Ender: I don’t think anyone is suggesting that some or any of a settlement would come from the US, much less cause the US to go bankrupt. Besides, even if some of the accounts that went bad were FDIC insured, think about the effect of the influx of millions\billions rillions of dollars of capital into America.
The 9/11 familes are suing the government of Sudan, some Islamic banks, and some princes of the House of al-Saud. Boo-fucking-hoo.
I think that Macro Man is missing an important economic point; the working class (called the ‘middle class’ here in America) pays for nearly everything.
The poor have no money to pay for anything, and the rich just pay for the laws they like.
But civil suits settle. Unless the plaintiffs want to make a point. And then, to avoid an appeal, all the lawyers get together and decide on a workable amount, and the judge overrides the jury’s award.
While I am not a litigious person, sometime suing is the only way to get some-one’s attention. Good for the plaintiffs, but I would hesitate to make such a spectical of myself.
"I can’t imagine certain people can hate us any more than they already do. "
I can. EASILY. And “Certain people” will INCREASE in numbers should this lawsuit succeed.
“The 9/11 familes are suing the government of Sudan, some Islamic banks, and some princes of the House of al-Saud. Boo-fucking-hoo.”
Yea, entire governments, banks and governments could go <b>bankrupt</b> so about a few hundred American families will have about 200 billion dollars. That REALLY makes me safe and secure from terrorism.
If this lawsuit should succeed, things won’t get better, they’ll get worse. But, I doubt it will succeed.
If you don’t give in to my demands I shall sue you for raises pinky to mouth 1 trillion dollars!
Are European banks insured for the similar amounts or is this just an American law?
You said “governments” twice. 
I don’t know about you, but I would have no pity if the government of Sudan were to go bankrupt. And I don’t think we should have to get into a discussion about the wealth and activities of Saudi princes.
In any case, the economic consequences of the lawsuit do not affect the justice of the claim. Creating some nightmare scenario about the world going bankrupt (which seems more than slightly ridiculous, given that jury awards rarely come close to the amounts demanded in the original complaint, particularly with insanely large numbers like this) because of this lawsuit does not eliminate the moral culpability of certain individuals and institutions named in the complaint.
The other half of this question is: What other nations have a simal law, on the books?
Damn, some people just really don’t get it.
The people who are being targeted are not the middle class whatsoever. In fact, it’s the polar opposite: it’s the royal family and government. And neither party would ever, ever go bankrupt, given that the award collection would be limited to funds and assets that the US could exert some control over i.e. probably a small fraction of the defendants’ total assets. Whaddaya think, the plaintiffs are going to get Tony Soprano to drive over and rough up the defendants until they hand over all their assets?
And it’s silly to assume that these are huge, multifaceted banks we’re talking about here. Again, if they were of any consequence, they’d have most likely been named in the article.
And what Gobear said.
And their not getting $200B dollars each! Knock it off, people! They’ll get a minute fraction of whatever they may be awarded by a jury, depending on what assets are available under US control that have not already been spoken for. And I’m guessing it’s not much. Would you keep your money in a country that you intend to bomb the fuck out of? My guess is that whatever capital that was in the US was taken out either prior to or shortly after 9/11. When all the defendants actually show up, with all their assets in a big suitcase, to answer to the allegations and settle up any judgements, then we can get to back discussing what’s reasonable actual and punitive damages. Until then, you might as well bitch about the denomination the defendants plan to pay in. Do you realize the chilling effect on the soda vending industry this judgement would have if the defendant decided to pay in all quarters?
Sorry Macro Man I wasn’t trying to be condescending, I couldn’t tell what you knew or didn’t know from your posts so I went for the shotgun effect.
No problem, CRorex. Indeed, if the banks in question were Citibank, BofA, etc. the scenario you laid out would be exactly what potentially could happen. I just really think that the defendants’ exposure to this lawsuit will probably run in the $10s of millions of dollars, not really the $100s of trillions. This is separate and distinct from the plaintiff’s requested amount, or any judicially imposed amount. Add in the 2500 other families who would undoubtedly join the class action lawsuit if it gained any steam whatsoever, subtract out 25% for lawyers fees, wait five years for bureaucratic and political bullshit, and these folks are looking at a couple hundred G’s at most. Not chump change, but not $200B per person, either. And definitely not enough to make even a blip in the world’s (or even Sudan’s or Saudi’s) economy.
"You said “governments” twice. "
HEE! HEE! I’m so bad!
“I don’t know about you, but I would have no pity if the government of Sudan were to go bankrupt.”
I don’t either, it’s the people that I would pity. They suffer enough as it is.
"And I don’t think we should have to get into a discussion about the wealth and activities of Saudi princes. "
Again, I think it would mainly be the people that would suffer from this depending on the amount of money the families may win.
“Creating some nightmare scenario about the world going bankrupt (which seems more than slightly ridiculous, given that jury awards rarely come close to the amounts demanded in the original complaint, particularly with insanely large numbers like this)”
Believe me, I’m aware of that. Just that there’s the “what if”. Even if it’s HIGHLY unlikely, I can’t help but think of the worst case scenario since we don’t know what may happen. I’ll simply say that it’s POSSIBLE, even if it’s not probable. Thing is, even if it’s for a few million, the government of Sudan simply CANNOT afford that even if the Saudi Princes could.
In any case the Sudanese government offered to turn vital information pertaining to al-Qa’ida over to American intelligence in the mid 90s and they declined since Sudan is a “rogue state” – they’ve been trying to help shut down bin Laden in exchange for diplomatic connections since then.
“because of this lawsuit does not eliminate the moral culpability of certain individuals and institutions named in the complaint.”
Let’s see…three members of the Saudi royal family - including the Saudi foreign minister - and various Islamic charities(charities? Jesus…), in addition to seven financial institutions and the Bin Laden family’s Saudi construction firm.
Yea, suing charities, Bin Laden’s family firm(never mind that they’ve disowned him)…wonderful…but I can hear it now “but they funded the terrorists”, bla bla bla…my posistion still stands. 1. There’s no reason for this lawsuit. Nadda, zero, zip. 2. Even if they get a few million, the Princes won’t miss that amount of money and Sudan’s problems will be magnafied and that won’t do anyone any good, except for those who will gain the most money. 3. I think Macro Man is right in that the US has no authority to make the forgien groups pay, unless they have assets in the US itself. 4. I agree mostly with CRorex.
The banks may have an out…
I’m a fraud analyst at a major bank. Anytime we see “suspcious activity” (fraud rings doing applications/counterfeit cards, money laundering, etc), we file a SAR (Suspcious Activity Report) with the FBI.
If the banks in question did so, they can easily argue “Hey, we gave the FBI the information. It’s not our job to capture the bad guys, it’s theirs.”
Trust me, the banks will pass the buck.
Anya Marie, I was speaking only of US banks. I have no idea whether European or Middle Eastern banks have their own version of FDIC.
But does anyone know which “seven international banks” they’re suing? Do they have ties to the US? To Europe? To Chile or Australia or…or…Monaco and The Vatican City? Is there a sign outside these banks that say “bad guys only”? Or will innoncents be harmed as well? Using US insurance costs us all and if some other country doesn’t have insurance well…tough luck for them.
If the banks truly, knowingly, financed terrorist activities, they must be punished. But to what extent? Of course they’re not going to lose $116 trillion dollars, if only because, combined, they don’t have close to it. But, say, $50 billion dollars sounds like a wonderful bargain in comparison. You know, like when an innocent man takes involuntary manslaughter rather than risk life imprisonment.
Hrrm anyone in the middle east hear about the news from any of the local news sources? I’m curious to see how the propaganda machine is churning down there.
I’ve been watching CNN and they’re giving more air time to baseball strike than this lawsuit 
Well, I don’t live in the Middle East, but I searched for a little bit and here’s the closest I could find:
From the Times of India(obviously not Middle Eastern, but…it’s a different source than CNN)
If Asshola Bin Laden is still alive (and I don’t think he is, by the way) I bet he is laughing his ass off over this!
ABL: “I bring down the Twin Towers of Evil, and all they can think to do is SUE ME!!!”
If we have to hire lawyers, the terrorists have already won.
OKay, I found some more articles on this:
This one is from Arabnews.com They don’t say much about the suit though.
This one is from Bahrain and seems to say the same things other sources are
And I’ve looked at countries like Jordan, Qatar, Iran and Iraq throughthis link, which is how I found the one from Baharain, but the other countries don’t seem to have anything on the suit.
Macro man has it right (I’m a micro guy myself). The lawsuits will go after assets they can attach through the U.S. courts, which means it has to be within reach of the U.S. Analogous examples might be suits against Lybia after Lockerbie, Iran after the embassy take over and Swiss banks/German firms by holocost survivors.
Even if they succeed beyond their wildest hopes and get a trillion somolians, the economic effect globally would be very small because the wealth is transfered from one group (losing banks/governments/businesses) to another group (winning lawsuit filers). Unless the lawsuit winners have a very large matress under which they can put this cash and remove it from circulation, the money will go into new banks/governments/businesses and stay in the global monetary system.
There will be some economic loss due to transaction costs (lawyer fees, currency exchange rate fluctations, etc.) and local effects (unemployed foriegn bankers if they go under, say and new highering by domestic banks to help fill in those trillion dollar deposit slips), but on the whole, no real global economic loss.
You COULD argue it might stimulate the global economy, because now all that money is in the hands of free spending Americans who will go on a buying spree, spiking demand and stimulating suppliers to ramp production to meet the demand.
Just to clarify:
Remember, I said GLOBAL economy is essentially not impacted - there will be local effects if they somehow won.
Also, I doubt there would be much effort to after Sudanese - the lawyers and their collection agency would go after the deep pockets - Saudi assets in the U.S., probably in the form of stocks, bonds and land holdings.