Matt Taibbi: Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Peter

A former Senate investigator tells writer Matt Taibbi that his story about Wall Street is a waste of time. Why? “Everything’s f***ed up, and nobody goes to jail,” says the investigator.

Wall Street protesters in 2010, found via Flickr

Think about it. Nearly every major bank and finance company on Wall Street has stolen from millions, and destroyed trillions of dollars of the world’s money. And only Bernie Madoff gets caught. The fake financial boom of crooked mortgage-backed securities hasn’t led to any executives behind bars. Taibbi writes:

To add insult to injury, the people who actually committed the crimes almost never pay the fines themselves; banks caught defrauding their shareholders often use shareholder money to foot the tab of justice.

Found by Laura at RollingStone.com. Photo by eyewash.


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  • Anonymous

    This outrage is the main reason that I’m a little disappointed in this administration. While I understand that the banksters have us by the short hairs, I none the less would like to see a few of them behind bars for awhile.

  • Anonymous

    Amen!!!

  • Anonymous

    Amen !!!

  • Anonymous

    Until this type of fraud is prosecuted as violence (which it is), then it will continue until there is nothing left to take.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-Gundlach/560626810 Daniel Gundlach

    More than a while!

  • Anonymous

    The bailout was actually in place to be put into action as early as 2007. So it’s kind of a cross-administration blunder.

  • Anonymous

    It was government run Fannie and Freddie and the liberal attitude of “everybody deserves to own a home”, whether they could afford it or not, that put our housing market into a tailspin which in turn put our economy into a tailspin, NOT WALLSTREET! People need to get off the Wallstreet bashing crusades. When Wallstreet performs, we all benefit as does the economy.

  • Anonymous

    Wrong is wrong – you are wrong! It was the Bush administration that relaxed qualification standards so that more people could become eligible for home loans – even when they actually couldn’t afford the mortgages they were given. Mortgage companies, especially those in south, practiced what was called “reverse red lining” which is where they had a map with a red line drawn on it to divide sections of the town where they would not lend people money because they were in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods. They started reverse red lining – targeting lower socioeconomic neighborhoods to make loans with these people who couldn’t afford them and then they created speculative bonds that they sold to investors because they were actually gambling that these loans would fail. These banks and corporations defrauded this country and ruined our economy. They are the cause of our infrastructure being stripped to the bone. They ought to pay us back and then their asses need to be thrown in jail.

  • Anonymous

    The practice of “relaxed qualification standards” for mortgages started decades ago – do some research on CRA. Every presidential administration from Carter to Reagan to Bush I to Clinton to Bush II – and every congress as well – played their own part in expanding this practice, in order to tout figures of how many more americans under their rule had achieved the American Dream of owning their own home. When banks wouldn’t – in the minds of our political leaders – do enough to increase mortgage lending and home ownership statistics, our politicians used the GSE’s Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as tools to keep the process going. In order to get the banks to provide those risky loans so that more and more people could buy homes, Fannie and Freddie were directed to purchase those risky loans from the banks and assume the risk – all at the behest of our politicians who told them to do so, in order to bolster increased homeownership statistics that made those politicians look good.nnI’m not saying that banks have little or no responsibility for the financial mess our country finds itself in, I am saying that what did happen never could have happened anywhere near the level it did if wasn’t for for our politicians over decades pushing the banks in this direction in the first place. For those of you who say there are some bankers that should be put in jail for their part in creating this mess I say you are right. I also say you can’t excuse the criminal actions of our politicians (from both parties) who spearheaded this move to irresponsible financial lending and without whose support and direction this mess never would have happened. If anyone should be financially stripped and thrown in jail (and they should), the first people on that list should be the politicians who passed the laws, who directed and oversaw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and forced this mess on us all.nnOh by the way … there are plenty of D’s as well as R’s that should be on that list.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Anthony-Sturgeon/1167073851 Anthony Sturgeon

    Wall st stays free after robbing the working ppl of America,,, it’s a disgrace and it’s time to fight back!nRead Matt Taibii’s piece in rolling stone magazine to find out why the American working ppl are being scapegoated for the crimes on wall st..

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