Attorney General Eric Holder, the highest law enforcement officer in the land, said he cannot prosecute the big banks because that would endanger the global economy. This is an admission the world is run by the banks and not governments or the rule of law.
This week's featured documentary is Frontline's The Untouchables. Frontline asks the fundamental question, why hasn't anyone responsible for the financial crisis gone to jail?
The latest fallout in the banks manipulating the LIBOR scandal were criminal charges against two UBS traders. LIBOR is a key financial rate and the Justice Department this week fined UBS $1.5 billion for rate rigging. The Japan UBS subsidiary also pleaded guilty to wire fraud.
UBS Securities Japan Co. Ltd. (UBS Japan), an investment bank, financial advisory securities firm and wholly-owned subsidiary of UBS AG, has agreed to plead guilty to felony wire fraud and admit its role in manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), a leading benchmark used in financial products and transactions around the world, Attorney General Eric Holder announced today. The criminal information, filed today in U.S. District Court in the District of Connecticut, charges UBS Japan with one count of engaging in a scheme to defraud counterparties to interest rate derivatives trades by secretly manipulating LIBOR benchmark interest rates.
It there was ever a message from our government, it's this. If someone has enough money and power, they can get away with anything. There will be no consequence and no punishment for the rich and powerful.
Once again, Goldman Sachs gets completely away with it. The Department of Justice, closed the books on pursuing Goldman Sachs. Now this is most interesting, you cannot find the statement, press release, nothing on the DOJ website or anywhere. Some claim the DOJ statement is in Goldman Sachs 10-Q, but no, not there either.
About the only place you can get the DOJ statement, it appears, is ABC News, second hand and not directly uploaded.
Based on the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution with respect to Goldman Sachs or its employees in regard to the allegations set forth in the report.”
HSBC is a bank. They are also a money launderer. Last week the Senate subcommittee on investigations, part of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, issued a report (pdf) and held a hearing, U.S. Vulnerabilities to Money Laundering, Drugs, and Terrorist Financing: HSBC Case History. Contained within is a laundry list, if we can use the pun, of HSBC evil doings and how they mechanically laundry money for drug cartels, terrorists and tax evaders.
This is over a decade past 9/11 and seemingly HSBC has been operating with impunity. One of the conduits for money laundering is correspondent banking. Correspondent banking is when one financial institution provides services to another financial institution to move funds, exchange currencies, cash monetary instruments, or carry out other financial transactions. Even though in 2002, correspondent banking was recognized as a primary method to fund terrorist activities, the doors have not been shut.
Correspondent accounts continue to provide a gateway into the U.S. financial system, and wrongdoers continue to abuse that entryway.
Below is what has been done since 9/11, yet correspondent banking is alive and well.
Banks running amok. Banks losing billions. Banks busted for fraud that went on for over 20 years. Banks overcharging customers. The hits just keep on coming. One would think, at this point, the business suit would be more a symbol of jailbirds than a uniform of respectability. Yet on and on it goes and with that we overview the latest adventures in Mafia style Banksterdom.
The headlines blare JPMorgan Chase Revives Markets when they announced a $5.8 billion dollar loss on their derivatives trades.
The largest U.S. bank tried to demonstrate Friday that the worst of the problem was in the rear-view mirror, reporting a $4.96 billion profit for the second quarter, down 8.7% from a year ago.
That's almost three times larger than the originally reported $2 billion loss and that loss could climb to $7.5 billion. What does Wall Street do with this news, why reward the bank of course!
Meanwhile new investigations against JPMorgan Chase are popping up with the bank refusing to release emails about manipulating the electricity market.
The manipulation of the LIBOR scandal just keeps growing. Ever since Barclays was busted for manipulating this key critical interbank interest rate, more outrageous details keep pouring out.
Europe wants to make such evil financial dealings criminal. Yes, that's right, already manipulating a key interest rate is being classified as not criminal by this announcement.
Europe's top regulatory official intends to propose new rules that would criminalize the manipulation of benchmarks such as Libor.
The U.K. Serious Fraud Office opened a criminal probe into the attempted rigging of interest rates that led to a record fine against Barclays Plc (BARC), adding to pressure on banks already under investigation by regulators around the globe.
Supposedly the U.S. opened a criminal probe in February 2012:
Several major global banks, including Citigroup Inc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and UBS AG, have disclosed that they have been approached by authorities investigating how Libor is set.
On May 31st, Manhattan prosecutors filed criminal charges against Abacus Federal Savings Bank and 19 employees. These are the first criminal charges against an actual bank associated with the financial crisis. This very small bank issued fraudulent mortgages, otherwise known as liar loans and sold them to Fannie Mae.
Abacus Federal Savings Bank, a small bank with a major presence in New York City’s Chinese community, and 19 of its former employees have been charged with inflating the qualifications of mortgage applicants to meet federal loan standards, a scheme that prosecutors say brought the bank tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten fees and sent hundreds of millions of dollars in risky mortgages to the investment market.
The thing is liar loans were extremely common, so why would New York Prosecutors go after this small community bank instead of the larger fish? Politics and resources.
Bill Black in the below Bloomberg law interview says this prosecution will probably be our token sacrifice. In other words, don't expect Countrywide, notorious for liar loans and now part of Bank of America to be put in cuffs, doing the perp walk.
We all know there is no justice when it comes to criminal and even civil prosecutions for the financial crisis. We all know there is no justice when it comes to foreclosures. Are you aware the Obama administration is about to let the banks once again off the hook?
Maybe this has something to do with it. Reuters gives us just a little insight as to why their have been no criminal prosecutions of banks and civil penalties have been slaps on the wrist.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who's Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud.
Great, so the highest prosecutor in the land had the Banksters as clients for years.
Holder and Breuer were partners at Covington, the firm's clients included the four largest U.S. banks - Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co - as well as at least one other bank that is among the 10 largest mortgage servicers.
Reuters is really piecing together the implications with this paragraph. Wow!
There is no Justice. Countrywide financial settled a civil action by the Department of Justice for $335 million. This equates to $1,675 dollars in compensation for each of the 200,000 listed victims. Meanwhile Hispanics and Blacks were pushed into sub-prime loans which drove the housing bubble, prices, through the roof. Many lost their homes in foreclosure due to bubble payments and high interest rates, when a regular mortgage payment might have been financially feasible.
Recent comments