News & Analysis
Root For Wall Street to Go to Jail
More than four years since the financial crisis, not one senior Wall Street executive has faced criminal prosecution for fraud. Are Wall Street executives "too big to jail"? In The Untouchables, premiering Jan. 22, 2013, at 10 P.M. on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE producer and correspondent Martin Smith investigates why the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has failed to act on credible evidence that Wall Street knowingly packaged and sold toxic mortgage loans to investors, loans that brought the U.S. and world economies to the brink of collapse. Through interviews with top prosecutors, government officials and industry whistleblowers, FRONTLINE reports allegations that Wall Street bankers ignored pervasive fraud when buying pools of mortgage loans. Tom Leonard, a supervisor who examined the quality of loans for major investment banks like Bear Stearns, said bankers instructed him to disregard clear evidence of fraud. "Fraud was the F-word, or the F-bomb. You didn't use that word," says Leonard. "By your terms and my terms, yes, it was fraud. By the [industry's] terms, it was something else." – PBS
Dominant Social Theme: Everyone on Wall Street deserves to go to jail – or at least a lot of them, and it's an injustice that they are not there yet.
Free-Market Analysis: PBS executives apparently want people to go to jail. Or some people anyway.
Wall Street people.
But here are some people they seem to be leaving out.
They don't seem to want company execs of failing "green" companies that have borrowed hundreds of millions from the US federal government (that will never be returned) to go to jail.
They don't seem to want people who evidently and obviously tampered with the voting in Illinois and elsewhere during the presidential election to go to jail.
They don't seem to want politicians responsible for sending NATO soldiers into harm's way in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist to go to jail
They don't seem to want generals who have given false assurances about depleted uranium weapons and thus poisoned large parts of Iraq and Afghanistan (and US soldiers as well) to go to jail.
They don't seem to want doctors who continue to mandate vaccine cocktails for infants and thus potentially cause autism and other life-changing infantile syndromes to go to jail.
They don't seem to want judges and prosecutors who enforce the most senseless and bureaucratic laws – thus ruining the lives of families and destroying childhood for tens of thousands – to go to jail.
They don't seem to want central bankers who have destroyed the savings and retirements of tens of millions by constantly debasing the currency to go to jail.
They don't seem to want those responsible for 9/11 and other false-flag violence – whoever they are – to go to jail.
... Well, we could go on.
The sense of "justice" exhibited by PBS execs seems fairly selective if you ask us. Sure, Wall Street is corrupt – beyond measure, in fact.
But what PBS is doing, in our humble view, is promoting an elite dominant social theme not a rational perspective.
A rational perspective would devote time and energy to explaining how the SYSTEM could be changed. Putting some people in jail – no matter how wealthy or important – pales in comparison to shutting down what's actually rotted the core of US exceptionalism.
And that rot starts with central banking (and the graduated income tax as well). The ability of a tiny handful of men to print as much money as they wish any time they wish is impossibly corrosive and corrupting. It's far worse than ANYTHING Wall Street could ever do in its serial greed.
But we look in vain – year after year – for PBS to run an expose about central banking (or the abolishment of income taxes). We watch in vain, waiting for ONE program that explains it is impossible for human beings to regularly "fix" the price and volume of money. It leads to the Misery of Ages. Over and over.
Here's some more from the release:
Former Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), who was appointed to fill Joe Biden's long-held Senate seat when he was sworn in as vice president in January 2009, was determined to see bankers in handcuffs. "I was really upset about what went on on Wall Street that brought about the financial crisis," Kaufman recalls. "That doesn't happen if there isn't something bad going on."
Yet Kaufman left office in late 2010 frustrated by the lack of criminal prosecutions. Jeff Connaughton, Kaufman's chief of staff, remains convinced that the DOJ failed to make prosecuting Wall Street a top priority. "You're telling me that not one banker, not one executive on Wall Street, not one player in this entire financial crisis committed provable fraud?" asks Connaughton. "I mean, I just don't believe that."
Smith asks Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general for the DOJ's Criminal Division, about his failure to criminally indict Wall Street executives. "I think there was a level of greed, a level of excessive risk taking in this situation that I find abominable and very upsetting," says Breuer.
You see how upset people are that Wall Street tycoons are not in jail? We would bet that not a single line of the current PBS program deals with the prison system itself.
No mention of the six million incarcerated in miserable conditions (perhaps half the world's total penal population), often in torturous solitary confinement.
No mention of the privatization of prisons that forces increasing multitudes of inmates to work as virtual slaves.
No mention of the beatings, rapes and variable formal and informal tortures that increasingly take place in the expanding US Gulag.
Nope, not on PBS – the "soul and conscience" of the US progressive movement.
Those "bleeding hearts" are only concerned that the system has failed to put away enough Wall Streeters. The "crime" is the lack of punishment.
In fact, this is merely another elite dominant social theme. The top elites will move heaven and Earth to keep the focus on their minions – the private bankers, traders and brokers that work in the financial industry.
Throw them in jail by the thousands but leave the quasi-public central banking system – the system that constantly creates the booms and busts that ruin people's lives and businesses – alone. Leave it be. Don't even mention it.
Conclusion: Throw everyone else in jail. That will make it better. Won't it?
|
You must be a site member to submit suggested edits or post feedback. In addition to submitting edit suggestions and posting feedback, your Free Membership to The Daily Bell gives you access to our Member Zone where you will discover a plethora of other member benefits. Want to learn more? click here |
|||||
|
|
||||


Posted by letfreedomring on 01/25/13 04:30 AM
I am baffled at the fact if i drink to much in public i go to jail, but a big bank launders billions of drug cartel money directly connected to hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives lost here and in mexico and they don't have to go to jail, no instead the DOJ uses something called "deffered-prosecution agreements".
Thats where the guilty bank instead of going to prison like myself or any other citizen would for laundering even $100, they just have to pay a huge fine to the govt. and promise never to do it again...
Am i loosing my mind here or is this just pure BS? OK so where is this alleged money paid to our trustworthy govt.? So if i am ever arrested for anything can i claim a deffered-prosecution agreement??? Obviously there is NO rule of law anymore.
At this point, there is no hope for a peaceful end to this madness. I mean we can continue to play along with their little game and threaten our elected officials with a tea bag or something, with harsh threats like, "You all better knock it off or we will not re elect you".
I am sure that strikes the worst of fears in these criminals. How about we all march on washington chantting some patriotic crap and wave flags with snakes on them at our elected officials? That always works right?
Wait, i got it..We march on Washington and politely ask Dianne Feinstein and Lindsey Graham and Nancy Pelosi and all the rest to step down from their positions?? Boy that will show em wont it? So when do the American people (the men specifically) get their testicals back and do what has to be done if we are to save at least glimpse of what the U.S. used to be?
I am not advocating violence by any means, it is a simple question. We didn't push our selves into a corner, they pushed us into it..
Reply from The Daily Bell
So you are another one convinced that the problem is that the US's six-million person slave/gulag is not being properly employed. The system of slavery, torture, rapine and ruined families, lives and children is not the issue. That one third of all US citizens have some sort of contact with the US criminal "justice" system before 25 is not the problem. Only that this fascist, unjust and illegal system has not been aimed like a cannon at the "banksters" is the issue. Your concern would be alleviated if "banksters" experience what tens of millions of other Americans experience. That would make it "just."
![]() |
Posted by Agent Revolver on 01/24/13 10:57 PM
Since the Circulation Whales got the machine message on electronic curriculum as a future economy's blood cells and the wires and radio... what time, end of sixties or rise of seventies, somebody very clever read this message before too many scientists did. Today it makes me wonder, at what age or professional grade a banking clerk begins to understand that modern banking is a fraud? And what makes a banking clerk (I'm no more talking about his boss) believe that it's not really a fraud... not really a bullet on full speed heading towards his own forehe
73
![]() |
Posted by Agent Pete 8 on 01/23/13 03:18 PM
And thus we see that it is actually the demented waste-product 'thinking' of a select few which supports/creates the problem.
Surely large doses of carefully placed Truth can/will fix that?
![]() |
Posted by taxesbyanyothername on 01/23/13 11:12 AM
Good article DB. A book, or rather encyclopedia, detailing who is presently getting away with what, would be the longest ever. Perhaps we could feature the employees of NPR on the cover as some of the more obvious offenders.
![]() |
Posted by Bischoff on 01/23/13 01:07 AM
@ howard
HOWARD: "The 16th Amendment was not signed off on by enough states to be ratified, but I pay taxes anyway."
BISCHOFF: I guess you pay your income tax or of patriotic duty. The IRS doen't care why you pay your income tax. Furthermore, I think its smart not to take them to court to press the 16th Amendment as not being ratified.
As to the Rothschilds, their influence is way overrated. It used to be significant when they lent gold to sovereign governments, but since gold is no longer needed as value standard for the "managed" currencies of today's world, the Rothschilds are not dumb enough to risk their capital in totally rigged markets. As to the Associated Press, they are as worthless as all the other Press Agencies. Besides, they are a dying breed.
As to CFRtv, do they have more viewers than MSNBC... ??? Why be afraid of their propaganda, anyway... ??? Only the people who stand for nothing, fall for anything. "SAPERE AUDE" is the motto to live by, and forget all about those who try to persuade you when you know different... .
Posted by howardtlewisiii on 01/22/13 11:43 PM
All these comments seem to be in good order. The 16th Amendment was not signed off on by enough states to be ratified. But I pay taxes anyway. Now if we could just remove the Rothschild owned Associated Press and the Council on Foreign Relations' owned CFRtv, we might stand a chance against treason in finance and government.
![]() |
Posted by Bischoff on 01/22/13 11:27 PM
The "banksters" (a term for rogue bankers) are not dumb. They will align themselves with the politicians that make the laws which could send them to jail. To speak of jailing banksters at this point in time comes about ninety years too late.
A hundred years ago, the bankers supported the proposal and ratification of the 16th, 17th and 18th Amendments, all as a counter measure to the passage of the 1913 Federal Reserve Act.
In fact, the Federal Reserve Act passed only in December of 1913, after the 16th and 17th Amendments were ratified in February and April of that year.
The 1913 Federal Reserve Act was very specific as to the creation of Federal Reserve Notes. The member banks of the regional Federal Reserve Association had to deposit the value of 40% in gold and 60% in Bills of Exchange with the regional Federal Reserve Banks to obtain redeemable Federal Reserve Notes. Any violation of this reserve requirement was punishable with fines leavied by the U.S. Treasury.
The FRB NY, under its President Benjamin Strong, started to violate the Federal Reserve Act in the early 1920s by illegally selling U.S. Treasury "Gold" Bonds in secondary markets. The FRB NY's illegal "Open Market Operations", which was the selling of Gold Bonds in secondary markets for currency, and then using the Gold Bonds as a reserve. This violation by the FRB NY wasn't sufficiently enough opposed by the Federal Reserve Board as the oversight arm of the U.S. Congress, and the FRB NY got away with secondary market sales for years.
By the late 1920s, thanks to the 17th Amendments, the banksters were happy to supply funds needed by candidates in campaigns for popular elections for U.S. Senators, when before U.S. Senators were selected as well, as recalled by state legislatures. They funded the campaigns for the majority of them.
The reason that the banksters in NY were confident about getting away with their violations of the original 1913 FRA, was the fact that the 16th Amendment guaranteed the U.S. Treasury the means to be able pay government debt obligations, while on the other hand the 17th Amendment greatly diminished the influence of states to negatively influence the plans the banksters had to "manage" the country's currency.
When the violations of the 1913 FRA ended in the bust of the Florida real estate bubble, followed by the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the U.S. Senate didn't say "peep" about the catastrophy brought on by the rogue acts of bankers.
Quite to the contrary, the banksters lobbied FDR to nationalize gold, so as to get out from underneath legal obligations to redeem FRNs for gold. They lobbied the Congress for to change the national currency from a redeemable Federal Reserve Note with value based on a standard employing gold to an irredeemable Federal Reserve Note with value determined by a Board of Governors of a "new" Federal Reserve System made up of members from the "banking community" recommended by the U.S. President and voted onto the board by U.S. Senators. The National Banking Act of 1935 put it all into law.
Interest rates no longer were a matter of competition for savers to invest their gold, because American citizens were prohibited from holding gold after 1933.
After 1935, interest rates were set by the Board of Governors of the "new" Federal Reserve System, a government agency created by the NBA of 1935. Under the Act, government debt would serve as the basis for creating irredeemable Federal Reserve Notes, and Federal Reserve Agents at the District Reserve Banks would bring the irredeemable Federal Reserve Note currency into circulation through the member banks of the "new" FED.
If you want to understand our present problems and the reason for Glass-Stegall, if you want to understand the havoc created by mixing banking with investing, it is imperative that you understand the violations of the 1913 FRA by NY banksters, countenanced by Benjamin Strong. They were felloneous, and they are the actual root of the mess in which we find ourselves.
Not prosecuting the bankster ninety years ago when it counted, has now landed us at the edge of an abyss. However, there will be no bankster, nor politician who can ever be made to take the full blame for it.
The one person who could have been prosecuted for allowing the violation of the 1913 FRA was Benjamin Strong. However, by the time the 1920's violations had their full effect by sending the country into a depression, Benjamin Strong was dead. He died in 1928.
To put banksters into jail, after they have for generation, after generation benefitted from a system which their fellow banksters crafted into being in the in the early 1920s, is an attempt which comes much, much too late.
The only thing which helps us now, is public awareness. However, most people couldn't give a hoot about monetary policy. With their public education as a background, talk about a collapsing U.S. currency would be "Greek" to them. (No pun intended)
Reply from The Daily Bell
Again, nonsense. The entire globalist paradigm was set up by a handful of men, none of them the Wall Street "banksters" you speak of. The "banksters" are mere employees. This is Ellen Browns paradigm, designed to ensure that people don't focus on the top of the "food chain."
Benjamin Strong had no hand in the post-World War II evolution of internationalism. One man, George Soros, is apparently responsible for the International Criminal Court. One family is basically responsible for the UN, IMF and World Bank.
The Rothschilds virtually created Israel and recently paid for the Supreme Court building there with its Illuminati symbolism. Why you present historical lies about the influence of top elites and downplay their influence is something only you can explain. Any explanation you'd offer would should clearly be deemed suspicious based on what you have clearly and maliciously pro-offered in this thread.
Posted by arias4me on 01/22/13 09:13 PM
We need massive arrests on an unprecedented scale for all the criminal activity that is ongoing in the United States, as much by government as by wall street bankers.
Posted by fabien on 01/22/13 07:09 PM
You can put half of this country into jail, no problems, but gotta start somewhere.
![]() |
Posted by Abu Aardvark on 01/22/13 07:07 PM
"How the Vatican built a secret property empire using Mussolini's millions"
Click to view link
![]() |
Posted by IndyLyn on 01/22/13 05:59 PM
Fantastic!!! You darling little elves are so beautiful when you're right-on angry! Thank you much for venting so professionally. :-)
![]() |
Posted by Friend_of_John_Galt on 01/22/13 05:12 PM
Seems a shame that we've wasted $Billions on NPR and on PBS over all these years. The markets have provided ample alternate programing through the hundreds of narrow focus cable channels that have come into being over the past 30+ years. The justification for NPR and PBS was based on the initial "problem" of poor cultural TV and radio programming in the 1950s and 1960s. That justification was pretty thin at the time and has long been rendered moot. All taxpayer funding for these networks should be withdrawn immediately. It's simply a waste of money.
Frankly, most of these bureaucrats ought to be "in handcuffs" ... and most of the mainstream media ought to be held in a re-education camp (preferably run by North Korea, so they can get a taste of what they are actually advocating).



l 


















