Forget Al Qaida, The Real Terrorists Are Right Here
By Stephen Pizzo | June 23, 2013 – 11:19am
When my co-authors and I wrote Inside Job: The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans, way the hell back in 1989, we pulled the curtain back on cast of grimy characters, mobsters, bankers, bond salesmen, weak-kneed regulators, Wall Street sharks and hundreds of run-of-the-mill con artists.
At the time that was the biggest scandal to hit the American economy. The amount of money it cost US taxpayers was — then — shocking; $167 billion.
We hoped. back then. that exposing the depth and breath of the larceny that was unleashed on the nation by unwise, contrived and politically-motivated (and paid for) deregulation would shock the nation and shame politicians into avoiding a repeat.
Of course we just being naive. Just six years into the next decade another bubble was in the making, the dot-com bubble, and within four years, in 2000, it popped, leaving investors in those stocks holding worthless paper. Mostly it was the “little guys,” the individual investors, who took the hit that time, rather than taxpayers.
But that just turned out to be just a warm up for what was to follow: the 2008 crash, that was so big, so enormous, so audacious and widespread that it nearly took down the entire world economy in one swoop.
In the wake of the S&L scandal a handful of relatively minor players went to jail, but not for long. Mike Milken is as rich today as ever. Charlie Keating is living comfortably in Scottsdale, Az. I can’t think of anyone important who went to jail for the pump and dump dot-com schemes that enriched Wall Street firms and analysts and the venture capital firms that bailed out after taking hot air dot-com companies public.
And for the really big one, the 2008 crash, not only did no one important get sent to the slammer, but that time around the perps were actually bailed out by tax payers, set back up on their feet and put back into business.
And we wonder why this just keeps happening.
Fear not my friends, the next big one is in the works as you read this. As usual, start your search at the tributary of the money stream and follow it. These days the really big money is going to all things “Homeland Security.”
If you are a shark looking to make a killing the best hunting grounds are in Washington where you can sell any idea, any weapon or high tech doodad you claim will “make American safer from ….” you fill in the blank: Muslim terrorists, Mexican immigrants, hackers…. etc.
“The global homeland security market is estimated to value $198 billion in 2012 and increase at a CAGR of 3.55% during the forecast period, to reach its peak of $281 billion by 2022.” (Source)
Yum, yum. And this time around we taxpayers are not only getting fleeced, but we get a police/surveillance -state as a bonus! (Considering how angry citizens may eventually get over these repeated fiscal rapes, they may just need it.)
The cure is as simple as any thing you can imagine. All you have to do is start applying state and federal laws that define the same, everyday crimes Joe and Jane Smiths go to jail for everyday, larceny, embezzlement, robbery, perjury, to white collar criminals. In particular, to those in charge, the CEOs, COOs, accountants, lawyers and employees of “evil doing” companies.
I know, I’m being naive again. When I proposed this solution on a TV talk show once the bank lobbyist on the show with me objected, loudly. He said what I was proposing would “criminalize business practices.”
Yes, I replied. But only when those practices are criminal.
Thankfully there are still a handful of journalists out there still pecking away at this story. Matt Taibbi is the best. And he’s just issued another missive on this subject in which he nails the cause of the last looting operation and its perpetrators. Will it do any good? No. Not as long as these crooks can still share a portion of their loot with the guys and gals who make the laws about what gets regulated and how much.
Here’s a link to Matt’s latest piece. It’s wonderfully terrible.
