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.
Since Sandy Hook, the gun nuts have been out in full force, spraying bullets all over the US to quickly do as much killing as possible before the Communist Obama takes away their guns. Every day another mass murder.
Now a rational person might think this works against the gun-nut NRA lobby. Not at all, folks. It just proves their point. You need more guns to protect yourself from errant gun nuts.
Besides, who would take an AK-47 into a kindergarten or Sears to commit mass murder?
Why, the mentally ill, of course, as the deliciously named Wayne LaPierre keeps telling us (simultaneously recalling the macho John Wayne, while the French pierre—rock or stone—reminds one variously of The Rock or Rock Hudson, both icons in their own right).
So to preserve the Constitutional right to arm yourself with military assault weapons, we’ve got to lock up anyone suspected of mental illness. Your right to weapons of mass murder trumps the right of the mentally ill to fresh air. They all ought to be locked up to prevent freely available weapons of mass destruction from getting into the wrong hands.
Such is the thinking of the NRA.
One wonders why someone who is not mentally ill should believe that amassing assault rifles is not an indication of mental illness. But I digress.
Back to Iglesias. His argument would appear to be this. We wouldn’t want to punish a bank for fraud because “Had you secured criminal convictions against these megabanks, you’d have had to nationalize them and assume their liabilities or else face an economic catastrophe.”
Ergo, do not prosecute illegal activities at the megabanks.
Here’s the deal. Banks don’t commit fraud; they are used as weapons for fraud by the top bank management to commit fraud. Those in the top management of the megabanks are the ones who are committing the fraud. The banks are just assault rifles, harmless when left in the locked closet. They become dangerous only at the hands of the Hanks, Bobs, Jamies, and Lloyds.
So who do you prosecute? The weapon or the one who pulls the trigger, spraying bullets all over the shopping mall?
The Obama administration (backed by Yglesias) argues that you should just forgive (nay, bail-out) the triggermen who ran the banks. Let them walk away with their hundreds of millions and billions stolen from customers.
That will teach them a lesson!
Now, we don’t want to carry the analogy too far. We’ve got lots of gun nuts accumulating assault rifles and as well lots of banksters accumulating banks. Going forward what do you do to constrain them?
Reduce the lethality of the weapons they have at their disposal.
The NRA is right about one thing. There’s a lot of crazies out there. But you cannot lock them all up in anticipation that some of them might use the weapons at hand.
Makes much more sense to:
a) Investigate and prosecute to the full extent of the law those that use weapons of mass destruction (such as AK-47s and financial derivatives); and
b) Remove the weapons of mass destruction (AK-47s and financial derivatives).