America Should Get MUCH Tougher on Financial Crimes

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Time to get medieval. was the title of a column that I wrote back in 2012. And I thought about it today. I saw this story in the Wall Street Journal, how the Securities and Exchange Commission has to write off $10 billion in fines that it can’t collect. And in this, it cites various different cases of

big time financial crooks that haven’t paid the fines they’re supposed to pay have left the country and are living in the Caribbean doing various different means of not paying the fines that the SEC has imposed upon them. And again, I laugh at this because the whole thing quite frankly is a bit of a joke. We see the fines that are paid often by the big investment houses. They pay them because they can.

And the reality of situation is that it’s not the actual company that pays the fine. A company is nothing more than a tax ID number and a logo. It’s the actual shareholders of the company. And the people that are actually responsible for committing the crime, more often than not, nothing happens. That’s most certainly in the case of the big investment houses. And I’ve almost looked at it as if…

from the big investment houses are paying these fines. It’s almost like, you know, it’s almost like the government and the SEC is like Don Fennucci walking around wet his beak in Godfather 2. They’re paying them. And then the SEC turns around and gives that money to who? To probably some BS liberal NGO pushing some BS, keeping some morons, some DEI crap employed. You think I’m kidding?

Look into it.

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Anyway.

Last time, you steal from somebody, there should be repercussions for those actions. I just, I’m a big believer in that. And I don’t remember the name of the art, but I talked about this years ago and how, in essence, white collar crime pretty much pays when it comes to Wall Street. If you’re gonna be a criminal,

I mean, if you’re thinking about it, if you had that ethical bypass at birth, you are evil, you’re a diabolical person, you get off on ripping people off and taking advantage of others. I mean, why wouldn’t you go to Wall Street?

Why wouldn’t you become a white collar criminal? I mean, if you think about it, more often than not, what’s the worst thing that’s gonna happen to you if you get caught?

You pay a fine, okay, and you walk away. And in the case of the big investment houses, again, the fine to them is pretty much a parking ticket.

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I piece I wrote back in November twenty twenty twelve. I cited in obscure reference pulp fiction. Marcellus Wallace. OK, he character in the film Pulp Fiction. Not familiar with the movie, there was a. Really evil, sadistic rapist, and his suggestion in the film was to get

medieval on him. Now, you know, you compile, you want to take a look at some some how financial crooks were handled in the past. Thirty seven hundred years ago, this thing called the Code of Hammurabi, which again, law of Mesopotamia. If anyone violated the terms of any financial contract, they were put to death as a thief. Mesopotamia had, you know, pretty

vibrant commodities market at that point in time. Medieval Catalonia, a banker who went under most certainly did not get money from the government or below market interest rates from the US government to bail themselves out. The failed banker was humiliated by town criers who shouted the facts of his failure in public squares throughout the land. The banker had to live on nothing but bread and water until he paid off his depositors.

You think that the folks at Silicon Valley bank had that happen to him? No, I don’t think so. If after a year he was unable to repay, he would be executed. Now, government bail you out, golden parachute, end up getting a job at a hedge fund. also in Catalonia, if any banker was caught lying about their books, they could be put to death. Again.

England counterfeiting was punishable by death in the 14th century. I can go on and on and on, but

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How is it okay? How is it fair that you’re able to go and rip off your clients, your customers, essentially steal from them? Okay, you’re supposed to pay a fine, maybe you’ll lose your license, but you walk.

I never really could ever get my arms around that. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.