How many high-level Wall Street
players have been put in jail for the crimes that led to the financial
crisis? Not. Even. One.
Last
week several executives from the Federal National Mortgage Association
and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, known as “Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac,”were sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
for civil fraud. They were charged with misleading investors about the
quality of the loans they were buying. But this is a civil suit, not a
criminal prosecution, so they face no possibility of jail time. And the
SEC is notoriously ready to settle these cases, accepting fines without
admission of guilt. Meanwhile, last month Bloomberg News revealed that
the Federal Reserve secretly loaned $1.2 trillion to banks on Dec. 5,
2008, their neediest day, even as some of their CEOs were assuring
investors their banks were healthy. Are these CEOs facing prosecution
or even civil fraud suits for doing the very same thing? Not so much. READ MORE
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