Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Holder Claims He Can't Prosecute the the Banks Because It Would Negatively Impact the Global Economy

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Holder Claims He Can't Prosecute the the Banks Because It Would Negatively Impact the Global Economy

Click here to access article by Robert Oak from The Economic Populist.

This piece provides a nice followup of my posting "How Many Billions Of Drug-Laundered Money Does It Take To Shut Down A Bank?" on March 9th. Here we see Obama appointee Attorney General Eric Holder of the Justice Department testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Department's failure to significantly prosecute financial institutions.

The article provides a transcript of Sen. Grassley's opening statement at the beginning of the hearing. The video in the article and reproduced below was during the later question and answer section of the hearing.

In this video we hear Sen. Grassley of Iowa ask Holder about the department's failure to criminally prosecute banks and people in financial institutions who violated laws. Holder answered with a general statement about the concern of economic impact of banks that were too big to fail, and that this did inhibit prosecutions of institutions. He did not respond about failure to prosecute individuals of these institutions and Grassley did not followup with questions about the latter failure or any other aspects of Holder's general statement. (I listened to the full video recording of the hearing.)

This gentle questioning of Holder by Grassley illustrates to me that Grassley, unlike Sen. Elizabeth Warren of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee, knows that he is up against some "too powerful to challenge" forces behind the scenes, and that it would be wise for his career to not aggressively question Holder.