For fraud and dishonesty of banks – read Janet Tavakoli

I have some new heroines and yes, they are mostly women. Janet Tavakoli, Brooksley Born, Ann Pettifor are among them. Janet Tavakoli I have recently discovered. She was interviewed by Chris Martenson and quite late in the interview she said “Sorry, you are not getting it Chris. I am opposed to the fraud and lies. I am not opposed to all derivatives”. So I downloaded an e-bookof hers called The Robber Barons, and read more. It is the fact that banks and rating agencies misled investors by rating an investment as AAA when they knew it was junk that is the problem. And the banks knew it was junk yet they sold it and demanded they be bailed out. Innocent investors and home owners lost billions.

Yet nobody is in jail. Not a single one. Nobody has been brought to trial. This is unlike the earlier but smaller Saving and Loans crisis where 1000 or so were indicted.

Quotes from Tavakoli’s book: “Fraud thrives and spreads in a regulatory free, highly paid, criminogenic environment. Cheaters prosper driving honest out of the market”

“While there were instances of fraud by borrowers, the key drivers of our housing crisis were fraud perpetuated by mortgage lenders and securities fraud – by some of our most revered financial institutions – that provided money to fuel fraudulent mortgage lending.”

And I have finally found this one: “If a high-on-crack driver crashed his speeding rental car into your house and killed your spouse, you would be outraged if law enforcers took bribes and gave the driver a pass on a blood test. If the judge then merely fined the killer and order you to pay it, you would appeal, wondering what happened to justice. If the government then handed the crack-driver keys to a bigger rental car and presented you with the rental bill, you would certainly protest.

How is it, then that you have remained largely silent in the face of the same sort of behavior by Wall Street and Washington? Bonus-seeking bankers careened off the right path and ran Ponzi schemes that nearly ruined our economy. Bureaucrats and elected officials bailed them out without demanding consequences. Bankers are revving their engines again.”

Yes that is Janet Tavakoli.