More from Matt Taibbi the best finance journalist around at present
It’s by now been well-established that the S.E.C.’s performance in policing Wall Street before, after, and during the crash has been comically inept. It would be putting it generously to say that the top cop on the financial services beat has demonstrated particular incompetence with regard to investigations of high-profile targets at powerhouse banks and financial companies. A less generous interpretation would be that the agency is simply too afraid, too unwilling, or too corrupt to take on the really dangerous animals in this particular jungle.
The S.E.C.’s failure to make even one case against a high-ranking executive involved in the mass frauds leading to the 2008 crash – compare this to the comparatively much smaller and less serious S&L crisis twenty years earlier, when the government made 1,100 criminal cases and sent 800 bank officials to jail – became so conspicuous that by the end of last year, the “No prosecutions of top figures” idea became an accepted meme inmainstream news media coverage of the economic crisis.
Rolling Stone
S&L 800 -v- GFC 0. Another hint why the average punter sees the system as corrupt and is staying the hell out of the way.
Its very hard to argue against that perception and until people start going to jail (which will not happen) then they will continue to stay away.
Funny thing though is that Uncle Ben is either juicing or talking up the system to promote a ‘wealth’ effect to try and get the punters trading (but they’ve wised up, as above), so he’s just facilitating trading by crooks and skynet bots.