Finally, prosecutions…
From Huffington Post comes this example of prosecutions of fraud and malfeasance (well, tongue in cheek if the pain was less, but 22 trillion IS a lot of money):
The bank fired Richard Eggers from his job of seven years as a customer service representative after the company found out about a decades-old run-in with the law, the Des Moines Register reports. In 1963 Eggers got caught putting a cardboard cut-out of a dime in a washing machine at a laundromat.
Eggers’ firing is one of thousands now occurring due to stricter guidelines on bank and mortgage lender employees that went into effect last year. The new rules are meant to gut the institutions of workers convicted of various types of fraud, but the casualties have largely been low-level workers like Eggers, according to ABC5 News.
“We don’t have discretion to grant exceptions in situations like this,” Angela Kaipust, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo told the television station. “Once we find out someone has a criminal history of dishonesty or breach of trust we can no longer employ them.”
In a similar case, Wells Fargo fired Yolanda Quesada in May after a background check turned over a shoplifting charge from 1972.
Also see:
Seven and one half things Some more commentary
GAO report on financial crisis costs 22 trillion?
So we finally get a “prosecution”, and it depresses me.
It is such an injustice that dozens of bankers were not jailed circa early 2009, and thousands stripped of ten years’ worth of bonuses with a 19.9% interest penalty and with a $35 late fee.
chad
what i love about the law is that people can always find a way to twist it to injure “the least of these.”
while a history of criminal dishonesty and breach of trust is a requirement for jobs in high places.
I confess, my first thought on reading the prosecutions bit was that it must be an Onion piece.
Re: Seven and one half things; this jumped out at me: ” But the merger as well as the Heinz buyout are good signs for the economy overall; the NYT writes that deal-making was slow the past five years as companies grew concerned during the financial crisis and now, confidence is rebounding…”
Yeah, this is good for SOME of the economy – the Wall St. part. But dammit, every time we get buy-outs and acquisitions, we lose jobs. “Economies of scale” and all that BS. Good thing I don’t use ketchup much, ‘cuz you can count on the price going up. And flying? Feggedaboutit.
something odd about the heinz buyout no one is mentioning…
buffett may have overpaid john kerry by 20% for heinz; however, he stands to make more than that back if kerry blocks the keystone XL, cause buffett owns most of the railroads & oil tanker rolling stock west of the mississippi…
rjs,
If what you say regarding Buffet and the Heinz buyout is correct then possibly we get a benefit twice over. First, it is not at all unusual for take overs to be accomplished by a significant “bonus” paid to the current public stock holders. If Buffet and his partners in this deal are paying a premium you can be reasonably sure that the stock was selling low to begin with, as many equities are at the present time. Buffet is in a position to know and evaluate which are the better buys. BTW, it’s Kerry’s wife that owns the shares.
On the other hand, regarding the Keystone XL pipeline, good riddance to bad garbage. Unfortunately I doubt that Buffet’s influence even with the assistance of Kerry is sufficient to put the kibosh on that environmental disaster.
im not privy to any inside information jack, just that there’s always been speculation in some quarters that obama originally blocked keystone on buffett’s behalf…
based on his disclosures as a senator, Business Insider said John Kerry May Have Made $670,000 On the Heinz Deal; it doesnt say how much teresa made…
Back to the prosecutions – this would be hopeful, if I were still in a mood to believe in “justice for all” –
http://www.npr.org/2013/02/19/171832641/forecasting-climate-with-a-chance-of-backlash
“This Department of Justice will continue to hold financial institutions that break the law criminally responsible,” Lanny A. Breuer, the departing head of the agency’s criminal division, said in an interview.
Continue??? How can you continue something you haven’t truly begun?
Sandi
don’t be silly. how can financial institutions break the law when they wrote the law?