2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumBoston Globe (Dr. Jeff Sachs):The Age of Impunity...Clintons long ago perfected the art of impunity:
The age of impunity
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/05/12/the-age-impunity/LHBxamqFENCs3W6lvWnCIJ/story.html
The Panama PaperS opened yet another window on the global system of financial corruption, showing how political leaders and businesses use shell companies in secrecy havens like the British Virgin Islands and many US states to evade taxes and hide corruption and other crimes. Yet the system of corruption depends on another factor beyond secrecy, one that is perhaps even more important: impunity. Impunity means that the rich and powerful escape from punishment even when their malfeasance is in full view.
Impunity is epidemic in America. The rich and powerful get away with their heists in broad daylight. When a politician like Bernie Sanders calls out the corruption, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal double down with their mockery over such a foolish dreamer. The Journal recently opposed the corruption sentence of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell for taking large gifts and bestowing official favors because everybody does it. And one of its columnists praised Panama for facilitating the ability of wealthy individuals to hide their income from predatory governments trying to collect taxes. No kidding.
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Paulson and Goldman constructed and marketed a portfolio of toxic assets to sell to unwitting investors so that Paulson could bet against the portfolio. Goldman and Paulson thereby turned the sucker investors quick $1 billion loss into an equivalent $1 billion gain for Paulson, with Goldman collecting on fees. The SEC fined Goldman but left Paulson untouched. As one disillusioned SEC investigator put it: The SEC is an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors. Yet Harvard was delighted last year to take $400 million of Paulsons ill-gotten gains, leave Paulson with the rest, name its engineering school after Paulson, and declare Paulson to be the epitome of a visionary leader.
Impunity. Paulson remains a much-celebrated figure on Wall Street. He has many kindred spirits, such as his partner in crime, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who has described himself as just a banker doing Gods work. Or consider JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, whose bank has paid well over $30 billion in fines while Dimon remains CEO with a $27 million salary for 2015. The hedge-fund industry itself is a case study of impunity. With few exceptions, it is domiciled in tax and secrecy havens, enjoys crass tax breaks brokered by cronies in Congress (such as Wall Street Senator Chuck Schumer), and pays itself billion-dollar-plus paychecks even while leaving investors with below-market returns or outright losses over the years.
The recourse to cheating within the financial industry now seems to be deeply ingrained, part of the corporate culture, and enabled by the prevailing impunity.........
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Impunity is not an accidental or incidental defect of American society. It is a system foisted on us by the rich and powerful, and it continues to work its magic. It has enabled Hillary Clinton to come within reach of the presidential nomination without releasing the transcripts of her highly paid speeches to Wall Street banks.
The Clintons long ago perfected the art of impunity, becoming rich and powerful by blurring the lines between their campaign fund-raising, public policies in office, Clinton Foundation work, big-money speeches, and off-the-record favors for foreign governments.
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Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and author of The Age of Sustainable Development.
trumad
(41,692 posts)Baobab
(4,667 posts)for people to be so angry at somebody and for them to not be punished for whatever it is that's causing it.
People really dont want HIllary.
Henhouse
(646 posts)We see how well that worked out...Not sure if HRC needs his advise...
tularetom
(23,664 posts)The speeches were a fiction created to disguise what was essentially a bribe designed to keep Clinton under the thumb of Wall Street.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Hillary will oversee if she makes it to the white house. The discussions were about the actual scope of TPP, TTIP, the end/privatization of Medicare and social security, the prison industry, and so on. She was giving them some idea of how much money they're going to get. That's why they are all supporting her.
annavictorious
(934 posts)to the governments of the countries of the former Soviet Union created the oligarchies that exist today.
Sachs was a major player in creating actual oligarchies.
http://www.thenation.com/article/harvard-boys-do-russia/
http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Financial_skeptic/Casino_capitalism/Twelve_apostles_of_deregulation/Sachs/index.shtml