We’ve Bailed out the Banks. When Do We Go After the Crooks Behind our Financial Collapse?
As it stands now, there is only one federal prosecution related to the credit crash and bailout cycle, and it was begun by the Bush administration’s Justice Department in June 2008.
Not that there aren’t culprits. Bernie Madoff and the other accused Ponzi schemers like Allen Stanford are mere pickpockets compared with Wall Street’s institutional buccaneers, who, so far, have carted off up to $12.7 trillion—almost the size of the entire gross domestic product. They’ve multiplied their booty with billions in subsidies and a flood of derivatives—some of them merely old, soured wine in new bottles.