Quote: (07-31-2012 04:39 PM)joehoya Wrote:
The fact that virtually no-one got punished in this recent financial crisis is a travesty. To put in in perspective, back in the late 80's and early 90's (when the first George Bush was president) we had another serious financial meltdown. This was the Savings and Loan Crisis. Regulations dealing with Savings and Loan companies had been loosened, and as a result, the bankers involved started committing massive fraud.
747 Savings & Loans went bankrupt. The government had to step in and auction off HUGE amounts of real estate that was foreclosed on by these S&Ls as a result of bad mortgage lending practices (sound familiar). This was a HUGE deal back then, but compared to the financial crisis of 2008, it was nothing.
However, a big difference was in how the government handled it. The US government wound up sending over 1,100 people TO PRISON because of this, including the heads of some of these financial institutions. This time, when the whole world was brought to its knees, how many of the people responsible in the US went to prison?
the difference is bankers are now more deeply connected to politicians than ever before, and things won't be getting better now that super PAC's exist.