Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Soaking the Bankers

Unable or unwilling to actually prosecute Wall Street bankers for their reckless and (I think) criminal shenanigans with mortgage bonds, the Justice Department has hit on another tactic: press civil litigation against the banks and force them to settle for enormous sums. The news today is that JPMorgan is paying $13 billion; a $2 billion fine plus $4 billion for struggling mortgage holders and $7 billion in repayments to various governmental entities that lost money in the crash.

Here we have another confirmation of an English adage that goes back to medieval times: poor man hanged by the neck, rich man by the purse.

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