Some good news this morning:
Two former employees of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff have been arrested by the FBI in relation to his massive Ponzi scheme, according to FBI spokesman Jim Margolin.
Joann Crupi was arrested overnight in New Jersey and Annette Bongiorno was taken into custody in Florida. Charges against the two will be announced later Thursday.
Madoff pleaded guilty in 2009 to 11 counts related to running the largest Ponzi scheme in history and was sentenced to 150 years in prison.
This comes after this news yesterday:
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) is conducting about 50 criminal investigations at U.S. banks that have failed since the start of the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal said.
The FDIC, which is responsible for dealing with bank failures, is probing former executives, directors and employees at failed U.S. banks and is taking efforts to punish alleged recklessness, fraud and other criminal behavior, the Journal said.
Fred Gibson, deputy inspector general at the FDIC, told the Journal in an interview that the probes involve failed banks of all sizes in cities across the U.S.
Nothing will change until a lot of people have gone to jail. Nothing.
Kryptik
Sorry to be OT on this, but…
Snowe Joins Anti-Health Care Reform Lawsuit.
If she was one of the votes we were going after, for being one of the GOPers most likely to flip…what the fuck does this tell us about the state of ‘bipartisanship’ in the Senate, exactly?
srv
Yeah, it’s not like anyone went to jail back in the RTC days.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kryptik: Primary threat. Democrats and unions were crazy and un-American to challenge Blanche Lincoln. John McCain and Olly Snowe are just doing what they have to do stay in office. They don’t really believe the things they’re saying and the votes they’re making, so they’re still Reasonable Moderates to whom Barack Obama should reach out to find common ground, and if he can’t, it’s his fault, and yours.
Forget it, Kryp, it’s Brodertown.
mikefromArlington
I’ll be interested to find out how many of these bank owners sold off profitable assets right before filed for bankruptcy and leaving the FDIC with crap.
O/T but why the fcuk is everything that Newt Gingrich says news? Why do blogs, even left leaning ones, breathlessly report on it as though its something important? Are they hoping for some sort of favor by endlessly giving this guy free advertisement and promotion?
I just don’t get it.
gene108
I disagree.
The people, who are not failing and who will be in a position to run up the next asset bubble, do not feel like they or the financial industry did anything wrong with the housing boom.
The people who failed – Lehman, Bear Sterns, etc. – and those who go to jail are not the same as those who are still standing and did not fail; the people who are still standing were not the ones who screwed up or in any way contributed to the mess.
The general of view of people I know, who work in banking in NYC. They really don’t get why the general public is mad at Wall Street.
Ash Can
The wheels of justice turn slowly — too slowly for our taste, to be sure, but as long as someone somewhere is investigating, it ain’t over till it’s over. That’s why I can’t get too worked up over the fact that there haven’t already been mass indictments. It took time to get the Enron crooks behind bars, after all, even when it seemed like a no-brainer as to exactly who was guilty of exactly what.
Rick Taylor
__
Yup.
david mizner
It’s not the failed banks that are the problem. It’s the major investment banks that are surviving and thriving again that are the problem. All of them committed massive fraud. They concealed their liabilities and inflated their assets and sold securities they knew were defective (in some cases betting on them to fail.)
This news is a sideshow.
El Tiburon
Great, per usual, arrest the Lynndie Englands of the world; the low-level grunts, while the Generals, Vice-Presidents and John Yoos go free.
You are right Cole: nothing will change. A few heads will roll, but the systemic bullshit will remain firmly entrenched.
General Stuck
@Kryptik:
The HCR makes the wingnuts even crazier than normal, which is quite a feat. The reason is they are terrified that when it is implemented fully, dems will make a big leap electorally from a grateful public. Listened this morning to uber dufus Pat Roberts on the senate floor give a thoroughly unhinged rant on the CMS director over imaginary HC rationing over the horizon killing off good gawd fearing wingers, I suppose.
Roberts was blathering about a study ordered by the CMS director on how well a new prostate cancer treatment actually worked before medicare would opt to pay for it. It all sounded quite routine to me, and of course it was deemed a good treatment from the study, and so medicare will pay for it. But that fact didn’t dissuade the usual winger demagoguing that government agents are getting between patients and their doctors.
It looks to me, that either by sabotage or defunding key parts of HCR, or partial repeal, if they can pull that off, is something on the order of a mission from gawd for these nihilistic fools
wasabi gasp
Go Galt with no parole.
Suck It Up!
Nothing will change until voters/consumers start to pay attention for than 5 minutes.
El Tiburon
@Suck It Up!:
You are absolutely cor-
Hey look, a bird!
Odie Hugh Manatee
If things go the usual way they do in America, these people who get sent to jail are only the sacrificial goats. The real crooks are going to get away with this, as they usually do. Their protection is bought and paid for, it’s the little people who helped them rip the system off who will end up doing time for it.
The Masters of the Universe, and their cronies, will never be held accountable for their crimes. Never.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Suck It Up!:
When that happens, they will blame the wrong people for their woes.
In America, you are never wrong. Everybody else is. That’s what makes us so RIGHT!
liberal
@Kryptik:
Americans for Democratic Action has her as much more conservative than Ben Nelson.
Sentient Puddle
On the topic of the legal system, the Tom DeLay defense got off to an interesting start when they inadvertently corroborated a good part of the prosecution’s case. Oops.
liberal
@General Stuck:
I think you’re referring to the new prostate cancer vaccine.
IIRC, it costs an average of $100,000 and extends life by an average of 4 months.
This is exactly the kind of thing that’s going to bankrupt us as a nation.
General Stuck
@Sentient Puddle: LOL
I love it when that happens :)
Stefan
The people who failed – Lehman, Bear Sterns, etc. – and those who go to jail are not the same as those who are still standing and did not fail; the people who are still standing were not the ones who screwed up or in any way contributed to the mess.
That’s just laughable.
El Tiburon
@Sentient Puddle:
from the TPM article:
Please Baby Jesus, just give him one month in prison. And pretty please BJ, put him in a bunk next to a dude that will do to him what his party has been doing to us for a generation.
If acquitted, I’m sure Obama will compromise and pardon him.
trollhattan
Clearly this is a distraction from our #1 priority for getting our financial house in order: Killing the Community Reinvestment Act.
Uppity poor folks got us into this mess thinking they could own their homes, and we won’t recover until we put them back in their places.
Do I have that right? The ink is smeared on my talking points.
ruemara
@gene108:
I wish I was still in NYC. Then perhaps, I and these reasonable people in Wall Street banking could have a nice lunch and discuss why the little folk are annoyed at them.
Parrotlover77
Obama is not jailing them fast enough with executive bully pulpit powers! I’m not going to vote in 2012!!!
Brachiator
I have a relative who helped send people to jail during the S&L crisis. What mainly changed is that corporate weasels paid Democrats and Republicans to sign off on financial regulatory “reform” to make it harder to prosecute anyone the next time they played fast and loose with people’s money.
And this time around, these corporate weasels have convinced Tea Party people and others that it was really the big bad gummint, and stupid, unworthy home owners who should be punished, and not the usual suspects.
shargash
Madoff robbed from the rich. That’s the sole reason he’s already in jail.
John - A Motley Moose
@shargash: Bingo. Give the man a prize.
John - A Motley Moose
@John – A Motley Moose: @John – A Motley Moose: Or woman, as the case may be.
El Cid
From a Justice Department summary on federal indictments and fines and prosecutions and prison sentences for Savings & Loan related criminals.
Fines listing behind paywall.
dollared
Don’t be too, too cynical out there, folks. Jail does scare businesspeople. Much, much much more than bankruptcy (ask me about the unlimited homestead exemption in Florida!). I know. I’ve watched them walk right up to the line, and when you use the word “criminal,”, they tend to abandon that course of action.
John is right. This is a good start – call it a .01% downpayment. If it turns into a consistent pattern, we might get a few big fish.
xian
“It took time to get the Enron crooks behind bars…” except for Ken Lay, who found a suitable hobo corpse and absconded to some tropical hideaway.
Stan of the Sawgrass
Nobody’s likely to see this (so I guess I should indulge in mindless internet profanity), but when are we going to start calling this kind of scam a “Madoff scheme”?
Ponzi was a little two-bit pimp in comparison. Bernie should be outraged.