Working Life

Yeah, I get it: you like Uber and Lyft because it’s the “new thing” in the app-centered corporate world. But, know this: Uber and Lyft are very bad corporate actors, stomping around the country, using right-wing, anti-consumer, anti-union tactics, to trash fundamental rights in every state—as I learn from Rebecca Smith, co-author of an incredible […]

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Lots of questions are being asked about the Clinton Foundation–except some obvious ones that are being almost entirely ignored, questions which should invite debate on troubling connections sitting right out in broad daylight. Donald Trump and his Republicans allies, as well as others, have failed yet to make the case that Hillary Clinton tied her […]

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Let me give credit, up front, to a splendid idea from the actors Greg Wise and Emma Thompson that clarified my own outrage at a simple reality: the bankers destroyed the economy with their greed and incompetence, the Obama Administration lets each bank CEO off the hook with a negotiated deal for a fine that the institution, not the banker pays, and with no jail time for a single high-ranking Wall Streeter and WE PAY FOR THIS.

That’s right: each one of us, with our taxes, pays for this sleazy deal with the financial elite.

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If you want to know why the Wall Street elite and the bankers who robbed us blind are laughing all the way to their mansions, it’s because the joke is on YOU. On every American. Because after they robbed the country, and destroyed millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in value, YOU get to pick a nice part of the tab.

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A billion here, a billion there…all of a sudden…yeah, you’re talking real money. And one assumes that’s what the accountants at banks figure when they smile about the latest scam to pad the bottom line for banks. It’s called “dividend arbitrage”–and that “arbitrage” already gives a hint.

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Well, this is just more of the same. Shareholders and customers pay the tab for greed and incompetence–and the Administration goes along. A new deal–but no one held responsible.

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Well, it gets a bit repetitive to write about this but it’s that or spacecrafts following comets(come to think of it, the comet stuff is much more fun). But, here we go again: bankers rip us off and all they need to do is sock it to the shareholders and customers and, presto, Eric Holder and his boss go home happy campers. The Treasury might get a little richer but nothing much will have changed.

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One person who is a bit of a hero, I think, in this whole post-financial-crisis-the-bankers-got-away-with-it scam is Jed Rakoff, who sits in the Federal District Court of Manhattan. A few years ago, I wrote that Rakoff understood that the government, our government, and, in particular, the Securities and Exchange Commission, is not serious about holding people accountable for the robbery and greed and incompetence that led to the financial collapse, costing millions of people their jobs and obliterating trillions of dollars in wealth. As Rakoff said, it’s all a show. But, at least, when he can, Rakoff is trying to make it hurt–and, now, to the tune of a $1.9 billion fine against Bank of America.

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Maybe I’m naive or just stubborn (yes) or both but I can’t get too excited by today’s news of a judgement against Bank of America. Because it doesn’t change much down the road. You’ll see why.

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It would be a great day if just once — just once — the bankers who caused financial mayhem ended up in jail. That’s not going to happen in the latest charges leveled against Bank of America because the charges are civil, not criminal. But, for now, we can feel a smidgen of glee.

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