
by: Marti Oakley (c)copyright 2010 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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The recent bailouts of financial institutions to the tune of several trillions of dollars should have been a wake up call for all of us; the duality of the justice system never more apparent as when it became clear that a grand theft on an unimaginable scale had taken place and these same institutions were now holding the country hostage, threatening total economic collapse if we did not capitulate and infuse them with cash so they could continue raping and pillaging the country.
We have a prison system that now holds 2.5 million people and this does not include the hundreds of thousands of people being held in city and county jails for petty crimes. While a percentage of these prisoners do need to be incarcerated because of violent crimes, more than half of those serving time or being held have harmed no one and in fact are there because of some statutory code or regulation infraction. But, they will serve time, pay fines, and Wall Street will sell prisoner bonds all over the world, for profit.
Doesn’t any one find it strange that not one of those Wall Street parasites; not one of those corporate high rollers who took millions upon millions in pay and bonuses and who continue to do so even after taxpayer money was stolen to bail them out, even after billions and billions was borrowed in the name of the citizens, not one of them spent a day in jail? Did you hear one of those senators or representatives or any one from the justice department calling for prosecuting these people? Has anyone other than the sacrificial lamb, Bernie Madoff, ever seen the inside of a jail as a result of their corrupt financial practices and the harm it caused others? No, you didn’t. And, the only reason Madoff got nailed was because the people he harmed most were wealthy! It would seem obvious that graft, theft and corruption are ok just as long as it only affects the little people.
Even as the corrupt practices were exposed, the contrived schemes to defraud investors and the public became public knowledge, not one of those CEO’s, their staff, their managers or accountants….no one…..was ever charged with a crime or prosecuted. The IRS didn’t swoop in to seize their assets; no freezes were put on their bank accounts or investments. Not one palatial home was seized and sold to repay the debt. Not one yacht was auctioned off nor one private jet. These corporate raiders not only stole America’s wealth….the government and the justice system made sure they got to keep it.
Now compare this to a petty thief who breaks into a home and steals a few hundred dollars worth of someone else’s stuff. A crime has been committed, and the offender will spend a mandatory sentence of five years, minimally. Everyone from the department making the arrest, to the bail-bondsman, to the attorney and judges, the prisons and Wall Street makes money off that prisoner.
If any small business had through its own bad management practices or through created schemes to defraud its customers, come to the brink of collapse for no other reason than its own devious dealings had rendered it insolvent; would we advocate taking our tax money to bail them out so they could continue their crime? Why did we do this with these corrupt financial institutions?
The corruption that occurred in the financial industry was not a result of too many regulations as most regulations had been struck down under Bush2. It was a result of a lack of regulation which allowed corporations of all kinds to run without any kind of control. It would be great to think or believe those running these institutions would be guided by some kind of moral or ethical compass, but history has shown us that nothing could be further from the truth. More
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