Posts tagged “glass-steagall”

Factoid: S&L Retribution vs. Bailout Retribution

…between 1990 and 1995 no less than 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted, and 1,072 placed behind bars. Another 2,558 bankers were also jailed, often for offenses which were S&L-linked too.Gillian Tett
Assistant Editor, Financial Times

This, according to a Department of Justice report. How many jail sentences have you seen meted out to bankers during the last couple years? I can only think of one, Bernie Madoff. I am willing to admit some escaped the radar, but this is hardly justice. The S&L crisis cost taxpayers roughly $124 billion and netted thousands of incarcerations. My how our society has changed.

Via Jon Taplin’s blog

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Please read Matt Taibbi’s latest article. It’s very important.

I cannot overestimate how important it is that all of us, from the young to the old, National Review readers to Bravo watchers, read this article. The reach of its material touches each and every one of us, no matter how engaged in the broader world we think we might (or might not) be. Ostensibly, it is about the investment bank Goldman Sachs. In reality, it highlights the task ahead if we, as human beings, are to overcome the megalithic obstacles placed in front of us. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you will definitely want to punch someone in the face.

As Taibbi says,

It’s not always easy to accept the reality of what we now routinely allow these people to get away with; there’s a kind of collective denial that kicks in when a country goes through what America has gone through lately, when a people lose as much prestige and status as we have in the past few years. You can’t really register the fact that you’re no longer a citizen of a thriving first-world democracy, that you’re no longer above getting robbed in broad daylight, because like an amputee, you can still sort of feel things that are no longer there.Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone

You simply must read this excellent piece of Journalism. That is all.

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Visualizing the credit crisis

The Crisis of Credit Visualized, Part 1

There have been many attempts to make the financial meltdown understandable, but The Crisis of Credit Visualized, by Jonathan Jarvis, is far and away the best I’ve seen. This is the kind of information that broadcast journalists should be drooling over, desperately trying to get their grubby little hands on it to fill up the precious moments between ad cycles. Instead, on my nightly news last night, I got to hear a story about a horse crapping on the side of the road and a dalmatian that rides a tricycle, literally back to back, in the middle of the newscast. I wonder why ad revenue for local broadcasters has dropped while Google continues to soar?

Even if you understand the credit crisis, it is worth taking a few minutes to watch the video above and Part 2, after the jump.

Thanks, Kevin!
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