Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Too Big To Jail
Tax Justice Network reports on how HSBC wriggled out of money-laundering indictments. As reported in the New York Times, federal prosecutors decided against indicting HSBC on the grounds that it could destabilize the global financial system.
Sound familiar? That's the same rationale the U.S. Treasury used in handing over trillions of US taxpayers money to banks in 2008 and 2009 to cover their gambling losses.
But back to the $1.92 billion settlement agreed to by the Justice Department. If financial institutions operating international criminal enterprises are too big to indict, where does that leave us as a society? If fines for lawbreaking are viewed as just another cost of doing business, how are we expected to restabilize the global financial system that the criminals have run on the rocks?
Sound familiar? That's the same rationale the U.S. Treasury used in handing over trillions of US taxpayers money to banks in 2008 and 2009 to cover their gambling losses.
But back to the $1.92 billion settlement agreed to by the Justice Department. If financial institutions operating international criminal enterprises are too big to indict, where does that leave us as a society? If fines for lawbreaking are viewed as just another cost of doing business, how are we expected to restabilize the global financial system that the criminals have run on the rocks?
