America is so apathetic about financial crimes that we couldn't even get any meaningful indictments from the Great Recession. In 2008 bank executives wrecked the global economy in the biggest fraud ever and only one banker went to jail and his name was Kaeeem Serageldin. Why? Because he had a very strange "American" name?
America used to care about financial criminals. Back in 1929 the Stock Marked crashed and bankers got off scott free with their fortunes but then the courts went after the former President of the Stock Exchange and charged him with embellishment and sent him to Sing Sing that is a maximum security prison.
In the early 2000's prosecutors charged the Arthur Andersen accounting firm in the ENRON scandal. That accounting firm went out of business for their crimes. For a moment. The firm publicly managed to change the subject from accounting fraud to innocent people being put out of work because they closed down. Before you knew it the conviction was overturned on a technicality. Poof! White collar crime is swept under the rug.
So how do we hold criminal companies accountable for their crimes if their thousands of employees might lose their jobs? So then they made the Deferred Prosecution Agreement. Prosecutors now just give bad companies a fine meanwhile they usually have plenty of money with a promise that they will behave in the future. UGH!
Sometimes white collar crimes are more than just money crimes on paper. General Motors had defective ignition switched costing drivers their life. In 2015 GM settled with the Department of Justice a hand slap of a $900 million fine. No jail time or any accountability for any executive. That crime led to 124 people killed and injured 125 people. Slapping big corporations with just fines now they just refer to as the cost of doing business. In the Housing Crash banks were fined $321 billion dollars and that industry barely blinked. Sounds like a lot of money but it isn't compared to the $1 trillion they made in profits.
If prosecutors jailed more billionaires for crimes like they go after everyone else maybe Donald Trump wouldn't be so arrogant and always feel entitled. He wouldn't ever made it near the White House. The New York Times published an exhaustive investigation into Trump's financed and had the proof of Trump dodging taxes and committing fraud. Trump received $400 million from his parents and set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from his parents . When Donald was three years old they reported he earned $200,000 dollars per year. The Times reported on decades of Trump fraud but no one cared. Why?
Currently we have over 2,000 federal prisoners serving life sentences for non violent drug crimes. Many states like most recently New Jersey are making pot legal meanwhile state prisons are full of people in jail for smoking a joint. People are in jail for conspiracy because they knew someone was smoking a joint. 15 years in prison for that.
America is a nation of laws but those laws mean nothing if people who launder money, companies who kill people or banks that drain people of all their money get just a slap on the wrist with a promise to never do that again. Our Justice Department has some accountability to do in their chambers too.
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