The Wall Street Criminals Are Still Running Free, Stealing Billions

By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted March 6, 2009.

As those of us who still believe those silly "rights" our Founders put in the Constitution push to investigate and prosecute the Bush/Cheney crowd for their crimes, we have other criminals still running around free in the private and public sector.

1.Why isn't Bernie Madoff behind bars?

2.Why hasn't Congress thrown Roland Burris out of the Senate on his lying ass?

3.Why hasn't Fitzgerald reeled in Blago yet, instead of letting him run around giving interviews and signing book contracts?

4.Why hasn't the Attorney General Holder filed scores of civil recovery actions to reclaim for taxpayers the billions in excess salary and bonuses pocketed by the people who lost/squandered the life savings of millions of Americans?

5.Why hasn't Congress or the administration introduced and passed legislation requiring the above?

6.Why haven't Wall Street wheeler dealers who got us into this mess been fired and/or indicted instead of bailed out?

7.Why is it that only ordinary citizens are feeling the full impact of the chaos these movers and shakers caused?

In short, why are the very people whose actions ignited a worldwide depression still sitting pretty, at least compared to their victims? (That would now include taxpayers.)

I don't know about you, but I want the administration and Congress to do two things at once; start repairing the damage cause by hurricane Bush, and punish the few -- maybe as few as 100 -- individuals, like Mazillo, Madoff, Sanford et al, who aided, abetted and profited at the expense of everyone else.

Because if we just clean up the mess and don't also make an example of the people who caused it, we'll be cleaning up another mess in few years. I know this is true because this is the third financial meltdown I've covered in less than 25 years.. 1) The S&L mess, 2) The Dot-Com mess, and 3) Now this one.

Each had the same things in common, including some of the very same actors; loose to non-existent regulations and/or enforcement, phony-baloney accounting methods that allowed a handful of bankers, borrowers, Wall Street firms and accounting firms to pocket billions, all of which eventually collapsed under the weight of its own bullshit costing average investors and average taxpayers billions ... and this time around, trillions of dollars.

As they used to say in the old west, there's nothing like a noose to focus one's attention.

See more stories tagged with: crime, wall street, recession, criminals

Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, which was nominated for a Pulitzer.

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