Vietnam's Solution for Corrupt Bankers: Firing Squads

 

BANGKOK — For the most part, American bankers whose rash pursuit of profit brought on the 2008 global financial collapse didn’t get indicted. They got bonuses.

Odds are that scandal would have played out differently in Vietnam, another nation struggling with misbehaving bankers.

The authoritarian Southeast Asian state doesn’t just send unscrupulous financiers to jail. Sometimes, it sends them to death row.

Amid a sweeping cleanup of its financial sector, Vietnam has sentenced three bankers to death in the past six months.

One duo now on death row embezzled roughly $25 million from the state-owned Vietnam Agribank. Their co-conspirators caught decade-plus prison sentences.

 RichardPrins wrote: 
*wanders off to find a whistle*

The JP Morgan whistleblower who revealed the bank's flawed home loans scandal is being given a $64 million reward. The bank was fined $614 million for the debacle.

Keith Edwards worked for JP Morgan from 2003 to 2008, and was an assistant vice president supervising a government insuring unit.

The tips he provided to the US government made the bank to admit in a February 4th settlement, that in more than a decade it submitted thousands of unqualified government guarantee mortgages for insurance by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) or the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

The reward to Keith Edward consists of $56.5 million for the FHA portion and $7.4 million for the VA.

Evictions and foreclosures nationwide, resulted after the bank's loans went sour, and forced the government to pay millions of dollars to cover losses.

"There were a lot of bad loans made during the financial boom, and the United States taxpayer was left holding the bag through the VA and FHA loan programs," Edwards' lawyer, David Wasinger, told Reuters. "Hopefully the settlement sends a message to Wall Street that this conduct is not allowed, and that in the future it will be held accountable."

Wasinger had represented Edward O'Donnell, whose information proved Bank of America’s role in defective mortgage misselling which came to light in October 2013. The case is ongoing and the government is seeking a $2.1 billion fine.

Whistleblower assistance is widespread in the US Justice Department practice. Between 2009 and 2013 whistleblowers have been paid $1.98 billion for their cooperation with the government.

Swiss Banking Giant Helped US 1% Evade Taxes on Billions of Dollars, But DOJ Hasn't Prosecuted

(...) Furthermore, according to the WP, the congressional analysis found that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is dragging its feet in prosecuting the bank and its staff who have facilitated the defrauding of the US treasury: "The allegations were particularly stunning in the face of the budget cuts and deficits that the United States faces, lawmakers said. The report casts the Justice Department as a hapless enforcer that has dragged its feet in getting Credit Suisse to turn over the names of some 22,000 U.S. customers." During the past four years, "no one has stood trial, and the bank has not been held legally accountable, the report says."

BuzzFlash at Truthout has written numerous commentaries on how the DOJ has repeatedly failed to prosecute banks or high level bank staff for illegal patterns of behavior within banks too big to fail — whether the financial institution is headquartered in the United States or overseas.  Although the DOJ apparently "bristled" at the Senate subcommittee report, its lack of zeal in pursuing criminal charges is entirely consistent with its recent historical lax attitude toward holding big banks and bankers legally accountable.

Even though secretive Swiss banking laws present obstacles to obtaining information, it is clear, the report charges, that the DOJ has not pursued the Credit Suisse violations of US law:

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the subcommittee on investigations, insisted at a news conference Tuesday that the department could do more, including using civil summons and a grand jury subpoena to get information.

“The Department of Justice must use the legal tools that it has and not depend on Swiss courts,” he said. “Collecting taxes owed by tax evaders is vitally important for our fiscal situation. Beyond that, there is a basic question of fairness. These individuals are cheating not just the government but honest Americans who pay what they owe.”

But other than fining large financial institutions for systemic breaking of the law, the DOJ has done little.  Just compare how tenaciously the DOJ has attempted to extradite Julian Assange and Edward Snowden with its kid glove treatment of Wall Street and its overseas counterparts.

If you reveal information that embarrasses an increasingly secretive US executive branch, then Attorney General Holder and President Obama want you shackled and tossed into solitary confinement for the rest of your life.

If you are a member of the gilded elite and help loot the US treasury, then what you're likely to get from the DOJ is a congenial "negotiating" session that might end up in a fine (that is merely the cost of doing business for a bank).

Disclose the truth and Eric Holder puts you on a fugitive from justice poster; defraud the US treasury and it's possible that he'll invite you to his office for a friendly chat to resolve "some minor issues" in a face-saving manner for both parties.

Exclusive Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State

Someone smells money...
 
Wolf of Wall Street Banker to Sue Scorsese and Paramount

A former business partner of the real-life Wolf of Wall Street has launched a $25 million (£15m) lawsuit against movie director Martin Scorsese and Paramount over his characterisation in the Oscar-nominated film.

Andrew Greene, who worked alongside Jordan Belfort as an executive at Stratton Oakmont, claims he was falsely depicted as a hooker-loving, bad toupee-wearing fraudster.

According to legal documents obtained by TMZ, Greene, who was portrayed through the character Nicky 'Rugrat' Koskoff, says the film had defamed him. (...)

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
NTTIAWWT

One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Was that a bad apostrophe?

thx is that better?

interesting take on banking, especially politically connected banks

in short and in general the too big to fail banking system reminds me of a rigged game of Monopoly in where a banker had access to virtually unlimited money creation/supply and they eventually end up owning practically everything

regards

Giant Banks Take Over Real Economy As Well As Financial System … Enabling Manipulation On a Vast Scale

Top economists, financial experts and bankers saythat the big banks are too large … and their very size is threatening the economy.

They say we need to break up the big banks to stabilize the economy.

They say that too much interconnectedness leads to financial instability.

They also say that the big financial players are able to manipulate virtually every market in the world.

But the big banks have only gotten bigger – and more interconnected – than before the phony financial “reform” legislation was passed a couple of years ago.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, four congressmen point out that the big banks are not taking over the tangible economy as well … which allows them to control and manipulate the markets.

Specifically, Congressman Grayson wrote – and Congressmen Conyers, Ellison and Grijalva co-signed – a letter to the Federal Reserve which, in the words of a congressional aide:

Ask why large banks are engaged in a host of commercial activities, including power production, management of ports, oil drilling and distribution, and uranium mining. These activities have nothing to do with the business of banking and it’s unclear how the Fed or other bank regulators can actually regulate them. There’s useful and somewhat crazy information in the 10Ks of the banks about what they are currently doing. You can find that in the footnotes of the letter.