December
22, 2012
“Too
Big To Jail”
By
Dan McGookey, Esq.
In
the latest installment of the “too big to fail” (or is it
jail?) philosophy which our government seems to have totally
bought into when addressing the recurrent issue of how to deal
with big bank misconduct, the feds recently announced a $1.9
billion settlement against British giant HSBC for its role in
the so-called LIBOR scandal which broke into the news several
months ago. Even though the Justice Department called its fine a
“powerful blow” against the bank cronyism, the sheer numbers
tell a different story.
When
one considers that the settlement amount equals about five
one-hundredths of one percent of
HSBC’s total assets, and only a tiny fraction of its annual
net revenues, you can begin to get the picture of how puny the
fine really was. Even more telling, however, is the fact that
HSBC’s misconduct affected
hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of financial products
worldwide. To
put it in a perspective that you and I as the dumb commoners
(who, by the way, are paying the tab for this crooked behavior),
this “punishment” of HSBC is akin to us robbing $50,000 from
an HSBC branch and then, when caught, being required to give
only $1,000 of it back.
So
the beat goes on in a world where corruption and greed have
infected our leadership institutions to the point where no one
is left to protect us. When the government proclaims that these
banks are too big to fail, the unmistakable end to the logical
sequence in that they
are above the law and beyond punishment, no
matter what they do. And think about the inevitable end
consequence of this hands-off course of inaction – total
anarchy. Before that happens, hopefully one person in a position
to make a difference, uninfected by the greed and power virus,
will step forward and do the right thing. If that happens, the
house of cards which the worlds’ biggest financial
institutions built will come tumbling down. And then our
leaders, sworn to serve and protect us, will end up right where
they belong, in the jail cell right alongside the banksters they
sold us out to.
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