It’s early, but Salon has published on January 30, 2013 either the funniest or saddest column of the year to date: “Are Banks Too Big To Prosecute?”
The column is attributed to Matthew Yglesias, a blogger who studied philosophy as an undergraduate. It could be a brilliantly ironic satire of the Geithner, Holder and Breuer doctrine of immunity for banksters (which I am dubbing “GHB” for short). GHB is the “roofie” that the Obama administration gave us so the banksters could screw us repeatedly with impunity. Alternatively, and far more likely, Yglesias has written the saddest and most immoral apologia for elite white-collar crime that has yet made it into electronic bits. It takes a rerouted beginning student of philosophy, posing as a commentator on finance, to replace what should be a discussion that includes virtue ethics with a virtue-free, criminology-free, and economics-free apologia for the felons who became wealthy by costing the Nation $20 trillion and 10 million jobs.
Matthew Yglesias wrote a similar column on April 14, 2011 embracing the Geithner immunity doctrine. He titled it: “The Fraud Free Financial Crisis” – and it proves our family’s rule that it is impossible to compete with unintentional self-parody.New Economic Perspectives
Yglesias pours the Geithner, Holder, Breuer (GHB) banksters immunity doctrine in our drinks
William K. Black | Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC
The often interesting Matthew Yglesias wonders “Are Banks Too Big To Prosecute?” See here.
Here’s his thesis. Sure, Megabanks committed tons of fraud. But we cannot prosecute banks for the fraud because that would bring them down. And the bigger they are, the more fraud they perpetrated, but the bigger the insolvency hole if we investigated them. So best to bail them out and look the other way.
But here’s the deal. Banks don’t commit fraud. Banksters commit fraud.
This is what all the gun nuts are teaching us. Guns never kill people. Insane people kill people. Guns are just a tool that allows the insane to kill massive numbers in schools, shopping malls and offices.Economonitor — Great Leap Forward
Banks Don’t Commit Fraud; Banksters Commit Fraud: Response to Yglesias
L. Randall Wray | Professor of Economics, UMKC
Black, especially, excoriates Yglesias for being having majored in philosophy major, but now displays no understanding of ethics, and seems to think that expediency is a rational criterion in moral choice. So he is not only accepting of a double standard of justice based on privilege deriving from position but also attempts to justify it based on pragmatism and moral relativism. Flunk in ethics, and makes one wonder if he is a political flunkie.
