I've heard the fines as a couple billion spread across the industry. They pulled in way more than that during the fraud-ridden crisis, then got bailed out and stuck counterparties (AIG) with a lot of the losses. It's probably less if you need me to prosecute and convict each individual fraud case to add up a total.
The same is true for pretty much any profitable industry. I'm sure the profits made by the medical or technology industry are vastly larger than the fines/penalties those industries paid for fraud. So what?
The right comparison to make is gains vs losses due to fraud. Take ABACUS as an example. According to the SEC GS lost $70m when they committed against themselves, and paid another $500m in fines for a total loss of $570m.
I don't know what world you live in where losing $570m is a "great business deal".
I'm saying that fraud was systemic during the prelude to the crash as the banks scrambled to unload as many of these CDOs as possible, however possible. It'd be near impossible to add up every single case of fraud and bicker over which is really fraud and which is only sort of dishonest, but they definitely unloaded a lot more CDOs than 570 million on their unsuspecting clients.
If that's all that happened, there wouldn't be any investigation. You know the allegations, you know how much money is at stake. Apply your own fudge factor, mine says they're doing just fine, and if they weren't, they'd call up Geithner and Rubin and it would become fine.
If that's all that happened, there wouldn't be any investigation.
WOW!!!!
Maybe you didn't mean it the way it sounds. But the way I'm reading this, you seem to be saying, "there's no reason for a trial. If you were innocent, the police wouldn't have arrested you". Saying that is a great way to get out jury duty, but it's no way to run a judicial system.
