[Turd Ferguson]

Originally <a href='/showthread.php?p=17846972'>posted</a> on 02/18/2013:

Way too many links to read, but let me see if I understand. Wall Street sold securities you don't think they should have to WILLING buyers. Private Equity buys companies legally from their owners. Some derivatives have opaque risk profiles. Sometimes fund managers lose money lending securities.

You know the private equity firms are in a different business than banks right?

Nobody held a gun to anyone's head and forced them to trade credit default swaps.

There are some abuses by individuals of fiduciary duty, but the industry is trying to improve that, because mistrust is bad for business.

The thing about derivatives is laughable at best. People get too fixated on ridiculous things. Please explain how packaging mortgages together and selling slices of them is criminal? Explain how a contract the insures a bond is criminal? What on earth would you go after these people for?

People always look to blame others for events that happen. A crash of the economy was going to happen. It should have happened earlier in the 2000's. It didn't because housing and finance propped the economy up. When the bubble ended, the economy crashed. It happens, business goes in cycles.

There are legitimate things that need to be improved in the financial services industry. Dodd Frank for all its faults, does improve the accounting and the off balance sheet transactions. There are individuals who abuse the system, but individuals in all industries abuse the system.

Bottom line, Some people on Wall Street did some less then reputable things. But, they weren't illegal. Some of that bailout money might have been spent on things other then what it was intended to be spent on. Also, not illegal. Some people might have knowingly sold some garbage they knew was garbage. But no one forced anyone to buy it. Private equity firms might be profit driven, and you may not like that, but it is also not illegal. Some of the more esoteric derivatives might be much more complex then some people thought, but it is also not illegal.

If ex post facto justice is what you think is fair, then by all means, write your congressman and tell them to go after those "banksters". I, on the other hand, like living in a country where one can't break laws that aren't in existence yet. Could there be regulations that could benefit everyone? Absolutely. Would it be good if they stopped hiring former industry professionals to work at the enforcement agencies. Yes.

So you scratch your head in wonder at where I would come up with such an absurd notion that these scum have run "roughshod" and I provide multiple examples from a variety of sources. Your response is that the people who got swindled were suckers and the swindlers should be completely unaccountable and continue to run "roughshod". You are in the extreme minority with this opinion.

To say that "Some people on Wall Street did some less then reputable things" as if you were talking about petty theft instead of the scum that crashed the economy because having almost everything wasn't enough is sticking your thumb in the eye of the 99% of us that go out and earn an honest living. If you actually believe that not very many people are furious about this and it didn't show in the last election, then you are detached from reality.