Rolling Stone: Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

[The Straight Story]

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?

Financial crooks brought down the world's economy — but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them

Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer.

"Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail," he said. "That's your whole story right there. Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it. Just write that."

I put down my notebook. "Just that?"

"That's right," he said, signaling to the waitress for the check. "Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail. You can end the piece right there."

Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth — and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-isnt-wall-street-in-jail-20110216

[bluesbassman]

1. Oh, you'll see some realtors and loan officers doing time here and there,

and that's only because they broke some easily documentable law. They'd be in the same boat even if the crisis hadn't occurred. However the media and politicians will point these instances out as justice when the architects of this madness relax in their summer homes in the Hamptons.

[Raster]

2. There is a bit more to the story:

Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail. And the rich banksters lived happily ever after.