the paper was bad.
The banks and other thieves took their bogus bonds to pension funds all over the country and sold them to those funds through misrepresentation of their value. They committed felony financial fraud when they did this. And it was discovered that they did this by the federal government who is in possession of documents proving that these crimes were committed. And yet, AG Holder has not issued an indictment. Everyone knows Pres. Obama put him in the AG position, just as it's a matter of public record that Barack Obama is virtually owned by the banks who practically financed his presidential campaign.
So we've got a banker for a president and one for attorney general. Couldn't someone in Congress open an investigation in these matters? Someone has; a rather off-beat Republican from California by the name of Darrell Issa, a congressman who heads one of the banking and finance congressional commissions in the House. Issa wants to talk first to officials at the Bank of America. Those officials, according to Issa, were running a mortgage company just for their close friends. Pals like former Sen. Chris Dodd (D) Conn., who at one time was head of a Senate committee involved in oversight of banks.
These so-called "mortgages" were extremely inexpensive, amounting to what Issa has called "an unofficial bribing system." this "system," and other scams like the B of A mortgage program have apparently taken control of Congress on both sides of the aisle. So the fraud is not being prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department. Consequently, the fraud has not stopped. And most in Congress, who directly benefit from this fraud are looking the other way.
Now we see the President's loan modification program, which Obama left up to his pals, the bankers, to run, is more of a scam than anything else. People who choose to become involved in this program, which was supposed to save their foreclosed homes while they continued to make modified payments and the banks came up with a lower fixed-rate interest mortgage they could afford, are finding themselves out on the street, foreclosed after the bank has sucked every last bit of spare change it could out of them.
We see that banks are not making as many loans, even to people of good credit. They have no need to make loans in the U.S. neighborhoods where they reside. Why bother when they can play the game on Wall Street with the savings of their customers or invest in risky commercial ventures overseas? No one from the U.S. government is looking over their shoulders.
And even when they do get caught with their hands in the cookie jar, they can look forward to the "punishment" of a government fine that might not even be as large as the bonuses they're giving to their executives that year.
Either way, we are in a banking "Dodge City" at the present time. And if something isn't done to change it soon, our next Depression may be our last. Obama should ask AG Eric Holder to step down. He should find another attorney general who cares enough about this country to clean up its criminal banking system.
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