Thursday, January 24, 2013

Holding big banks accountable

There's a lot of outrage these days, real and feigned, about robosigning and missing assignments, but neither of them get me very excited.  Sure they were wrong and helped muddle up our real estate records, but they had very little to do with the outrageous lending and investment practices that caused the collapse of the global economy.  While a few low-level managers who signed the names of others to documents are now being prosecuted, not a single investment banker has met a similar fate despite wrongdoing of a far greater magnitude.  A post today in the Deal Book blog of the New York Times gives some detailed insight into how these big banks operated and how outrageously they behaved.  After reading it, you are left astounded at how invisible have been the efforts of regulators and prosecutors to assess blame. 

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