Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the financial crisis? (2019)

Re:Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the fina... by bpodgursky on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @03:50PM (#28294009)

If the "property damage" is to your own shareholders, that's a fuckup, not a crime (on its own).

If that starts a market rout, or bank collapses, that sucks, but it's still not a crime

If that leads to the collapse of the US dollar, it's a catastrophe, but it's still not a crime.

US policymakers are responsible for the stability of the US economic system. CEOs are responsible for their own companies. Congress calling for CEOs to be put in jail is in large part simply trying to deflect from the fact that they are not doing their own jobs, and are simply trying to offload responsibility for US economic policy onto the private sector.

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Re:Why didn’t any Wall Street CEOs go to jail after the fina... by anigbrowl on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @04:24PM (#28294500)

Sure, but write a bad check or mess up your cash flow such that you fail to meet some court-ordered financial obligation and watch how much finger-wagging accountability and social opprobrium rains down upon you. You can get in much worse trouble for some transgression involving a thousand dollars than a million or billion.

There's a guy in the US Senate who used to be CEO of a healthcare company until he was forced out by the board, and the company had to pay out billions in settlements and fines for defrauding medicare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott#Columbia/HCA

I agree with you that many in legislative and executive positions are negligent and or corrupt, but let's not pretend that the private sector doesn't aggressively lobby for its own financial interests or that it is populated by angels brought down by wicked politicians.

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