Published 2013.02.22 in CommPRO.biz

3,800 to Zero
 
Following the Savings & Loan Crisis a couple decades ago, roughly 3,800 bank executives were jailed. The more severe crisis we are slogging though, has for all intents and purposes, produced zero convictions, no jail time for the Wall Street executives who triggered it. You may have heard that one of three financial rating agencies that awarded AAA ratings to the toxic mortgage packages the big banks referred to as “Crap,” Standard & Poor’s, faces $5 billion in Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) fines. However, not one S&P executive faces prosecution.

The appalling failure of federal and state entities to hold responsible those who threw us into the most damaging recession in seven decades is shameful. In reviewing the litany of excuses offered for this travesty, this much is clear: it is difficult to prove fraud. And, George W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson created a bailout atmosphere seemingly designed for the ethically challenged monster banks. Our leaders, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Attorney General Holder, and the President himself, can’t seem to deal with the legal challenges. It’s a situation crying out for creativity.
 
Al Capone, whose criminal “Creds” ran from hooch to hookers with lots of killings thrown in, laughed in the faces of the authorities just as the bankers have been laughing since the bailout. The banks sucked up the taxpayers’ bucks in billion dollar gasps, like the dying beasts they were. Once they were on sound footing, instead of using our money to help the economy, they went right back to the same crazy risky stuff that caused the recession. And why not? They know they can stick the taxpayers with their losses. When the authorities couldn’t pin Capone’s criminal activities on him they got creative and tried him for tax evasion, netting Capone 11 years in Alcatraz.
 
Senator Carl Levin watched Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, smirk his way through testimony before his Senate Committee and then turned his findings over to the Justice Department. Levin, a Harvard Law graduate and experienced prosecutor, was clearly disturbed when Justice failed to take action. The DOJ also declined to prosecute egregious criminal behavior on the part of HSBC, citing a fear that to do so might take the bank down and threaten our economy.
 
It’s time for creativity. The Supreme Court says corporations are people, so let’s prosecute their living parts. Let’s charge top executives and boards of directors who know –or have a fiduciary responsibility to know– what their corporation is up to. Sending the Board and the “C” Suite off to the slammer is not going to sink the ship. One thing we know for sure: there are lots of topnotch managers who could take over and probably do a better job than those they replace, especially when replacing the nitwits who green-lighted the HSBC mess. Unlike a massive fine that becomes a “Cost of Doing Business,” the prospect of a jail term should put a halt to the greed-fueled behavior all too common in our banking sector.