Dick Fuld made almost half a billion dollars from fraud

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The Automatic Earth
Lehman's CEO Dick Fuld made almost half a billion dollars off the fraud he oversaw, states Dylan Ratigan. Fuld has been walking around free, enjoying his loot, for 18 months, since Lehman collapsed. And that's not because nobody among the US market regulators knew. You know why it is? It's because they DID know. It’s because the SEC and the NY Fed under Geithner and the Treasury under Paulson and the Fed under Greenspan and Bernanke DID know, that Dick Fuld gets to spend his part of the loot. It’s because part of the loot went to all of the above, because they’re all guilty as sin. Oh wait, what does that say about Obama? That he's guilty too, or only that he's not all that savvy? And look in the mirror, what does it say about you?

Yves Smith says Tim Geithner needs to be fired for his involvement in the insane saga of the Lehman demise. Well, that's a nice first reaction, but when you dig a bit, he should maybe also have been fired for his part in the AIG scam. Or Bear Stearns for that matter, which he had the duty to oversee as head of the New York Fed. Tim Geithner will never be brought to justice precisely because Tim Geithner himself should be brought before a jury of his peers, and his peers are as guilty as he is.

Firing Geithner would be letting him off easy. He should be put on temporary leave pending an independent investigation. That's how politics works in other countries, so why not in the US? The investigation should be rapid and thorough, and led by someone who can prove they’re not associated with Wall Street in any given way. Say, Elizabeth Warren or Bill Black. And then there should be a temp replacement as Treasury Secretary, say, let's see, Elizabeth Warren or Bill Black. Or you could give either post to Harry Markopolos. Am I leaving out anyone? There's really only a few good "men", ain't there? It’s much easier to come up with a lost of names of people who should never ever be appointed to these posts than it is to name those who might.

But yeah, I know, I'm only dreaming. This present bag of Al Capones, except for a few carefully selected scapegoats (Dick Fuld: Tar and Feathers!), will never be brought to justice, because Eliott Ness wouldn't stand a chance in today's America, or London, Paris, or Tokyo. We just would like to believe he would, so much so that that very belief is actually aiding and abetting both the crimes and perpetrators. We don’t want real life, we want the hologram. We tell ourselves: "but there's nothing I can do about it", and we use that statement as an excuse to let people like Dick Fuld and Tim Geithner walk all over our children's graves.

There's times when I think that perhaps the best thing that could happen to us is for our lives and dreams to be thrown off a cliff and see what survives the landing, we can't seem to wake up in any other way. You know, the sort of thing that sounds good in theory. But I can clearly see the suffering that would come with it, and I don’t like it. Not one bit. Whatever we do, though, we must make sure of one thing. That we find back our moral fiber, and act on it. More...