Not prosecuting any of the Wall Street criminals was a big failure.

[IDemo]

39. Business Insider - The Real Story Of How 'Untouchable' Wall Street Execs Avoided Prosecution

I strongly encourage all to read the full article at the link. Despite what some are mistakenly suggesting, crimes were committed and there was every reason to prosecute. Except, as Dick Durbin is quoted: "The banks frankly own the place" (DC).

<>

As I documented at length in my 2011 book on America's two-tiered justice system, "With Liberty and Justice for Some," the evidence that felonies were committed by Wall Street is overwhelming. That evidence directly negates the primary excuse by Breuer (previously offered by Obama himself) that the bad acts of Wall Street were not criminal.

Numerous documents prove that executives at leading banks, credit agencies, and mortgage brokers were falsely touting assets as sound that they knew were junk — the very definition of fraud.

As former Wall Street analyst Yves Smith wrote in her book "ECONned": "What went on at Lehman and AIG, as well as the chicanery in the CDO [collateralized debt obligation] business, by any sensible standard is criminal." Even lifelong Wall Street defender Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chair, said in Congressional testimony that "a lot of that stuff was just plain fraud."

A New York Times editorial in August explained that the DOJ's excuse for failing to prosecute Wall Street executives — that it was too hard to obtain convictions — "has always defied common sense, and all the more so now that a fuller picture is emerging of the range of banks' reckless and lawless activities, including interest-rate rigging, money laundering, securities fraud and excessive speculation."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-wall-street-execs-werent-prosecuted-2013-1#ixzz3EMxnYGg2