“Too Big To Fail”, but not to big to sue. I foresee some sweaty hand wringing in the boardrooms.
I foresee some sweaty money going into the campaign funds of politicians who will oddly support proposals to limit bank liability in the scandal and limit future regulation that might attempt to prevent this in the future.
Raise your hand if you honestly think this will actually come anywhere close to “bankrupt[ing] 16 of the world’s most important financial institutions”, have any positive impact for consumers, or do more than line the pockets of some the high-profile litigants involved in the case.
So banks that were ripped off get to sue and collect a settlement.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for those of us whose mortgages were tied to LIBOR (because Fed rates were too low, so the domestic banks went looking for some other fictitious rates that allowed them to charge higher interest) and thus overpaid interest for years to get anything at all.
Yes please.
Of course, the first thing to be done with any winnings from this case is to buy up 16 global financial institutions at rock-bottom prices. The end result is probably fewer, larger monolithic corporations.
Shareholders essentially end up with $$ from other shareholders. No one goes to jail, but the execs are often the biggest shareholders.
Finally!
Well, that’s not the kind of can-do attitude we like to see around here! Wherever and whenever have you seen such malfeasance to make you so cynical? Real problems like this have real solutions, you know!!! The system works! The system is good. Trust the system!!!
Not only should they go bankrupt but they should be shut down entirely. Banks that collude to commit fraud should not be entrusted with the right act as banks. They undermine our economy and harm us all.
The economy? FUCK the economy. Any social structure that is that dependent on Banks is an social structure that it superfluous to humanity.
Let it burn in the fires of our new revolution.
Fly it high. Fly it proud.
Expect campaign donations to take a big jump.
The banks have stolen enough money to pay for lawyers that can drag this out for half a century. Meanwhile their bought-and-paid for elected officials will cover their backs. Our attention span is shorter than theirs, and a few celebrity scandals from now this will go away, one way or another.
The interesting thing is the plaintiffs, who are also big money. Which could actually give this thing some legs. If it was mere plebs it would already be forgotten.
Here’s the long and short of it:
If I did this to a bank, they’d fucking crucify me. When banks do it, they’re supposed to get a free pass? Uh, hell no. As the man says, “fuck the fucking fuckers.”
Also, as a test of their “too big to fail” claims, how about we do our best to bankrupt them with fines and asset recovery? If that causes them to fail, then obviously they were lying about being too big to fail…
I think you fundamentally misunderstand “too big to fail.”
Too big to fail means that if the bank fails, it will cause serious damage to the rest of the economy. Not out of spite, not out of revenge, not even out of some perversity of game theory, but because so many other facets of the economy depend on it being there. Think of what happened when AIG collapsed.
Banks should be encouraged to become smaller entities by divesting, so that insolvency remains a unpleasant but ultimately limited event , not a absolute disaster that ricochets around the world seven times.
[quote=“jerwin, post:15, topic:78571, full:true”]
I think you fundamentally misunderstand “too big to fail.”
[/quote]I think you fundamentally misunderstand that what I said was half a joke, and half contempt for the entire concept.
The entire “too big to fail” mentality leads to said entities having no repercussions for taking large risks - they know they just have to say “too big to fail” and people are going to panic and refuse to shut them down, and even give them multi-billion dollar bailouts if necessary. All while lining the pockets of the executives.
Unless we start rejecting this too big to fail mentality, we’re going to get constantly screwed by these banks over and over. Better to have one crash now and never let it happen again, rather than keep propping these assholes up to cause near-crash after near-crash while stockpiling more and more cash. The system will eventually break either way, so why delay it until it’s an even worse disaster, and why let those responsible line their pockets with no consequences in the meantime?
This is why I use a credit union. Given a choice, I prefer to do business with people who’s business model doesn’t involve ripping me off.
There would be consequences from that. It would be ordinary people who could not get money out of their accounts. The rich have their money in corrupt institutions that you have never heard of, so the final result would be to transfer even more economic power to the rich.
Banks are like armies; we know horrible things happen in them but we tolerate them because of the leverage they have over society, and because their function is necessary. And banks are like armies because they represent the economic side of warfare - sanctions, which kill just as many people in poor countries as shooting wars.
Exactly, This is litigation as an instrument of economic manipulation - the plaintiffs are trying to use the legal system to take over other financial organisations. Were they to succeed, it’s you and I that would lose heavily.
The only thing worse than a bad guy with a bank is an even worse guy with a hedge fund.
You might want to consider how you’ve phrased that.
Yes, we can have a social structure which is not dependent on “banks” (generic). However (for example) in that society your ability to post on BB would depend on your ability to successfully barter with your power company and ISP, using the cabbages and goats you’d recently raised.
Now, a social structure that is dependent on particular, named banks - that we can do without quite nicely, and I agree with the sentiment.
