One of the many unanswered questions about the current financial crisis is why there haven’t been more criminal investigations into what happened, including the
“„Economists and media pundits — themselves mostly gentlemanly elites anxious to please corporate America — are slow to make the accusation that what happened here was truly criminal, and so miss the real story. The American people understand that when a group of bankers shuffle some paper unproductively and get away with hundreds of billions of dollars in bonuses, yet cause a loss of $40 trillion in global wealth and cause approximately 100 million people to become unemployed worldwide, there is only one word to describe it: criminal. [...]
“„Why isn’t the FBI breaking down the doors of the commercial and investment banks and grabbing computers so as to preserve incendiary e-mails that will most definitely implicate executives? Why are managements that caused this still in their jobs and still receiving bonuses? Are the bonuses paid to the folks at AIG that caused its collapse nothing more than hush money? How can the rating agencies still be in business? Why don’t we make one arrest and lean on the bankster to see if he will fold like the cheap suit that he is and name other conspirators? The FBI spends more time investigating $2,000 drug buys than they have to date investigating the biggest heist in the history of the world: $40 trillion, that’s trillion with a T, that’s 40 million bags each containing $1 million.
“„Nearly 40 percent of the people involved in questionable flips in Sarasota and Manatee counties were industry insiders — real estate agents, developers, lawyers and mortgage brokers. Of the 37 groups discovered by the newspaper, 21 were organized by real estate agents or mortgage brokers.
“„Some of the people who organized or participated in flips were considered leaders of their profession. One was recognized as one of the top 50 Re/Max real estate agents in the world. Another won multiple awards from the Mortgage Bankers Association of Florida. Some flippers identified by the Herald-Tribune were seen as key clients by local banks and were allowed to pick their own appraisers or had loan approvals expedited to quickly close deals.