News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. July 20, 2012: It should cause a revolt but instead we accept it as normal that some of the biggest crooks in the world never ever go to jail.
It is the same with Obama as President as with all the others before him. Our multiple choice justice system. One set of choices for many of us and a very different set for the rich and powerful.
No change there with Obama as President. Surprise!
The prime examples of the moment in this never ending charade are Barclays Bank, HSBC, and Chase. The cast of characters keep changing but the results always the same.
After these bankers and other major corporations are caught in massive wrongdoing, they and their firms are fined hundreds of millions or billions sometimes always in return for an agreement from ‘our’ government it will drop any criminal prosecutions. For enough money they get a stay out of jail card no questions asked.
No questions about who exactly made the decision to break the law and cost taxpayers and customers huge sums that instead become profits for big banks and other mega companies. Yet no jail time for them as long as they pay for their freedom.
It is the way the Obama Justice Department works, the same as the Justice Dept. worked under other Presidents and always do. As they would under Mitt Romney, except he is going to lose.
Instead we will get 4 more years of Barack Obama NOT prosecuting Corporate Heavies. Why would he? Who do you think goes to his $40,000 a plate fund raisers? Them or their friends!
It sure isn’t you or me. It’s them!
There is no secret to the fact that if no high level executives in huge profitable companies like Barclays or HSBC if none of them have to worry about going to jail even when criminal activities are involved what have they got to worry about? Nothing! So of course they keep doing it and always will. It’s very profitable.
If they get caught the company not these top executives pays a big fine, which is less than all the extra money they made breaking the law and in return they get a signed document from the Justice Department no one will face criminal prosecution. It is a great deal if you can get it. But you can’t. They can and do.
Its only for “special” people and companies. If you go out right now and steal a car let alone you go and rob one of their bank branches you are going to jail. The government will never ask you “would you rather just pay a fine and we will sign a document guaranteeing you will not be prosecuted or go to jail.”
That would be a great deal for all of us. Sorry it’s not for us!
Barclays and a group of other major banks have been involved in a criminal conspiracy to set a daily bank rate called LIBOR for years and as a result made a billion in extra profit they are not entitled to and it came out of increased borrowing costs for everyone else – that means government borrowing, credit card rates, mortgages – everything involving credit uses LIBOR in one way or another.
How about if you stole billions of dollars. Think you would avoid jail? No chance! But not one of these executives at any of these banks will ever be prosecuted for criminal fraud by Obama’s Justice Department. Yes it is campaign season and they are throwing out hints Obama might. Forget about that. They won’t.
Be assured (sic) at his private $40,000 a plate campaign dinners filled with bankers like these President Barack Obama is reassuring them. No he is not blatantly telling them not to worry. Rather it is something like him telling them he understands the difficulties they have in trying to set these rates and supervising them. Obama goes on and tells them what they must do is a better job the future. They get the message loud and clear. They are OK. End of this story and their worries. No prosecutions for them.
Obama won’t even order that the U.S. government stop doing business with these criminal enterprises let alone tell us all not to do so. And the Feds will keep feeding these big banks lots of almost free money that they then use to buy government bonds and make themselves a very nice riskless profit all of us are paying for.
That is the kind of change I mean dollars Obama has produced. Then there is the other very notable example right now world banking power house HSBC laundering millions in South American drug money and likewise doing business with other criminals and some terrorists. Wow they are being fined $1 Billion.
They are glad to pay it. One Billion dollars is almost nothing to this mega- bank. And in return no one will be prosecuted or go to jail.
Think about it again.
HSBC executives knowingly did business with Mexican drug lords, allowing them to launder their drug money taking piles of cash from them and feeding it through the HSBC banking system and it comes out looking clean at the other end. Happy Drug Lords! How about if you took a suitcase of $100 bills from a Mexican drug lord and came to New York, or Washington DC, or anywhere else and used that pile of money on behalf of some drug lord to open a ‘phony’ store so that the money would look legitimate.
Very logically you would or should be hunted down by federal and local law enforcement and after being caught and convicted you would probably spend a couple of decades in a maximum security federal prison maybe even in solitary confinement.
Think any of these HSBC executives are going to end up in a federal prison. They are more likely to end up at an Obama or Romney big dollar fund raiser or at a White House State Dinner.
Commentaries like this one can be fairly brief. The point has been made. Different justice systems for the rich and the powerful and a very different one for the rest of us.
So what has Obama’s Justice Dept. been doing? We know they have aggressively been going after small time medical marijuana clinics in places where medical marijuana is legal like California. We know Obama’s White House has been prosecuting government whistle blowers who tell the truth about government wrong doing,
This from the Government Accountability Project, July 3, 2012.
“Holder’s Justice Department has waged a war on whistleblowers, bringing twice as many Espionage Act prosecutions for alleged mishandling of classified information against so-called “leakers” – who are usually whistleblowers – than all past administrations combined.”
And this from Global Research April 2, 2012 …..
“Thursday’s indictment of John Kiriakou for exposing CIA torture of detainees confirms yet again that the Obama administration is continuing and deepening the crimes carried out by the Bush White House. Kiriakou, a CIA agent for 14 years, is being prosecuted for speaking to two journalists about the water boarding.”
That is what they doing while there has been a wave of bank and corporate wrongdoing during Obama ‘s 4 years. It should have been the last thing we would have expected. While on the campaign trail 4 years ago Obama had us all believing it would be so much different when he became President.
What actually happened is Obama has given me endless examples. We know they have aggressively been going after small time medical marijuana clinics in places where medical marijuana is legal like California. We know Obama’s White House has been prosecuting government whistle blowers who tell the truth about government wrong doing,
That is what they doing while there has been a wave of bank and corporate wrongdoing during Obama ‘s 4 years. It should have been the last thing we would have expected. While on the campaign trail 4 years ago Obama had us all believing it would be so much different when he became President.
What actually happened is Obama has given me endless examples to write about how it is more of the same with Obama as President.
Now to add to the disappointment we will get 4 more years of more of the same from President Barack Obama. Weep!
About The Writer: Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.
