Feds wrestle with ‘too big to jail’
http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/05/investing/too-big-to-jail/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
I talk about “too big to jail” here from time to time. The core of the problem remains this idiotic notion of a corporate entity being ‘human’. You can’t put a company in jail, it has no physical form. Besides, since the company doesn’t have a brain, it can’t make decisions that lead to illegal activity. So, in our ‘great’ society, humans (that are rich enough) can break laws willy nilly and the stock holders of the companies get fucked in the wallet while those humans get even fatter bonuses. Ain’t America great?!
Anyway, so now our (in)justice system is considering the idea of formally charging this piece of paper with a crime thinking that somehow that will serve as a deterrent to all these other pieces of paper that are ‘committing’ these various crimes. And yet the sheeple just shrug their shoulders and turn to the sports page…
I don’t know how (or if) the laws have changed, but it used to be that anyone in a position of fiduciary responsibility could be charged with the crime. I was actually threatened with this possibility about 30 years ago. I had absolutely no knowledge of the ‘crime’ having occurred, but I still got the threat. Scared the hell out of me.
Which is _precisely_ the problem we have today. If you are an executive at a TBTF institution, you are totally free of concern no matter what financial hijinks you engage in. Not an executive at such an institution? Prepare for the orange jump suit!