Holder Admits: "Too Big To Fail, To Big To Jail"

[Matthanuf06]

Originally Posted by Row6

Correct. Why haven't there been any criminal prosecutions? I DK the answer but I'm asking.

Last I checked Madoff is in jail. There is nothing criminal about selling an investment that goes down.

[Matthanuf06]

If you have investments you'd know that a good chunk of what most people want to do is buy low and sell high.

But if you successfully execute that, then by definition that means someone else is buying high and selling low.

Is that fraud?

[108]

Originally Posted by Matthanuf06

What do you mean crap? I really don't think you understand how it works.

no, i get how it works

i think you are just playing dumb for the sake of deflecting any responsibility to the private sector

private sector = good and can do no harm
public sector = bad, but only when a D is in charge

your bunch wants to blame a community investment initiative by Clinton that has been shown to have little impact on the crash, but give Bush admin a free pass for actually preventing states from stopping predatory lending, while stating that the private sector was just "business doing business"

nobody was culpable, yet a house of cards came crumbling down, massive wealth lost, ending in the biggest recession since the Great Depression

right

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Originally Posted by Matthanuf06

If you have investments you'd know that a good chunk of what most people want to do is buy low and sell high.

But if you successfully execute that, then by definition that means someone else is buying high and selling low.

Is that fraud?

Like I said, this is 99.9999% of business.

If you knew (or felt confident) something would gain in value, you would not sell it. Something that is sold with "low risk" does not mean "no risk." Even if something has a AAA rating, there exists a real and inevitable chance that such an investment will fail. Even if you believe something will lose value soon, you are not bound to sell it at your perceived value. Again, "everything is worth what the purchaser will pay for it."

Now if there is documented collusion between the rating agency and the bank, that's a problem - but moreso for the agency than for the bank. If there was insider info that led to dumping these assets, that too would be a problem, one which the SEC would quickly be involved in. But there isn't much evidence of the latter and the DOJ is acting on the former. Everything else is just speculative, emotional or banking on the ambiguous "well someone might consider it fraud!"

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Originally Posted by 108

nobody was culpable, yet a house of cards came crumbling down, massive wealth lost, ending in the biggest recession since the Great Depression

right

It's not that "nobody" was culpable, it's that almost everyone was culpable in some minor way. And moreso, what they were individually culpable for was not a crime. So ...

We can be mad at them. We can be mad at the system. We can be mad at ourselves, the government, capitalism, etc. But this was the velocity of business, amplified to such levels as to put our entire economy at risk. But that isn't a crime. It isn't a crime when your local pizza place blows it and the company goes under. It doesn't suddenly become one just because of scope.

your bunch wants to blame a community investment initiative by Clinton that has been shown to have little impact on the crash, but give Bush admin a free pass for actually preventing states from stopping predatory lending, while stating that the private sector was just "business doing business"

I don't cop to either of these claims, btw.

[Row6]

Originally Posted by Matthanuf06

So? They shouldn't sell their inventory?

1 Not by using fraud.
2 They were brokers. They didn't have "inventory" taking up shelf space.

[Row6]

Originally Posted by Matthanuf06

Last I checked Madoff is in jail. There is nothing criminal about selling an investment that goes down.

Oh I didn't know that since madoff went to jail he purged all the sins of whoever was left on WS.

Am I talking to a brick wall? The issue i have described is not simply selling an investment that lost money but fraudulently representing it to be something it wasn't to clients who placed their trust in the supposed expertise and honesty of the seller. I'm not going to keep painting the same picture for you over and over. This is not a difficult concept.

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Which person fraudulently represented what to whom? Give me some people. Give me the terms that represent fraud. That won't happen.

What happened is the same packaged debts that had been selling at great profit for more than a decade bottomed out. It isn't fraud just because you're at the tail end of the ride. Fraud isn't hot potato.

[Row6]

Originally Posted by orangeblueorangeblue

Which person fraudulently represented what to whom? Give me some people. Give me the terms that represent fraud. That won't happen.

What happened is the same packaged debts that had been selling at great profit for more than a decade bottomed out. It isn't fraud just because you're at the tail end of the ride. Fraud isn't hot potato.

Goldman paid 1/2 billion in fines/ Tourre is up on civil charges.

For the last f..ing time, these were not good invetsments gone bad but bad investments brokered by guys to their "clients" who knew that and were making money on selling them short.

I don't mind disagreement on issues but repeated mistating of my points is an indication of denseness or dishonesty and I'm done explaining a fairly simple concept to you over and over.

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Repeating your erroneous "simple concept" over and over does not make it less erroneous.

[Row6]

Originally Posted by orangeblueorangeblue

Repeating your erroneous "simple concept" over and over does not make it less erroneous.

That may be, but lacking any intelligent objection, it remains to be demonstrated.

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Originally Posted by Row6

That may be, but lacking any intelligent objection, it remains to be demonstrated.

It's been demonstrated to you over and over again.

A person + A crime = arrest.

Institution + business != arrest.

Per (part of) your example, Goldman Sachs' most recent fines came from a lack of institutional control for a specific trader. That trader has been charged with a crime. Why? Because that trader did something illegal that can be pinpointed.

[108]

Originally Posted by orangeblueorangeblue

It's not that "nobody" was culpable, it's that almost everyone was culpable in some minor way. And moreso, what they were individually culpable for was not a crime. So ...

We can be mad at them. We can be mad at the system. We can be mad at ourselves, the government, capitalism, etc. But this was the velocity of business, amplified to such levels as to put our entire economy at risk. But that isn't a crime. It isn't a crime when your local pizza place blows it and the company goes under. It doesn't suddenly become one just because of scope.



I don't cop to either of these claims, btw.

agree to disagree

i think everyone was culpable in a "major" way....including the federal government giving shelter

[108]

yup no wrong was done here.....or we just don't know about it because the FDIC has been keeping a lid on it through "no press release" clauses via settlements, getting a fraction of the total losses

government watchdogs still looking out for the crooks

Link

Under the Freedom of Information Act, The Times obtained more than 1,600 pages of FDIC settlements, made from 2007 through this year with former bank insiders and others accused of wrongdoing. The agreements constitute a catalog of fraud and negligence: reckless loans to homeowners and builders; falsified documents; inflated appraisals; lender refusals to buy back bad loans.

Defendants benefit by settling because they can avoid admitting guilt and limit the damages they might face in court. The FDIC benefits by collecting money without the hassle and expense of litigation. The no-press-release arrangements help close those deals.

Critics describe the FDIC's current practice of low-profile deal-making as a major departure from the S&L crisis.

"In the old days, the regulators made it a point to embarrass everyone, to call attention to their role in bank failures," said former bank examiner Richard Newsom, who specialized in insider-abuse cases for the FDIC in the aftermath of the S&L debacle. The goal was simple: "to make other bankers scared."

Newsom said he couldn't understand the shift, unless the agency doesn't "want people to know how little they are settling for."

[HALLGATOR]

I've read that some of the very things which lead up to Wall Streets part in the last debacle are back in play again.

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Originally Posted by 108

yup no wrong was done here.....

This is not necessarily what anyone is saying.

[108]

Originally Posted by orangeblueorangeblue

This is not necessarily what anyone is saying.

what are you necessarily saying?

ive confused at this point by your level of obtuseness

[Itssaul]

Originally Posted by 108

what are you necessarily saying?

ive confused at this point by your level of obtuseness

Wrong but not a crime.

[108]

Originally Posted by Itssaul

Wrong but not a crime.

so your take is that the above link i posted about many institutions settling instead of letting it go to trial, is because they did "wrong but no crime"

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Originally Posted by 108

what are you necessarily saying?

ive confused at this point by your level of obtuseness

You've confused?

The point (from early on) is there must be:

1. A person
2. A crime

Ranting about things that are not crimes nor attributable to any specific purpose is a silly, emotional argument.