Since most Dopers generally lean toward the left, as far as I’ve noticed, I’m hoping there would be less dime-a-dozen responses of ‘Obama is in bed with the banks’, ‘Obama got more money from Wall Street than any presidential candidate in history’ or ‘Corrupt Wall Street is an arm of the Democrat Party’ etc, and more of what might be his real thinking/calculation?
As one to trust (most of) his decisions and want to give him another term, my thinking is, when a ship is battling the storm of the century is not the time to replace the rotting haul of the ship in entirety but to repair to see another day; as a president (a newly elected first black president battling racism/GOP among other calamities at that) he cannot scrap the country’s financial backbone to its core and let the chips fall where they may. Anyone can do that.
However it puzzles me why he doesn’t at least make some token(?) prosecution of some of the worst culprits (though I believe the real culprit is the deregulation). He’s obviously under some serious heat for it now.
Is this the reason?:
"Earlier this year, it was reported that Goldman executives were feeling optimistic that the Justice inquiry would not result in criminal charges against the firm, or its executives. Goldman declined to comment on the case, as did the Justice Department. But spokeswoman Alisa Finelli said, “When we find credible evidence of intentional criminal conduct–by Wall Street executives or others–we will not hesitate to charge it. However, we can and will only bring charges when the facts and the law convince us that we can prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Holder, speaking in February at Columbia University, said that while “we found that much of the conduct that led to the financial crisis was unethical and irresponsible … we have also discovered that some of this behavior–while morally reprehensible–may not necessarily have been criminal.”
Maybe I answered my own question however I don’t think that’s quite satisfying enough answer for the voters, particularly at this stage of recovery.
I think that answers your question. They were able to be “morally reprehensible” because there was nothing (no regulations) to stop them. The administration’s efforts would be better spent creating or re-instating regulations to prevent a future clusterf*#! rather than looking for questionable ways to prosecute them.
Yes, a lot of the Wall Street malfeasance falls into one of those situations, as put in another recent thread, of “things everyone knows are bad and believe must be illegal but that are not”.
And,
…a thinly based “token prosecution” for image’s sake or to sate a sense of “justice”, when we believe the real culprit was policies that encouraged these activites, would potentially result in more adverse political consequences – it would be cast as blatant scapegoating, evidence of an animosity against capitalism, selective prosecution, etc.
The window for a consensus for stringing people up from Wall Street’s lamp posts was narrow and ran from Fall '08 to Spring '09 IMO. And also IMO, both parties felt that if you crushed the Wall Streeters the way angry Joe Laidoff and Jane Foreclosed wanted them crushed, you’d risk making the financial crisis worse in the short run and neither party wants it said they did that.
Robo-signing is a state issue and misdemeanor. Securities misrepresentation is a civil issue so go at it (like when Blackrock sued Bank of America/Countrywide). Mortgage origination contained no fraud either.
Who did Lehman defraud? Themselves?
Who did Bear Stearns defraud?
I am a liberal Obama supporter and see this question all the time. I consider it amateurish and indicative of someone with no knowlege of finance (like a Matt Taibbi).
The question is why we haven’t regulated the banksters more strenuously moving forward, Dodd-Frank notwithstanding.
Sigh. Look. All the Washington Republicans are in bed with the bankers, without exception. Most of the Democrats are sympathetic as well. That leaves Barney Frank to fight the good fight. The only thing that let Dodd-Frank pass at all was that elite opinion that understood that the status quo 2007 was FUBAR. So we made some adjustments, which the WSJ opposed of course.
We live in an oligarchy. Luckily this isn’t Ancient Rome. Bill Gates can’t call upon his own police force and the little guy still has constitutional rights. And there are a minority of financial service professionals who are fed up and are doing the boring, grinding work of overseeing the regulatory process, without formal support by any foundation. Amusingly they call themselves Occupy the SEC.
Do you want to pour through reams of regulation? No? Me neither. They deserve our gratitude.
OBTW: there is a true market-savvy, consumer-friendly financial expert running for Senate in the state of Massachusetts. Her name is Elizabeth Warren. She is precisely the sort of person that should be cutting deals in Congress. She faces stiff opposition from monied interests.
Finally:
Obama has centrist and conciliatory instincts. He has no inclination to upturn Wall Street. At best he’d like to fix it, but there are many things on his plate.
