Scammers, Spammers, and Slammers

[sludgehound]

NYT: The Difficulty of Proving Financial Crimes

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/the-difficulty-of-proving-financial-crimes/?nl=business&emc=dlbka22

Despite the public’s desire to see some corporate executives sent to jail for their role in the financial meltdown, the courts will hold the government to the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and not simply allow the cry for retribution to lead to convictions based on high compensation and presiding over a company that sustained significant losses.

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And there's this Dec. 8 bit. Careful out there - minefields.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/where-are-the-financial-crisis-prosecutions/

The Feds Stage a Sideshow, While the Big Tent Sits Empty

Nevertheless, it’s hardly reassuring that bankers, out of necessity, have universally adopted the dumb-rather-than-venal justification. That doesn’t mean, however, that the rest of us need to buy it. It’s shocking how pervasive and triumphant this narrative of the financial crisis has been.
Just as it’s clear that not all bankers were guilty of crimes in the lead-up to the crisis, it strains credulity to contend no one was. Corporate crime is usually the act of desperate people who have initially made relatively innocent mistakes and then seek to cover them up. Some banks went down innocently. Surely some housed bad actors who broke laws.
As a society, we have the bankers we deserve. Sadly, it’s looking as if we have the regulators and prosecutors we deserve, too.