Mar 07, 2013

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/eric-holder-banks-too-big_n_2821741.html

When the Attorney General of the United States admits some banks are simply too big to prosecute, it might be time to admit we have a problem -- and that goes for both the financial and justice systems.

Eric Holder made this rather startling confession in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, The Hill reports....

Some observers have defended the Justice Department, suggesting that prosecuting law-breaking banks would amount to a death penalty that could upset the financial system and trigger another recession -- although nobody really knows if it would do any such thing. But by not prosecuting law-breaking banks, and confessing to its terror of prosecuting those banks, the Justice Department has waved a big checkered flag to the biggest banks to go ahead and break all of the laws they want.

Holder's confession comes after several weeks of criticism from lawmakers about the Justice Department's failure to prosecute banks not only for potentially hard-to-prove cases involving the financial crisis, but also for cases in which proof wasn't as hard to find, as in HSBC's case.

Fascism is a system of government where the corporations and the government are allies. In theory they work together for the good of the economy, but if the corporations are allowed to get too big and too rich, they become the real power centers of government. Hint: (The big banks have trillions in assets; the governmennt has trillions in debts.) That problem is what Eric Holder is admitting. What started as a too-big-to-fail problem has now evolved into a too-big-to-prosecute problem.

I do not know if Mr. Holder admitted the problem under duress (i.e., being forced to admit it in the hearing), or if he was issuing a subtle appeal to Congress and the people to please do something. Either way, it is the responsibility of the people to respond by exposing the problem so that Congress feels it can respond without committing political suicide. After all, these banks give a lot of money to political re-election campaigns.

Ii hope that in the wake of Holder's revelation, someone will publish a list of alll the politicians who receive crime money from these big banks, so that any donations from those banks will be toxic to their election.