General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRobert Reich- Whatever Happened to Antitrust?
Last weeks settlement between the Justice Department and five giant banks reveals the appalling weakness of modern antitrust.
The banks had engaged in the biggest price-fixing conspiracy in modern history. Their self-described cartel used an exclusive electronic chat room and coded language to manipulate the $5.3 trillion-a-day currency exchange market. It was a brazen display of collusion that went on for years, said Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
But there will be no trial, no executive will go to jail, the banks can continue to gamble in the same currency markets, and the fines although large are a fraction of the banks potential gains and will be treated by the banks as costs of doing business.
America used to have antitrust laws that permanently stopped corporations from monopolizing markets, and often broke up the biggest culprits.
more
http://robertreich.org/post/119767465905
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Under RICO, a person who has committed "at least two acts of racketeering activity" drawn from a list of 35 crimes27 federal crimes and 8 state crimeswithin a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering if such acts are related in one of four specified ways to an "enterprise". Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count. In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of "racketeering activity."
Although its primary intent was to deal with organized crime, Blakey said that Congress never intended it to merely apply to the Mob. He once told Time, "We don't want one set of rules for people whose collars are blue or whose names end in vowels, and another set for those whose collars are white and have Ivy League diplomas."
G. Robert Blakey, an adviser to the United States Senate Government Operations Committee, drafted the law under the close supervision of the committee's chairman, Senator John Little McClellan. It was enacted as Title IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, and signed into law by Richard M. Nixon. While its original use in the 1970s was to prosecute the Mafia as well as others who were actively engaged in organized crime, its later application has been more widespread.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act#cite_note-Time-2
Tell me that these criminal crimes are not racketeering.
A racket is a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem, such as for a problem that does not actually exist, that will not be put into effect, or that would not otherwise exist if the racket did not exist. Conducting a racket is racketeering.
S.Rep. No. 617, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 76 (1968). However, the statute is sufficiently broad to encompass illegal activities relating to any enterprise affecting interstate or foreign commerce.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(crime)
Well I know that I'm right and also know why too big to jail, to big to fail Holder never did shit about the law.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)It no longer exists because there are many that are quite literally if not statutorily ABOVE the law.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)in money laundering for drug cartels, manipulating the metal market, housing loans, tibor trading, etc. etc
Tony Soprano would be envious.
Plain and simple racketeering.
polichick
(37,152 posts)And the people who get that got conned by a man who would never touch the profits of those corporations, much less see any of his golf buddies go to jail.
To make things worse, a lot of those same people are happily being conned by the next corporate tools of choice.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Despite the claims by Justice Department officials of a criminal conspiracy "on a massive scale," carried out with "breathtaking flagrancy," there was no talk of breaking up JPMorgan or any other bank, let alone bringing criminal charges against any of their executives.
* In January 2013, JPMorgan, together with 10 other banks, agreed to pay a combined $8.5 billion to settle charges that they forged documents to foreclose homes more quickly.
* In November 2013, the bank agreed to pay $13 billion to settle charges that it defrauded investors by selling fraudulent mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the housing bubble collapse in 2007 and 2008.
* That same month, JPMorgan paid $4.5 billion to settle charges that it defrauded pension funds and other institutional investors to whom it sold mortgage bonds.
* In December 2013, JPMorgan and eight other banks were fined $2.3 billion for manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), the global benchmark interest rate on which the values of trillions of dollars in securities are based.
* In January 2014, JPMorgan paid $2 billion in fines and penalties to settle charges that it profited from and helped operate Bernard L. Madoffs Ponzi scheme.
As a result of the crimes perpetrated by JPMorgan and other banks over the past decade, millions of people have had their homes foreclosed, and millions more have lost their jobs, while countless university endowments, pension plans, and municipalities have been swindled out of billions of dollars.
Based on this partial list of only the latest and largest crimes carried out by JPMorgan, it is no exaggeration to conclude that America's largest bank is a criminal organization. Why then is it impossible to prosecute, much less jail, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, the mastermind of all of these crimes and conspiracies?
The answer to this question lies in the vast retrogression in social relations that has taken place in America amid the enormous growth of social inequality. Behind the increasingly threadbare outwards trappings of democracy, America has become an aristocratic society, with entrenched legal and social privileges for the ruling elite.
This financial oligarchy controls all the levers of power in contemporary society. The media, courts, politicians and so-called financial regulators are all under the thumb of the Wall Street mafiosos. Far from seeking to restrain Wall Streets criminality, the government functions to facilitate and cover up for its crimes.
In exchange, politicians are provided with millions of dollars in campaign contributions and "speaking fees," while top financial regulators are invariably assured high-paying positions on Wall Street after their stints with the government.
Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chairman who funneled trillions of dollars to Wall Street during the 2008 bank bailout, announced this year that he has been hired by two major Wall Street firms, the hedge fund Citadel and the bond trading firm Pimco, each of whom will presumably pay him a seven-figure salary. Bernanke followed in the footsteps of his colleague Timothy Geithner, who became the head of hedge fund Warburg Pincus in November 2013, following his stint as Treasury Secretary.
There is no way to break the power of the criminal cabal that dominates political life in the United States within the framework of the present social order. Holding the Wall Street criminals to account requires a radical reorganization of society. Only then can the criminals who head the major US financial institutions be arrested, tried and convicted of the crimes that they have orchestrated against the populations of the United States and the whole world. Their ill-gotten gains must be seized, and the major Wall Street banks must be put under democratic control by the international working class.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/05/22/pers-m22.html
other examples of criminal behavior.
In March 2010, Wachovia Bank, revealed it had laundered $378.4 billion dollars for the Sinaloa Cartel, through a network of exchange houses, or casas de cambio, between 2004 and 2007.
Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo Bank, avoided prosecution by paying $160 million; a very small sum considering the laundered amount corresponds to one-third of Mexicos Gross Domestic Product for one year.
polichick
(37,152 posts)and even to begin to think about how the people can take it on.
Grateful that Sanders and Warren are speaking out.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)think
(11,641 posts)What else need to be said before something is REALLY done about this?
whereisjustice
(2,941 posts)appalachiablue
(41,188 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,885 posts)(but this will be ignored, just, because.)
erronis
(15,429 posts)Don't worry, some other corporate entity has already figured out how to make more money and has greased the palms of our executive, legislative (and I fear judicial) branches.
If "our" government really wants to get the trust of its citizens it needs to start being a lot more open about the rationale for pursuing (or not) these egregious crimes against this country.
Could we have a requirement that all decisions made by the US Federal government and contributing material be freely available after 5 years? I think 5 years is short enough to let some current office holders know that they will be exposed quickly.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)IMO the reason our government does not go after them is because we do not have the strength to do it.
I think that all these monopolies could and would break the government in two and do it easily.
Bernie watch your back.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Bought and paid-for presidents appoint bought and paid-for attorneys general. Wouldn't want to interfere with fund-raising in the name of law enforcement now, would we?
This country is as corrupt as corrupt can be.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)And yet the Pukes and Baggers think there is too much gub'ment interference.
Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)of Eric Holder.
I'm beginning to wonder if it was all theatre with the confirmation process. First the repugs stall and balk and then after 144 days they confirm Lynch. Maybe they balked because they thought she was going to be tough on bankers but then Obama assured them that Lynch would be the second coming of Holder.
The Obama administration has always treated Wall Street with kid gloves. Shameful.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)Getting one regularly seems to require a softer touch.
Omaha Steve
(99,833 posts)Nobody from the banks goes to jail. I don't understand the math?
K&R!
OS
valerief
(53,235 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)Monsanto alone owns the key genetic traits to more than 90 percent of the soybeans planted by farmers in the United States, and 80 percent of the corn.
Big Agribusiness wants to keep it this way.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Yes, and the situation is absurd. But arguably both of these examples can be blamed on laws passed during the CLINTON years.
I believe these are the two main culprits that corrupted the anti trust laws were the
Telecommunications Act of 1996
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act
KoKo
(84,711 posts)And passed when so many of us were busy defending him against the Starr Commission and RW Attacks. Many of us didn't know what passing both would mean "down the road" just as with NAFTA the effects of TPP/TPIP won't be visible immediately. And, when they become visible it will be too late to do anything about it..