A law unto themselves

Stalin

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Greetings to my fraternal comrades working tirelessly to overthrow the one-party rule of the Obama-Romney clique.

"..On August 9, the US Justice Department announced it was ending a criminal investigation into allegations that Goldman Sachs committed securities fraud in its underwriting and marketing of mortgage-backed securities in the months leading up to the Wall Street crash of September 2008. The department said it would not file charges against the bank or any of its employees.

As a special favor to Goldman, the Obama administration’s Justice Department took the unusual step of making a public announcement that it had cleared the bank of wrongdoing.
The allegations stemmed from a detailed, 640-page report on the financial crisis issued in April of 2011 by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The report, based on a two-year investigation and 56 million pages of evidence, documented rampant fraud and criminality by major banks and the complicity of credit rating firms and federal bank regulators. In releasing the report, the chairman of the committee, Senator Carl Levin, said the panel’s two-year probe had uncovered “a snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest and wrongdoing.”

The largest section of the report by far, comprising 240 pages, was devoted to a scrupulously documented account—citing internal emails, memoranda, prospectuses and interviews—of how Goldman Sachs, beginning in December 2006, offloaded billions in toxic sub-prime mortgage holdings to investors by packaging them into complex mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Goldman sold the investments while concealing the source of the mortgages, the fact that they were losing value, and Goldman’s belief that they would decline further.

As the report substantiated, Goldman further defrauded its clients by betting for its own profit that the securities it was recommending would collapse, without telling its customers that it was doing so.

The committee referred its findings to the Justice Department, making clear it believed criminal prosecutions were warranted. It also suggested that Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who testified before the panel in April 2010 and flatly denied taking a net “short” position on mortgage-backed securities or amassing profits by defrauding clients, be prosecuted for perjury.
Last Thursday, the same day that the Justice Department gave Goldman a free pass, the bank reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had concluded its own civil investigation into a $1.3 billion sub-prime mortgage deal dating from 2006 and decided to take no action.

more at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/pers-a15.shtml

Comrade Stalin
 
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Before they prosecute anyone, they better start with the ones who started the mess in the first place. Fannie and Freddie.
 
Obama speak a lot about how awful wall street is. Yet his admin has prosecuted no one at all. meanwhile bush was said to be in league with those awful criminals and he prosecuted hundreds of them.
 
Greetings to my fraternal comrades working tirelessly to overthrow the one-party rule of the Obama-Romney clique.

"..On August 9, the US Justice Department announced it was ending a criminal investigation into allegations that Goldman Sachs committed securities fraud in its underwriting and marketing of mortgage-backed securities in the months leading up to the Wall Street crash of September 2008. The department said it would not file charges against the bank or any of its employees.

As a special favor to Goldman, the Obama administration’s Justice Department took the unusual step of making a public announcement that it had cleared the bank of wrongdoing.
The allegations stemmed from a detailed, 640-page report on the financial crisis issued in April of 2011 by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The report, based on a two-year investigation and 56 million pages of evidence, documented rampant fraud and criminality by major banks and the complicity of credit rating firms and federal bank regulators. In releasing the report, the chairman of the committee, Senator Carl Levin, said the panel’s two-year probe had uncovered “a snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest and wrongdoing.”

The largest section of the report by far, comprising 240 pages, was devoted to a scrupulously documented account—citing internal emails, memoranda, prospectuses and interviews—of how Goldman Sachs, beginning in December 2006, offloaded billions in toxic sub-prime mortgage holdings to investors by packaging them into complex mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Goldman sold the investments while concealing the source of the mortgages, the fact that they were losing value, and Goldman’s belief that they would decline further.

As the report substantiated, Goldman further defrauded its clients by betting for its own profit that the securities it was recommending would collapse, without telling its customers that it was doing so.

The committee referred its findings to the Justice Department, making clear it believed criminal prosecutions were warranted. It also suggested that Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who testified before the panel in April 2010 and flatly denied taking a net “short” position on mortgage-backed securities or amassing profits by defrauding clients, be prosecuted for perjury.
Last Thursday, the same day that the Justice Department gave Goldman a free pass, the bank reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had concluded its own civil investigation into a $1.3 billion sub-prime mortgage deal dating from 2006 and decided to take no action.

more at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/pers-a15.shtml

Comrade Stalin

The problem is Crony Capitalism, which is a misnamed term. The properly named term should be 'Crony Socialism.' When government and big business are working in tandem, as they were in 2008 and still are, of course the people are terribly harmed....just as they are terribly harmed under all forms of socialism.

If we had pure free market capitalism, this terrible crisis would never have happened.
 
The problem is Crony Capitalism, which is a misnamed term. The properly named term should be 'Crony Socialism.' When government and big business are working in tandem, as they were in 2008 and still are, of course the people are terribly harmed....just as they are terribly harmed under all forms of socialism.

If we had pure free market capitalism, this terrible crisis would never have happened.

How about we shoot for a capitalism that generally is built on free market principles but also includes the rule of law?
 
How about we shoot for a capitalism that generally is built on free market principles but also includes the rule of law?
Pure free market capitalism does, and must, include the Rule of Law. Without the Rule of Law, free market capitalism cannot work and people get cheated or oppressed.

Laws must be written in advance, and "not changed for light and transient causes", as some ancient document once said. That way the people who are making deals, planning their businesses, and evaluating and taking risks, have a stable "playing field" where they pretty much know how government will treat them before they make their decisions. And laws must be adhered to closely - all of them - for the same reason. This is one of the main features of the "Rule of Law".

And those laws must be written for the purpose, not of giving people things or "making them better", but the purpose of protecting their rights. All other matters must be left up to mutual agreement between people or groups, and other people or groups.

A situation like that, would be a pure free-market capitalist system. Government concentrates on making sure people aren't cheated, kneecappers are punished, and people who make agreements live up to them (or mutually agree to change them without coercion).

Unfortunately such an ideal system seldom happens in the real world. Systems are never more perfect than the humans they are composed of... and those are hardly perfect or ideal. That's one of the reasons government must be there, doing the things I described.

If government starts neglecting duties that I described, and starts instead to give people things, interfere with their private business outside its bounds, or give or accept bribes, the system departs from the ideal and starts to break down.
 
Pure free market capitalism does, and must, include the Rule of Law. Without the Rule of Law, free market capitalism cannot work and people get cheated or oppressed.

Laws must be written in advance, and "not changed for light and transient causes", as some ancient document once said. That way the people who are making deals, planning their businesses, and evaluating and taking risks, have a stable "playing field" where they pretty much know how government will treat them before they make their decisions. And laws must be adhered to closely - all of them - for the same reason. This is one of the main features of the "Rule of Law".

And those laws must be written for the purpose, not of giving people things or "making them better", but the purpose of protecting their rights. All other matters must be left up to mutual agreement between people or groups, and other people or groups.

A situation like that, would be a pure free-market capitalist system. Government concentrates on making sure people aren't cheated, kneecappers are punished, and people who make agreements live up to them (or mutually agree to change them without coercion).

Unfortunately such an ideal system seldom happens in the real world. Systems are never more perfect than the humans they are composed of... and those are hardly perfect or ideal. That's one of the reasons government must be there, doing the things I described.

If government starts neglecting duties that I described, and starts instead to give people things, interfere with their private business outside its bounds, or give or accept bribes, the system departs from the ideal and starts to break down.


I guess I am a bit uncertain about what must be part of free market capitalsm. Must it include rule of law? Or could it be two men who agree to make a trade with no government in existence?
 
I guess I am a bit uncertain about what must be part of free market capitalsm. Must it include rule of law? Or could it be two men who agree to make a trade with no government in existence?

The rule of law does exist, as it must exist, in a Capitalist "free market" system. Laws provide an objective standard to punish those who engage in force or fraud, i.e. violate the rights of others. Since laws are meant to make it illegal to engage in force or fraud, government's use of laws to commit force or fraud is a contradiction. For example, the act of murder violates the rights of the person being murdered; whether the murderer shoots their victim in the face (force) or poisons them by selling them snake oil (fraud), the murderer has used force or fraud and has violated the rights of another.

A free market is "free" of force and fraud - this achieved through laws and legal institutions. Regulations, strictly stated, are how government "legally" employs force and/or fraud against individuals.CAFE standards, for example, are government regulations that dictate fleet mileage to car companies... such "laws" do not protect anyone from force or fraud, they do the exact opposite, regulations "legally" impose force and/or fraud against the individual.

Perhaps a more simplified way of stating things: Regulations force you to do something. Laws forbid you the use of force and/or fraud.

Your example of two men agreeing to a trade in the total absence of government would be a black market. The underground drug trade is the best example of this. Such system work very well when trade partners agree, it's when they disagree that laws, and the institutions that enforce them, become necessary. A black market system offers no protection for individuals and no means, save force, to redress grievances between parties. In such a system, there are no laws, no police, no courts, no way to enforce contracts or mediate disputes - it's just anarchy.

I hope this was helpful. (y)
 
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The rule of law does exist, as it must exist, in a Capitalist "free market" system. Laws provide an objective standard to punish those who engage in force or fraud, i.e. violate the rights of others. Since laws are meant to make it illegal to engage in force or fraud, government's use of laws to commit force or fraud is a contradiction. For example, the act of murder violates the rights of the person being murdered; whether the murderer shoots their victim in the face (force) or poisons them by selling them snake oil (fraud), the murderer has used force or fraud and has violated the rights of another.

A free market is "free" of force and fraud - this achieved through laws and legal institutions. Regulations, strictly stated, are how government "legally" employs force and/or fraud against individuals.CAFE standards, for example, are government regulations that dictate fleet mileage to car companies... such "laws" do not protect anyone from force or fraud, they do the exact opposite, regulations "legally" impose force and/or fraud against the individual.

Perhaps a more simplified way of stating things: Regulations force you to do something. Laws forbid you the use of force and/or fraud.

Your example of two men agreeing to a trade in the total absence of government would be a black market. The underground drug trade is the best example of this. Such system work very well when trade partners agree, it's when they disagree that laws, and the institutions that enforce them, become necessary. A black market system offers no protection for individuals and no means, save force, to redress grievances between parties. In such a system, there are no laws, no police, no courts, no way to enforce contracts or mediate disputes - it's just anarchy.

I hope this was helpful. (y)

Extremely, and insightful too,
 
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