Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Stock Market Rip the Face Off the Bears Rally! - 22nd Dec 24
STOP LOSSES - 22nd Dec 24
Fed Tests Gold Price Upleg - 22nd Dec 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks: Why Do We Rely On News - 22nd Dec 24
Never Buy an IPO - 22nd Dec 24
THEY DON'T RING THE BELL AT THE CRPTO MARKET TOP! - 20th Dec 24
CEREBUS IPO NVIDIA KILLER? - 18th Dec 24
Nvidia Stock 5X to 30X - 18th Dec 24
LRCX Stock Split - 18th Dec 24
Stock Market Expected Trend Forecast - 18th Dec 24
Silver’s Evolving Market: Bright Prospects and Lingering Challenges - 18th Dec 24
Extreme Levels of Work-for-Gold Ratio - 18th Dec 24
Tesla $460, Bitcoin $107k, S&P 6080 - The Pump Continues! - 16th Dec 24
Stock Market Risk to the Upside! S&P 7000 Forecast 2025 - 15th Dec 24
Stock Market 2025 Mid Decade Year - 15th Dec 24
Sheffield Christmas Market 2024 Is a Building Site - 15th Dec 24
Got Copper or Gold Miners? Watch Out - 15th Dec 24
Republican vs Democrat Presidents and the Stock Market - 13th Dec 24
Stock Market Up 8 Out of First 9 months - 13th Dec 24
What Does a Strong Sept Mean for the Stock Market? - 13th Dec 24
Is Trump the Most Pro-Stock Market President Ever? - 13th Dec 24
Interest Rates, Unemployment and the SPX - 13th Dec 24
Fed Balance Sheet Continues To Decline - 13th Dec 24
Trump Stocks and Crypto Mania 2025 Incoming as Bitcoin Breaks Above $100k - 8th Dec 24
Gold Price Multiple Confirmations - Are You Ready? - 8th Dec 24
Gold Price Monster Upleg Lives - 8th Dec 24
Stock & Crypto Markets Going into December 2024 - 2nd Dec 24
US Presidential Election Year Stock Market Seasonal Trend - 29th Nov 24
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past - 29th Nov 24
Gold After Trump Wins - 29th Nov 24
The AI Stocks, Housing, Inflation and Bitcoin Crypto Mega-trends - 27th Nov 24
Gold Price Ahead of the Thanksgiving Weekend - 27th Nov 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast to June 2025 - 24th Nov 24
Stocks, Bitcoin and Crypto Markets Breaking Bad on Donald Trump Pump - 21st Nov 24
Gold Price To Re-Test $2,700 - 21st Nov 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks: This Is My Strong Warning To You - 21st Nov 24
Financial Crisis 2025 - This is Going to Shock People! - 21st Nov 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

HSBC Too Big To Jail: Dark Day For the Rule of Law

Companies / Banksters Dec 28, 2012 - 04:24 AM GMT

By: Money_Morning

Companies

Shah Gilani writes: The opening line of a December 11, 2012 New York Times editorial on federal and state authorities choosing not to indict HSBC for money laundering reads: "It is a dark day for the rule of law."

It may be a dark day for the rule of law, but it's business as usual for the banks.

America's heralded and frighteningly powerful Department of Justice, along with all of the not so heralded or frightening banking regulators, simply refused to prosecute Britain's biggest bank out of fear of "collateral consequences."


In other words, they're "too big to prosecute."

That's what Andrew Bailey, the chief executive-designate of the Prudential Regulation Authority, said about the usual deferred prosecution agreement that accompanied HSBC's $1.9 billion fine. The Prudential Regulation Authority is set to replace the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority - the country's current toothless watch dog,

It's just another example of too big to fail and too big to jail.

Deferred prosecution agreements and hefty fines levied against the world's TBTF banks have become commonplace. Still, there are relatively few criminal charges, just wrist-slapping, don't-do-it-again fines and public spankings.

It is a dark day for the rule of law because the money cloak has effectively been cast over all things having to do with justice.

Let's call it what it is: buying immunity.

The world's biggest banks are too powerful, too intertwined, too "systemically important", and just plain too rich to be challenged.

Regulatory "authorities", along with the most powerful global policeman the world has ever known all shake in their boots when they have to apologize to their bankster masters for putting on a show for the public. But the law is the law and the law apparently needs publicly orchestrated payoffs.

Let's put aside for the moment the corporations themselves and their extraordinary ability to make billions of dollars and laugh behind closed doors at having to pay fines that they can more than cover by the end of the following quarter...

Let's put aside for the moment the fact that those fines are paid, not by insurance policies, not by executives or traders or any of the individuals that commit the crimes, but by shareholders...

And let's put aside for the moment the fact that banks make so much money that they can buy off stupid shareholders by always offering dividends and stock buybacks (that's like to luring them back to be set up and knocked down again like bowling pins).

We'll put all of that aside, just for a moment, and talk about the guilty individuals...

No banking executives or traders or salesmen ever go to jail for the "systemic" banking crimes they commit. Don't you think that's part of the problem?

There is a travesty of justice as the laws are constantly trampled on by the individuals who commit these crimes - not the nameless, faceless corporate entities that publicly take the blame and pay the fines.

Now our moment is up. We can't put aside anything that the banks do, as corporations, because that's where the individuals hide.

Banks that are too big and too powerful and far too dangerous should be dismantled. There should be safety measures to ensure that the banks work for the betterment of the people who expect them to protect the fruits of their life's labors and their business and entrepreneurial endeavors.

People should expect to be able to borrow their own money safely, while the banks put that money to work for the benefit of the depositors.

People should not have to worry about how they're getting ripped off or how the banks are subjecting the global economy to crisis after crisis only to be bailed out again and again.

Here's my New Year's wish, plain and simple: Prosecute all the criminals at all the banks and send the guilty parties to jail after they are stripped of their ill-gotten riches. Then break up all the too-big-to fail, too big too jail banks into bite-sized pieces that no watchdog would ever have trouble eating.

Is that too much to ask?

Source :http://moneymorning.com/2012/12/28/too-big-to-jail-its-a-dark-day-for-the-rule-of-law/

Money Morning/The Money Map Report

©2012 Monument Street Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), of content from this website, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Monument Street Publishing. 105 West Monument Street, Baltimore MD 21201, Email: customerservice@moneymorning.com

Disclaimer: Nothing published by Money Morning should be considered personalized investment advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized investent advice. We expressly forbid our writers from having a financial interest in any security recommended to our readers. All of our employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication, or after the mailing of printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended by Money Morning should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

Money Morning Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in