Quote (sir_lance_bb @ Jun 12 2017 08:16am)
Defrauding investors and continuing a zero sum game to line up your pockets , you can't just stay there's no blame for them.
The sheer fact nobody was prosecuted for the fraud committed that lead to the 2008 crash is just so depressing.
Also when these corporations have former CEO's become Secretary of the Treasury, how can you expect the government to protect its citizens.
It's just so depressing that a very small amount of people are responsible for billions of dollars and by extension untold damage that causes to the population resulting in higher suicide rates and lives being torn apart just from the risk taking of a small group and crippling the entire world economy.
But our government not only bailed out the banks while the common citizen gets fucked and instead of the people who caused the crisis being prosecuted for fraud , they get bonuses and cash out when they basically were responsible for economic ruin and even death.
Who puts former CEOs into those positions? Government. Who put Rex Tillerson as SOS? Government. Who failed to prosecute these execs even in the age of Sarbanes-Oxley? Government.
What people don't realize is that if you're Bank of America and you see Citi, JPM Chase, Wells Fargo and even smaller players getting involved in a shady form of investing their capital, but borderline legal/illegal, if you don't go that route too, their profits may absolutely destroy yours. Then, the average American gets upset with Bank of America for not producing for them and having their stock rise less than 1% every quarter while Citi, Chase, Wells, etc., all are experiencing 5-10% growth.
My point is, they really don't have any choice because if they don't, they won't be able to compete, and they'll fail anyways. That's why government exists. To set standards and regulations that allow them to be profitable, but not stupid. That is why in my opinion it's about 99% on the government and 1% on the corporation.
As far as the bonuses, that's totally peanuts in the grand scheme. Keep in mind too, the government bailed them out but wanted to get paid back. The government made these deals with guys like Dimon and Pandit and basically said, keep the economy afloat and we'll make sure you're compensated and don't see jail time, anddddd we don't obliterate you in fines because we need you to be profitable so the world doesn't collapse into economic despair. The popular/unpopular thought at the time was, we want to fuck over these banks for making stupid decisions, but if we just tank them all, the economy fails, so instead we have to give them barrels of money and play nice and cross our fingers.
If it were me, I'd say let them fail. We would've survived, just would've stung a lot. Just giving you the reasoning for why it went down the way it did.
This post was edited by AspenSniper on Jun 12 2017 07:40am