I don’t understand the objection to a federal “mandate.” Wasn’t the draft a mandate, and wasn’t the draft Constitutional?

Amendment XV

Section 1
The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,

Section 2
The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The only wiggle-room in the XV is in the word, “appropriate.” However, if I (or much of the FDL community) were in the White House, I (we) would have the DoJ indict Clarence Thomas and his wife for conspiracy to falsify government documents.

That would certainly get their attention …

No, it means we need an alternative to the “We suck less” Democratic party.

… but frankly, looking back, I don’t think we thought enough about how to build the provinces and use the tribal networks once Saddam was gone,” she said.

“We got bad advice.” Well they also got good advice. James Fallows details the “good advice” they had at their fingertips in his Atlantic article, Blind into Baghdad, and later in his book by the same title. The State Department had prepared a thirteen-volume study, covering all aspects of reconstructing Iraq including political, economic, and social tasks and goals. The reason the Sate Department’s study was willfully ignored was because the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz architects didn’t want to provide ammunition to its anti-war opponents.

I would add that there is a profound difference between violating the law and breaking the law. Barack Obama along with Eric Holder and the agencies responsible for enforcing the law are as at least as responsible for the Wall Street frauds as the banksters themselves, but by selective enforcement, their actions rise to the level of law breakers. I ask that vigorous enforcement be a key Occupy demand.

I would add to the list of demands, aggressive prosecution of the Wall Street banksters under the RICO statutes for conspiracy to defraud.

It is apparent that the various and varied Wall Street frauds leading up to the real estate/housing market collapse had a clear and coherent structure that reflected a clear and coherent purpose. Every step depended on fraudulent activity from the previous step. The liar’s loans originated in perverse mortgage broker incentives. The riskier the loan, the higher the interest rate and the greater the fees. And, the riskier the loan, the easier it was to find a borrower. The result was an explosion in the number and the dollar value of mortgages. It was essential that these decrepit mortgages be consolidated as quickly and as expeditiously as possible. Hence, instead of properly registering all title/deed/lien transfers with local authorities as required by over two hundred years of established law, the banks concocted the Mortgage Electronic Registry System, MERS. As minor as MERS was, the failure to properly convey the notes and the mortgages to the trusts, it was essential to the greater crime, pushing them out the door before the borrowers defaulted. The huge volume of mortgages flooding the market formed the feed stock for the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO), among other investment instruments. When divided into “tranches” and given a favorable rating by the store-bought ratings agencies, these became the final product, what the investment banks pawned off on the nation’s pension funds. Yes, there were the inside investors, John Paulson for example, that milked a corrupt system by creating securities designed to fail and then betting against them, but they were a relatively small fraction of the total fraud. This was a systematic fraud on all that aspire to a retirement free from poverty, and its architects must be held accountable, lest it happen again.

Moreover, it wasn’t just the investment banks. The mortgage brokers, the ratings agencies, the mortgage servicers, the commercial banks that originated the loans and the government regulators were all essential elements of the overall fraud and all played crucial roles. Aggressive regulation would have aborted the frauds while they were only a gleam in the bankster’s eye. Honest ratings agencies would have graded the Mortgage Backed Securities and Collateralized Debt Obligations toxic before they tickled the pension funds. Rational incentives would have prevented the “liar’s loans” from ever entering the market. The mortgage services would have never engaged in fraudulent foreclosure or “robo-signing” of the chain-of-ownership documents. Over and over, we see a coherent conspiracy, held together and made possible through sophisticated information technologies, but motivated by huge profits and an expectation of entitlement.
So what to do? My answer: Ignore their specious claim that no crimes were committed because the industry was exploiting legal loopholes and that they were taking advantage of lax regulation; in short, that there wasn’t enough law. There is plenty of law. Instead, treat the entire Wall Street investment banking industry as a giant conspiracy to defraud, and charge them under the federal conspiracy statutes. Who are the conspirators? All the salaried employees of the banks, the regulators, the services and brokers known to have participated in the fraud. Most of Wall Street. Round them up and try them as a group in a giant courtroom, say Yankee Stadium.

Keep in mind that conspiracy is a very easy crime to prove. All you need to show is that there was a crime and that at least one member of the conspiracy committed a single act in furtherance of the conspiracy.

How much culpability does each defendant have in the over-all crime? We’re in no position to judge, but their peers are. Their peers judge them every day and reward them accordingly at Bonus Time. Their bonuses are the true measure of their individual contribution to the crime; their method of keeping score. The final step would be to enter their names and annual compensation in an Excel spreadsheet. Column A contains their names, column B contains their salaries. Perform a Sort Descending operation on column B. Then we can decide punishment. Keep in mind that anyone who leaves that court with a felony conviction cannot associate with known criminals, their co-conspirators, so fifteen or twenty year sentences would be unnecessarily vengeful. The primarily point of trial, conviction and punishment is to deter future crimes. It might be a while before investment banking recovered, but it would be a much more honest industry.

What fraction of Wall Street people suffering felony convictions would it take to deter the rampant fraud infecting investment banking? Two percent, which is 20 out of every thousand players? Twenty percent? What constitutes a player? Salaried employees with annual bonuses of at least X dollars? How many players would that be? What should be the range of penalties? Some have argued for execution, but few regard that as serious. More likely, some might get long sentences, a decade or more, but most would probably be released after serving five to eight years, and with heavy debt from legal fees and fines. Some might be impoverished to the point of homelessness, but certainly, nothing harsher than what many drug addicts face.

What exactly does any one here think would happen if Obama decided to take all the Walton’s money. That is to say, how would your life change if the Walton’s can’t pass on their savings?
It wouldn’t affect you in the least. The only reason to deprive the Walton’s of their wealth is schadenfreude.

I think I made clear why we want to restrict excessive wealth from being passed on and accumulated into vast fortunes in comment 18: These fortunes corrupt the democratic process.

Why don’t my line breaks show up in my posted comments?

“I can hire half the working class to kill the other half.”

To paraphrase Jay Gould, the top 535 families are wealthier by at least two orders of magnitude that the 535 members of the U.S. Congress (House & Senate), and could easily hire half the Congress to kill the other half. I’m sure everyone, down to Dennis K, understands this.

It is apparent that the various and varied Wall Street frauds leading up to the real estate/housing market collapse had a clear and coherent structure that reflected a clear and coherent purpose. Every step depended on fraudulent activity from the previous step. The liar’s loans originated in perverse mortgage broker incentives. The riskier the loan, the higher the interest rate and the greater the fees. And, the riskier the loan, the easier it was to find a borrower. The result was an explosion in the number and the dollar value of mortgages. It was essential that these decrepit mortgages be consolidated as quickly and as expeditiously as possible. Hence, instead of properly registering all title/deed/lien transfers with local authorities as required by over two hundred years of established law, the banks concocted the Mortgage Electronic Registry System, MERS. As minor as MERS was, the failure to properly convey the notes and the mortgages to the trusts, it was essential to the greater crime, pushing them out the door before the borrowers defaulted. The huge volume of mortgages flooding the market formed the feed stock for the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities and collateralized debt obligations, among other investment instruments. When divided into “tranches” and given a favorable rating by the store-bought ratings agencies, these became the final product, what the investment banks pawned off on the nation’s pension funds. Yes, there were the inside investors, John Paulson for example, that milked a corrupt system by creating securities designed to fail and then betting against them, but they were a relatively small fraction of the total fraud. This was a systematic fraud on all that aspire to a retirement free from poverty, and its architects must be held accountable, lest it happen again.
Moreover, it wasn’t just the investment banks. The mortgage brokers, the ratings agencies, the mortgage servicers, the commercial banks that originated the loans and the government regulators were all essential elements of the overall fraud and all played crucial roles. Aggressive regulation would have aborted the frauds while they were only a gleam in the bankster’s eye. Honest ratings agencies would have graded the Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) and Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO) toxic before they tickled the pension funds. Rational incentives would have prevented the “liar’s loans” from ever entering the market. The mortgage services would have never engaged in fraudulent foreclosure or “robo-signing” of the chain-of-ownership documents. Over and over, we see a coherent conspiracy, held together and made possible through sophisticated information technologies, but motivated by huge profits and an expectation of entitlement.
So what to do? My answer: Ignore their specious claim that no crimes were committed because there isn’t enough law. Instead, treat the entire Wall Street investment banking industry as a giant conspiracy to defraud, and charge them under the federal conspiracy statutes. Who are the conspirators? All the salaried employees of the banks, the regulators, the services and brokers known to have participated in the fraud. Most of Wall Street. Round them up and try them as a group in a giant courtroom, say Yankee Stadium.
Keep in mind that conspiracy is a very easy crime to prove. All you need to show is that there was a crime and that at least one member of the conspiracy committed a single act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
How much culpability each defendant has in the over-all crime? We’re in no position to judge, but their peers are. Their peers judge them every day and reward them at the end of every year, at Bonus Time. Their bonuses are the true measure of their individual contribution to the crime; their method of keeping score. The final step would be to enter their names and annual compensation in an Excel spreadsheet. Column A contains their names, column B contains their salaries. Perform a Sort Descending operation on column B. Then we can decide punishment. Keep in mind that anyone who leaves that court with a felony conviction cannot associate with known criminals, their co-conspirators, so fifteen or twenty year sentences would be unnecessarily vengeful. The primarily point of trial, conviction and punishment is to deter future crimes. It might be a while before investment banking recovered, but it would be a much more honest industry.
What fraction of Wall Street people suffering felony convictions would it take to deter the rampant fraud infecting investment banking? Two percent, which is 20 out of every thousand players? Twenty percent? What constitutes a player? Salaried employees with annual bonuses of at least X dollars? How many players would that be? What should be the range of penalties? Some have argued for execution, but few regard that as serious. More likely, some might get long sentences, a decade or more, but most would probably be released after serving five to eight years, and with heavy debt from legal fees and fines. Some might be impoverished to the point of homelessness, but certainly, nothing harsher than what many drug addicts face

This is motivated by Gene Lyons, a commentator who appears on Salon:

Congressman Walsh, do you know why the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 is called the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977? Because it was passed by Congress in 1977, thirty years before the “housing bubble” and the notion that toxic mortgages could be bundled up, securitized, then sold off to pension funds.

Additionally, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 only affected Main Street commercial banks and Savings and Loan institutions not Wall Street investment banks. Of course, since the repeal of Glass-Steagall, things have changed. Thanks a lot.

Yes, and thanks for the comment.

I want to make two points very clear to all: First, that instead of not enough law to prosecute these crimes, there is plenty of law. Second that unless there is significant prison time, we are condemned to see these crimes repeated. I think we start with the prison time: How much is enough to prevent these crimes from occurring again? Then move on to who were the true architects and and how much individual culpability was there. But again, the best evidence to these two will be found in their correspondence and in their compensation.

Wall Street banksters deserve a fair trial

It seems to me that the various and varied frauds had a clear and coherent structure that reflected a clear and coherent purpose. Every step depended on fraudulent activity from the previous step. The liar’s loans originated in perverse mortgage broker incentives. The riskier the loan, the higher the interest rate and the greater the fees. And, the riskier the loan, the easier it was to find a borrower. The result was an explosion in the number and the dollar value of mortgages. It was essential that these decrepit mortgages be consolidated as quickly and as expeditiously as possible – before the borrowers could default. Hence, instead of properly registering all title/deed/lien transfers with local authorities as required by law, the banks concocted the Mortgage Electronic Registry System, MERS. As minor as MERS was, the failure to properly convey the notes and the mortgages to the trusts, it was essential to the greater crime, pushing them out the door before the borrowers defaulted. The huge volume of mortgages flooding the market formed the feed stock for the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities and collateralized debt obligations, among other investment instruments. When divided into “tranches” and given a favorable rating by the store-bought ratings agencies, these became the final product, what the investment banks pawned off on the nation’s pension funds. Yes, there were the inside investors (John Paulson) that milked a corrupt system by creating securities designed to fail, but they were a relatively small fraction of the total fraud. This was a systematic fraud on all that aspire to a retirement free from poverty, and its architects must be held accountable, lest it happen again.

Moreover, it wasn’t just the investment banks. The mortgage brokers, the ratings agencies, the mortgage servicers and the government regulators were all essential elements and all played crucial roles. Aggressive regulation would have aborted the frauds while only a gleam in the bankster’s eye, Honest ratings would have graded the MBSs and CDOs toxic before they tickled the pension funds. Rational incentives would have prevented the “liar’s loans” from ever entering the market. The mortgage services would have never engaged in fraudulent foreclosure or “robo-signing” of the chain-of-ownership documents. Over and over, we see a coherent conspiracy, probably held together through email.

So what to do? Answer: Treat the entire Wall Street investment banking industry as a giant conspiracy to defraud, and charge them under the federal conspiracy statutes. Who are the conspirators? All the salaried employees of the banks, regulators, services and brokers known to have participated in the fraud. Most of Wall Street. Round them up and try them as a group in a giant courtroom, say Yankee Stadium.

Keep in mind that conspiracy is a very easy crime to prove. All you need to show is that there was a crime and that at least one member of the conspiracy committed a single act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
How much culpability each defendant has in the over-all crime? We’re in no position to judge, but their peers are. Their peers judge them every day and reward them at the end of every year, at Bonus Time. Their bonuses are the true measure of their individual culpability.

Finally, what fraction of Wall Street people suffering felony convictions would it take to deter the rampant fraud infecting investment banking? Two percent, which is 20 out of every thousand players? Twenty percent? What constitutes a player? Salaried employees with annual bonuses of at least X dollars? How many players would that be? What should be the range of penalties? Some have argued for execution, but few regard that as serious. More likely, some might get long sentences, a decade or more, but most would probably be released after serving five to eight years, and with heavy debt from legal fees and fines. Some might be impoverished to the point of homelessness, but certainly, nothing harsher than what drug dealers face.

Wall Street deserves a fair trial.

“We suck less.” Great motivating theme. How about, “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” You want to go out and make the phone calls that I made back in 2008? Go ahead. There are thousands of others just like me that are going to stay home, so you won’t suffer from a lack of work. Of course, you can continue to cuss us out, to blame us, but if we’re that important, why weren’t we listened to twenty months ago? Or you could say that it’s not Barack Obama’s fault, he got bad advice. Of course, he also got good advice.

I’d be opposed to the Tar Sands mining regardless of the pipeline, but I am curious about one thing: Why don’t they build the refiners in Alberta? Why do they prefer to pipe the raw sludge to Texas refineries, then truck (or pipe) the finished product to U.S. markets? There are ample markets in the rust-belt states, why do they have to build a pipeline over the Ogallala Aquifer?

Regarding the President invoking the 14th amendment: The Supreme Court couldn’t do anything. First, it takes the Supreme Court six months to go to the bathroom, and by that time the bonds would have been sold. What could the court do? Unwind the sale? Nothing the court could do would make a plaintiff whole, so there wouldn’t be a legal remedy. Second, no plaintiff would be able to show harm by the President’s invoking the 14th. Who could claim they were harmed by the United States paying their debts? In order to have standing before a federal court, the plaintiff has to establish two things: First, that he/she would be harmed and second, that the court’s decision would rectify the issue.

There is another Constitutional remedy, if the Congress had the guts for it. That would be impeachment, but their aren’t the votes for that.

I think of Barack Obama as a white Republican who convinced the country he was a black Democrat. And while an act like that deserves a round of applause, it does not deserve a second term. It should be apparent to everybody in the FDL community that Barack Obama has neither the character nor the competence to be President. Even worse, I find it easy to believe that could have stood before his Wall Street and K Street backers in ’07 and promised that if elected, he would betray the Democratic base to such an extent that they would never be a problem again. Whether that promise was explicitly stated or merely “understood” is unimportant.