Finally! Someone throws a bankster in jail
Submitted by gjohnsit on Mon, 02/27/2017 - 5:13pm
For far too long Iceland has been alone in prosecuting their banksters.
Spain, very belatedly, is finally joining this extremely small club.
The former International Monetary Fund chief Rodrigo Rato has been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for misusing corporate credit cards while in charge of two leading Spanish banks at the height of the country’s financial crisis.
Rato, also a former a Spanish economy minister and deputy prime minister, was found guilty on Thursday of embezzlement, at the end of a five-month trial at Spain’s national court.
He had been on trial with 64 other former executives and board members at Caja Madrid and Bankia banks, whose near collapse sparked an EU bailout of Spain’s financial sector.
It's not much, but it's better than we've done (and will be doing).
The court is questioning why they allowed Bankia to sell shares in an initial public offering in 2011, less than a year before Bankia’s portfolio of bad mortgage loans forced the government to seize control of it. It said there was evidence the regulators had “full and thorough knowledge” of Bankia’s plight.
...
The court also called “devastating” the content of another report, urging Bankia to look for a buyer, preferably a foreign one, rather than proceed with a listing. Based on its estimate of its losses, it described Bankia as “a group that is not viable”, an opinion written in red capital letters. The report was sent to Pedro Comín, a director of the Bank of Spain and one of three central-bank officials who resigned this week after the court’s indictment.
Spain’s judges rarely send first-time offenders to prison for financial crimes. But in January five senior executives of Novacaixagalicia, a regional bank, became the first Spanish bankers to go to jail for being guilty of fraud and mismanagement during the financial crisis.
Comments
Speaking of the IMF
corrupt
@gjohnsit
Oh, good, collaboration on defrauding the American public and, doubtless, the publics of many other countries. Nice to have experts at the helm...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
don't forget that IMF and Worldbank employees
who were not docile enough to follow the elite garde of their 'banking professional bosses' professional talk, all lose/lost their jobs or are sent into early retirement, even after legal battles against those efforts by the "fired" employees were won with their ombudsman etc.
Well, at least those "brown" employees from very corrupt African countries that happened to be not corrupt. Some lost their minds over it, some got killed by their own corrupt African "brothers", who liked to keep their jobs, either inside the bank or outside in their home country's government or other international agencies.
I speak of personal experience here. So, just do not equate any of those employees with corrupt assholes. Corrupt assholes are everywhere. Those who tried not to be corrupt, paid for it. Just saying
Goldman Sachs is teaching them how it is done.
And by "it," I mean avoiding prosecution for corruption.
I'm looking forward to when the police finish at Standing Rock..
So they head to Wall Street to do a highly visible rough arrest and perp walk...
Oh Snap!
That would be in Alt. World...
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Money runs deeper than blood and monopoly capital, &
the neoliberal claque in office to support it, cares nothing of the rule of law. It's good to see someone face justice but it seems to me only Iceland has prosecuted people for systemic corruption.
Personal venality can get you in the dock; supporting the major players in the class war does not.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Spain also had the temerity to put a princess on trial
for corruption, which ended just days ago. She herself was acquitted, but her husband will be doing time.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
A judge in Spain tried to put Bushco on trial for war crimes.
The Obama administration wisely nipped that potential precedent in the bud before it came back to bite the drone kill king in the, um, bud.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_Six
He tried to go after Kissinger and others, too. Quite the crusader! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltasar_Garz%C3%B3n
So, naturally, he got prosecuted and persecuted some. But, he's still alive. Yeay, Spain. In several countries I could name, he would be dead.
lol - misused his credit card...
Reminds me of Obama's daughter caught smoking pot. No arrest, just a gap year in Europe.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Everyone Knows
Everyone knows that prison and jail are for grungy poor people.
The rich can't be caught dead seen in a prison jumpsuit. The horror. Unless the jumpsuit was made by a high-end designer.
Rich folk buy 500 an hour lawyers to sweet talk judges (or just pay them too) to just slap away the crime.
Imagine the analogy for a middle class person.
"Oh you murdered someone...well how about you pay a fine of say 50 cents?"
Laws are for the poor meant to trap the poor.
There is an old Sicilian proverb.
In translation:
"The law is for the rich.
The gallows is for the poor.
And justice is for fools."
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
That's how it goes...
Everybody knows.
Meanwhile, back in Congress . . .
21 Dems just voted to confirm billionaire investor Wilbur Ross for Commerce Secretary
If Love Trumps Hate . . .
Interesting. Brown and Schatz, right there with DiFi, Warner,
Nelson and Kaine, former DNC head and Not My Vice President. But no Manchin.
Kabuki?
ETA: In Cairo, I bought the most comfortable sandals I've had in my life. After I bought then, I learned they were made of camel leather. Do with that whatever you will.
@HenryAWallace
You'd walk a mile in your Camels?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Clever!
I would and I did. Softest leather ever, which was a surprise. Based on a reality TV episode I saw, they eat camel meat in the Middle East. I knew before that they make things out of bone, like the part of flatware that one holds. So, nothing is wasted, with the possible exception of the hair and hooves, but they probably use those, too. Peoples who have been really, really poor for a long time are excellent environmentalists.
@HenryAWallace
They probably also cure their leather the old-fashioned way, with urine, which sounds gross but would also be environmentally sound. Done properly, it's supposed to produce very soft, supple leather and I kinda wonder how they produce that rarely available but lovely, incredibly soft and supple, yet durable, bridle leather for English tack...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.