Bernanke: Executives should have faced jail for 2008 crisis

[Zippyjuan]

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34440925

Former US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has said more executives rather than big firms should have been investigated for their roles in the 2008 financial crisis.

Many of the world's biggest lenders have been fined heavily for their involvement in global crash.

But few high-level executives have so far faced charges.

Mr Bernanke said "everything that went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm".

But he said a financial firm was a legal fiction, not a person, and that "you can't put a firm in jail".

Better communication

In his interview with USA Today ahead of this week's publication of his memoir The Courage to Act, the former chairman of the central bank also said the Fed could have done more to communicate its decisions more clearly with the public at the time.

He added that he could personally have done more to explain why such enormous rescue efforts were being conducted to rescue the financial firms who helped create the financial crisis.

"Every time I saw a bumper sticker which said, 'Where's my bailout?' it hurt," he said.

Mr Bernanke also explained that the Fed was not empowered to conduct investigations into firms or individuals.

"The Department of Justice and others are responsible for that. And a lot of their efforts have been to indict - or threaten to indict - financial firms."

Mr Bernanke served as chairman of the Fed for two terms, having been first appointed by former US President George W Bush in 2006.

 

[timosman]

Statue of limitations ?

 

[kfarnan]

Who gave the matches to the arsonists? The fed should be prosecuted along with BB.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Bernanke: Executives should have faced jail for 2008 crisis

Timing is important, Mr. Helicopter.

Mr Bernanke also explained that the Fed was not empowered to conduct investigations into firms or individuals.

"Not my department. I'm just a simple, small town historian. Not my responsibility."

 

[Lucille]

Timing is important, Mr. Helicopter.

Aren't they clever?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-...ss-finds-itself-innocent-being-friends-angelo

all the allegations of favored treatment involved loans that were granted so long ago that they fell outside the panel's jurisdiction. I.e., the statute of limitation has expired.

How very convenient - as it turns out Congress was abusing taxpayer money and receiving preferential treatment for years, but sorry, nothing can be done about it. It just happened so very long ago...
[...]
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what is called committing perjury, but since one guilty verdict would take down half of the House of Representatives as complicit criminals, he gets to walk.

Half of the House. Wouldn't that have been glorious though?

The New Normal justice.

The financial terrorists are "Too big To Fail" and "Too Big To Jail."

 

[HVACTech]

Aren't they clever?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-...ss-finds-itself-innocent-being-friends-angelo



Half of the House. Wouldn't that have been glorious though?



The financial terrorists are "Too big To Fail" and "Too Big To Jail."

Girl. it is a DAMN good thing that our country, decided to hire a group of private bankers, to "print"
our "money" for us.

if not, we would be like China and Abraham Lincoln and his "Greenbacks"

right Zippy!
time for you to show this Girl a thing or two!

who should print the "money"
the Government directly? or should they hire this task done?
(and pay for this service. of course)

 

[TheTexan]

President Bernanke 2024?

 

[Spikender]

President Bernanke 2024?

Would be a great follow up to President Kanye West 2020.

 

[Bossobass]

Who was it who told Congress "If we don't act now, there won't be an economy on Monday"?

Who was it who said the FED would unwind it's balance sheet to "normal levels" by 2015 and then increased the balance sheet by double?

Who was it who told Congressman Paul that the FED holds gold in it's vaults because "It's tradition".

Who was it who moved to sop up excess reserves to protect his criminal masters with no regard to the fact that the actions are prolonging the great recession while spewing bullshit about "green shoots"?

Zippy eats everything this traitor says, by the shovel full.

 

[Ronin Truth]

And you told TPTB about this revelation of your's, when exactly?

 

[Lucille]

That was the day a "breakthrough" was reached on the banksta bailouts.

The NYT removed and replaced that pic almost immediately with one a little more solemn. I guess the editors thought it looked like they were having too much fun robbing the American people blind to bail out their partners in crime (which is on-going).

 

[HVACTech]

too true, the Federal reserve is private and is owned by the banks.
they bailed themselves out on our good credit!

I am NOT paid to study or figure these things out.
this cannot be said of the smiling people in the photo.

is Barney wearing more eyeshadow than Nancy?

 

[HVACTech]

And you told TPTB about this revelation of your's, when exactly?

how many resident comedians do we have around here anyway?
or was that just a cheap shot?