I agree. The banks are principally responsible for a ‘banking meltdown’. The corporate directors and managing principals are responsible. It’s the letter of the law. And yet, for all intensive purposes, most of the people managing the financial services corporations at the epicenter of this disaster are going to emerge unscathed. They are not going to be held responsible for what happened, not in any practical sense. And there is something fundamentally wrong with that.
Yes, there will be FDIC lawsuits, another 25%, etc. Bloomberg reported on this the other day. Some may even succeed, resulting in a measure of forfeiture, ironically covered by insurance deducted as a business expense. There may even be criminal trials, but nothing of consequence. By and large, the results will be insignificant against the scale and backdrop of what happened, reckless banks and financial services corporations bringing our economy to the brink of collapse.
I could care less about ‘Deadbeat Joe’. He’s a fraction of the problem. I want to know when Wall Street is going to be held responsible for its reckless misconduct. That’s where the money went, and that’s what I want to know.