Arresting the former CEOs of Countrywide, Indymac, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, WaMu, First Federal and so many more should be included in the Hank Paulson Goldman Sachs Bailout Bill of 2008.
Arrest them. Sue them. Fine them. Make them plea.
This will happen HP'ers, it's only a question of when. Just like Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers before them, the likes of Angelo Mozilo and Michael Perry will eventually be brought to justice. And they will pay. And with a little luck, so will Chris Dodd too.
Sue Them, Jail Them, Make Them Pay for Meltdown
Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- As it stands, the rest of us will be paying much money over a long time for the greed and bad judgment of those who melted down the economy.
Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars are propping up firms that a relative few money lenders and Wall Street wizards ruined.
The real kick in the teeth is that the executives who inflicted all this financial pain, who forced unprecedented government takeovers, walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars. It's up to us -- innocent little us -- to dig into our pockets, into our futures and into our children's futures to fix their spectacular errors.
Stanley O'Neal took a $161 million package last year when he left Merrill Lynch & Co. (remember Merrill Lynch?), even without a severance package in the mix. Angelo Mozilo, founder and top executive at Countrywide Financial Corp., reaped almost $122 million during 2007 in stock options alone.
For a mere three months at the helm of American International Group Inc., Chief Executive Officer Robert Willumstad gets a $7 million package.
Toss the rascals in jail. Criminal prosecution allows the government to seize ill-gotten gains. Snip the straps off those golden parachutes and grab them. Take over bank accounts, investment accounts, mansions, private planes and yachts.
September 22, 2008
The taxpayers will be out trillions. The REIC CEO's pocketed hundreds of millions. Time to jail the bastards,and go after their ill-gotten gains
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/fury-at-25bn-bonus-for-lehmans-new-york-staff-937560.html
Up to 10,000 staff at the New York office of the bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers will share a bonus pool set aside for them that is worth $2.5bn (£1.4bn), Barclays Bank, which is buying the business, confirmed last night.
Divided equally, that's $250,000 per person.I have to laugh at this. If i don't I'm going to go and start shooting these bastards.. LMAO..Set aside .5 billion for bonuses before you file for bankruptcy.
And they put people in jail for smoking pot..
What about arresting the millions of people who got a heloc for $100K and then bought a BMW and took a trip to Fiji and never paid it back?
Oh but I forgot those people no longer matter to Keith. It's all blame Wall St now. Nice flip flop there dude. Anything to get Obama elected I suppose.
Yes - I believe all mortgages taken out from 2003 - 2007 should be checked against IRS tax returns, and all cases of mortgage fraud prosecuted.
The problem? The fraudsters likely spent the money, or have assets worth far less than they paid. So what's the penalty? At a minimum, a blotch on their credit record so that they can't take out fraudulent loans again.
Casey Serin still walks the earth a free man. 'Nuff said.
Arrest 'em all.
But that entails having a functioning Justice department, which we don't have under Bush.
Keith,
But my bigger point is all of a sudden you are shifting the blame. The root cause of this was Casey Serins buying 5 houses with $0. The banks were stupid for lending the money, but ultimately nobody forced Casey or anyone else to do what they did.
I'm 100% against this bailout of banks. But I think your anger is misplaced at Wall St to be honest. It's almost like punishing the parents because their 16 year old kid did something stupid. Yes the parents knew better and should have controlled the kid better. But at the end of the day, everyone is responsible for their own actions. And had millions of people not bought $800K homes earning $40K, none of this mess would have happened...Wall St or no Wall St
And this perpetual Bush blame is getting old. Yes he's been a fuck up. But blaming EVERYTHING that happens in the world at his feet is ridiculous.
From Ny Times:
"Democrats said the plan would need to provide more specific relief for troubled homeowners."
Translation: we want the government to pay everyone's mortgage and continue keeping home prices insanely high. Anyone who is a renter and a Democrat is a fool.
"Take over bank accounts, investment accounts, mansions, private planes and yachts." They do it to small-time drug dealers, and even to those dealers' GRANDMOTHERS. And those folks are just small-time crooks compared to these Wall Street megacriminals.
Enough bluster. Build a case. In the past, you've said Sarbanes Oxley could be used, and you've mentioned mortgage fraud. What other laws may have been violated? Shareholders can doubtless sue. In the likely case the gummint lets us down, could some sort of civil case or class action suit be brought?
Knowingly authorizing, encouraging and enabling mortgage fraud.
Pure and simple.
Anyone at any lender who engaged in "liars loans" is suspect.
The amount of charges filed against Mozilo and Perry will amaze all of us. And yes, they'll be coming soon. Before the election. It hath been foretold.
I'd live on a yacht!
You forgot to mention Bushco and Cheneyburton. They need to be lumped in with 'the rest' of the alleged perpetrators.
Punish to the fullest extent allowable...
The financial house is crashing down around everyone's heads, and all the morning news shows are talking about is last night's Emmys and what Brooke Shields wore!
OMG - sheeeple indeed! This country was a ripe, rottening, fat, succulent peach dangling from the tree, ripe for the picking. We got picked, Suckas!
keith said...
Yes - I believe all mortgages taken out from 2003 - 2007 should be checked against IRS tax returns, and all cases of mortgage fraud prosecuted.
The problem? The fraudsters likely spent the money, or have assets worth far less than they paid.
=====================================
And therein lies the IRS's Achilles heal. The IRS's only tool to collect money is fear and intimidation. Take away that fear, and the IRS is powerless.
I have a distant relative who hasn't paid taxes in close to thirty damn years. His work moves him around a lot; he works for smaller companies (apparently that has something to do with how quickly you are sucked back into "the system,") and quits with the first wage garnish.
He has no bank or checking account, owns a twenty-year-old pos pick-up (usually drives company vehicles, with company gas card,) rents nice places, WHEN the company isn't putting him up in a hotel at company expense. He readily admits that he expects to work until the day he dies, and doesn’t care.
The one time he wound up in jail, (contempt for not paying back taxes and fees that he agreed to at a previous hearing,) the SOB wound up getting over $24,000 in free dental work!
In short, he owes several tax departments (Federal and state) a lot of money, he's not afraid of jail, and has no tangible assets to seize, and is therefore the IRS's worst nightmare!
The IRS only wants your money, and like any collection agency, they want to spend the least amount of time and effort to get it.
What's the biggest thing the IRS can seize. "Oh I dunno......I guess your house. Oh..... you say you've lost the house to foreclosure, have no job, no Hummer, and no assets we can seize, (DAMN, I hope that isn't contagious)
No, lying on your mortgage application is meaningless. There's no money to come after, and the IRS would go in the hole trying. Now multiply that by the millions of lying, foreclosed on, ARM-loving sheeple!
I sometimes wonder which one of us is REALLY the fool, him or me!
.
The financial house is crashing down around everyone's heads,
-------
Not really. Today I got up, went to work. Traffic was hellish as always meaning everyone else on their way to work.
This afternoon I will go out to lunch and buy my regular $7 sandwich. The restaurant will be packed with people doing the same. Meaning everyone else has money to spend on an overpriced sandwich that could be made at home for $1.50 worth of groceries.
Tonight I will drive home again, same hellish traffic.
This weekend I am going to a football game. I will also go buy some groceries and I need an oil change. If the weather's good I'll play a round of golf.
Mundane shit, I know. Point is my life today is no different than it was before this made-for-TV CRISIS happened. And I suspect for 99% of people that's also the case.
You have all fallen for the great swindle. Oh no, the sky is falling, let's give banks $700 billion, ASAP.
You have all been taken for fools.
Contact your Congressman and let him/her know that homeowners who were misled by their mortgage company to buy a home they could not afford deserve to have a mortgage that reflects their current ability to pay. For example, I bought a townhouse for an outlandish price, and now, I believe that my mortgage should be written down to 225K to 275K because that is how much I can afford.
Also, my credit card debt, student loan debt and personal loan debt all should be written down to a much more "financially manageable level".
Contact your Congressman today. Let's make this happen folks!
"Arresting the former CEOs of Countrywide, Indymac, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, WaMu, First Federal and so many more should be included in the Hank Paulson Goldman Sachs Bailout Bill of 2008."
I thinks that's a bill of attainder. You can't do that.
Anon 12:10
Yes, that must be it - Democrats are baaaaad.
Gimme a break.
Do you actually know any of the finer points of Paulson's plan, or are you just gurning at the moon?
For one, it gives Paulson, and only Paulson, absolute power to decide who does and doesn't get a bailout - in other words, he gets to be King. There's no legal recourse - he's put that in the bill, and it also gives him full - and non-recourse - authority to act as the head of the current WH administration.
His basic plan is to buy all that 'bad' debt from the banks, at whatever price they ask for - and create an RTC-like institution to hold, and eventually sell all that bad paper.
If the banks don't want to sell at off 'under value'? No problem, Paulson will just keep on raising the price until the deal's sweet enough for them to swallow.
What if no one actually wants to buy all that toxic sludge? No problem!
Now its off the books of the financial institutions - they couldn't care less. Now that they've been given pretty much the price they want for worthless paper, its business as usual - and even better - they don't have to change any of their practices!
Yay!
Paulson's writhing about provisions for cutting compensation for the CEOs and doesn't want any other than the very biggest financial institutions to get a handout.
Oh, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley just turned themselves into holding companies and commercial banks. Why? Because they can then get a share of the bailout, and can also raise bonds...
So, yeah, naughty Dems (and a few Repubs too), for blinking and taking a breath before signing our grandkids inheritance away - no matter how loudly Paulson whines about slowly they're doing it.
Remember the wonderful Patriot Act - you know, the warrentless wiretapping clusterf**k shoved on us after 9/11? This bailout is being ramraided through with the same speed and oversight as that little doozy. And as much blame for not juming high enough, and as much pressure not to look at the fine print before signing.
'You have all been taken for fools.'
That would include you, since the taxes to pay for this 'rescue' will affect all.
Question for the renters:
knowing what you know now, would you go back to 2005 and buy a house with $0 down using a ninja loan?
the answer of course is yes. you would have lived in a fabulous house for 3 years, paying the equivalent of rent on a crappy apartment
and now you would either walk away having lost $0, or wait for the bailout to continue subsidizing your lifestyle
either way, you all have to finally admit that the FBs you have been mocking for years turned out to be the smart ones
Welcome to the Age of Republicanism! How naive of you to think that anyone will want to punish the rich guys for this.
Just look at the second post. There's a person who DEFENDS the Wall Street crooks and want to go after the little guy. After all, the rich create JOBS!
That's why the conservative scum is trying to blame this whole mess on Clinton, Carter and the Community Reinvestment Act. See, brainstems WORSHIP the rich and HATE the poor. These brainstem conservatives are once again trying to blame the poor.
Can't wait to see the brainstems' kids suffer for this. The little brainstems' future is surely clouded by this step towards American bankruptcy.
Don't forget to vote for republicans in November, brainstems!
Hang 'em High Theme:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXEbXlTlfHg
"you would have lived in a fabulous house for 3 years, paying the equivalent of rent on a crappy apartment"
Clearly false.
Okay, so these clowns exercised bad - malign - judgement, and in so doing reaped enormous personal rewards. No argument there.
But what exactly is it that O'Neal, Mozilo, et al did that warrants criminal prosecution? What laws are they guilty of violating? Can it be proven that they took some specific action or made some judgement that constituted criminal fraud?
Look, I don't like these guys any more than you do. And the fact that they earned hundreds of millions of dollars for making some - in retrospect - spectacularly bad decisions, and saying some patently foolish things (Mozilo's "lets get rid of down payments" comes to mind) cpahs my ass, too. But, unfortunately, bad judgement or foolishness don't necessarily constitute criminal acts. If that were the case, how about prosecuting the thousands of home buyers who knowingly signed papers to obtain mortgages they knew - or should have reasonably known - that they couldn't afford? Or the millions of consumers who financed their "lifestyles" by applying for - and using - multiple credit card accounts?
The real problem with this whole imbroglio is that no one - not the political leadership, not the two major parties, not the present administration, not their predecessors, not the corporate leadership, not the banks, nor the mortgage companies - and not even consumers - comes out looking innocent and free of blame. If criminality can be exposed and proven (and some did occur, to be sure), then it should be prosecuted fully. But your outrage, though not unjustified, should be more carefully focused, and your blind, angry populism is just another manifestation of the kind of bad judgement that got us all into this mess in the first place.
I don't like Mozilo any more than you, Keith, and I think O'Neil and a lot of other Wall STteet execs were blind bozos who did't reallly have any idea what was happening during their watch. But if Americans want somebody to blame for this catastrophe, they should start by looking in the mirror.
RE: "Just like Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers before them, the likes of Angelo Mozilo and Michael Perry will eventually be brought to justice."
This is the funniest thing I've read this morning. It's a laugh riot!
"And they will pay."
Stop! Enough already! You're killing me!
I'm laughing so hard I'm about to bust a gut!
V.L.
Laughing.....
Arrest them, sue them, etc, lol...
Good one Keith, man you've been away too long....
The only way folks like these will EVER pay, is if the American people start gunning them down in the streets.
What we need here in the States is a rendition of the French revolution.
"Time to jail the bastards,and go after their ill-gotten gains"
Let's start with Goldman Sachs and their 'alumni' in key government positions.
Has GS 'suddenly' acquired an explicit federal guarantee on their survival?
I've been calling every Senator I can think of and telling them to vote no to "the TARP act to make Paulson king of America"
Go here and make some calls:
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
I've been asking and they say they are getting LOTS of calls telling them to pass on this BS.
GT Charlie
RICO the MFers!
The SEC is OWNED by the Wall Street elite and the US Justice Department has been CASTRATED.
This MUST be initiated at the grass roots level!
Keith, I don't think any of the Wall Street insiders who palmed off billions of dollars of bad paper on the investing public worldwide will see the inside of a jail cell. Nor will the millions of small fry home owners who sold at prices that would otherwise have been unobtainable, real estate dealers, home improvement contractors and all the rest who benefitted so greatly from the infatuation with housing suffer any hardships. In a matter of a few days a supposedly doctrinaire "conservative" political administration has basically socialized the losses of speculation after the private sector has enjoyed the benefits. The only debate in the Congress will be over a few of the details. Notably absent from the whole process was the great "decider" himself, George W. Bush. When the crunch came, it was the appointed officials, Paulson and Bernanake, along with the permanent government of Civil Servants who drew up the plans and will execute the design.
If the weather's good I'll play a round of golf.
you livin good dude i cant afford a golf ball let along a golf game
people loose their houses in the milions now
this is a crisis
you cant see the crisis cuz you have money
wake up and see the milions who dont have money or a 7 dollars sandwich
Fully support jailing those bastards, but it ain't gonna happen.
In response to the wingnut talking point that the financial meltdown is the Democrat's fault - that the CRA forced banks to make shifty loans to people who couldn't pay said loans back (and in your head, what skin color do those people have, BTW? Uh-huh. Thought so.), here are some facts:
A study of CRA loans shows:
1. CRA loans constituted only 23% of all loans and 9.2% of high-cost loans.
2. CRA loans were twice as likely to be retained in the originating bank’s portfolio than loans made by other institutions.
3. CRA loans were less likely to be foreclosed upon than other loans.
After reading this blog for the last several years, I must confess that Honica's posts seem to becoming increasingly relevant.
The Corrupt Lending Machine that created the corrupt real estate bubble was the most evil .The public will always go the way the machine wants them to go .
Sure the liar loan borrowers committed fraud with their liar loans
and their corrupt lender partners
paved the way for them to do it .
If you help a dummy commit a crime ,and than convince them that they can afford it by refinance or selling ,than you are the more evil . The market makers sold real estate as a investment that you lie on your loan application to get in on it ,but no worries because we will approve your loan .
I believe that the greedy loan borrowers and speculators and flippers who bought into the scheme are also crooks that need to be punished ,but the party that gave that borrower the means to commit that crime is even a greater crime .
So both need to be punished ,because there is no excuse for either parties, lender or borrowers, in a commissions of a crime . You might say that the real victims are the loan investors who were deceived into believing that AAA
ratings meant that the loans were underwritten ,when that duty was breached . Had the lenders told the investors that the junk they were buying was F paper ,the investors would not of provided the money ,or they would of wanted 50% down and a higher rate for a loan like that . So what evil part did the credit agencies play in the scheme . Wall Street
changing their models of risk,and increasing their models of leverage ,just so they could get a AAA rating was the big lie .
If a party does something to produce a scheme on the public ,than they are the more quilty party .
If you look at case law ,the criminal system tends to punish more the ring-leader ,or the master mind of the crime or scheme ,or the party that provided the gun .
The lenders are getting it handed to them by walk-a-ways on no-recourse loans . Many of those people were the liar loan borrowers . The banks could go after them ,but by the same token they would have to go after the loan agent involved and maybe even the realtor involved in the transaction .
That is why the lenders want the government to just take this toxic waste criminal fraudulent crap loans off their hands and obstruct Justice and not make the crimes a issue by any parties involved in any one loan .
The NEW Bail Out proposal would be the biggest Obstruction of Justice on Financial crimes in the history of this Country . The real liable parties and bad faith parties would avoid penalty weather it be the lender,the borrowers ,or the real estate scum who set up the deal ,or the appraiser that was blackmailed into hitting the mark,or the loan agent that knowingly submitted fraudulent papers or helped make them up .
I think this obstruction of Justice and than further to reward the criminals is one of the biggest pissers about this way the powers are handling this loan crime wave .
All laws where set in place as to how to handle situations like this . But ,because it was so big and so widespread ,and it would mean that big powerful rich people and lender firms would have liability ,it had to be pushed under the carpet, rather than the rightful legal remedy . This is really rotten .
"...your anger is misplaced at Wall St...at the end of the day, everyone is responsible for their own actions..."
How could we blame the most sophisticated financiers in the world, when the fault clearly lies with the greedy rubes?
A VERY CLOSE RELATIVE of the "We're just fukkups" excuse.
Of course I buy that; one rises to the pinnacle of power by sheer dint of incompetence, right?
David,
Do you hae a link for the CRA data you cited?
Thanks,
bitterrenter
Put these bastards in jail for life. I'm not in favor these bailouts as many of us. Why should we the taxpayers be punished when we didn't do anything related to this mess. What is the benefit for me when I do not own a house, do not have any mortgage defaults.
And here is the story on the backlash by regular folk who are mad as hell that they did it the right way yet have to pay the consequences for the risk taken by others: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/21/AR2008092102534.html
Sarkozy calls for the guilty to be punished. Too bad Bush doesn't share his concern:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Those responsible for the crisis that has swept global financial markets should be punished, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said overnight in his first reaction to the latest bout of economic turmoil.
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In an acceptance speech at an award ceremony attended by U.S. and French business leaders, Sarkozy called for the "truth" on the crisis to be uncovered.
"Today, millions of people across the world fear for their savings, for their apartment, for the funds they have put in banks. It is our duty to give them clear answers," he said.
"Who is responsible for this disaster? May those who are responsible be punished and held accountable," he said hours before he was due to give a speech to the U.N. General Assembly.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080923/wl_nm/us_france_economy_sarkozy
Not sure if this has already been suggested, but those people are financial terrorists. Treat them like terrorists. Round 'em up, ship them to Guantanamo and seize all their assets. For good measure, water board them twice a day. Burn in hell motherfuckers.
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