"We already got the guilty man"

"We already got the guilty man"

Those are the words said by Rod Steiger as Sherrif Gillespie to Virgil Tibbs, (Sidney Poitier), in the 1967 film 'In the heat of the night'.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061811/

If memory serves, Gillespie has caught his deputy, Sam, (Warren Oates), in a lie and immediately jumps to the conclusion that he's the murderer because, 1) he's lying about something, and, 2) he's there in front of him thus avoiding any of that troublesome 'thinking' business.

However the words are also appropriate for the SEC it seems.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/business/01prosecute.html?_r=1&hp

S.E.C. Case Stands Out Because It Stands Alone

At the height of the housing boom, the 26th floor of Goldman Sachs’s former headquarters on Broad Street in Lower Manhattan was the nerve center of Goldman’s fast-growing mortgage trading business.

Hundreds of employees worked closely in teams, devising mortgage-based securities — billions of dollars’ worth — that were examined by lawyers, approved by management, then sold to investors like hedge funds, commercial banks and insurance companies.

At one trading desk sat Fabrice Tourre, a midlevel 28-year-old Frenchman who was little known not just outside Goldman but even inside the firm. That changed three years later, in 2010, when he achieved the dubious distinction of becoming the only individual at Goldman and across Wall Street sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for helping to sell a mortgage-securities investment, in one of the hundreds of mortgage deals created during the bubble years.

How Mr. Tourre alone came to be the face of mortgage-securities fraud has raised questions among former prosecutors and Congressional officials about how aggressive and thorough the government’s investigations have been into Wall Street’s role in the mortgage crisis.

Across the industry, “it’s impossible that only one person was involved with fraudulent activities in connection to the sales of these mortgage securities,” said G. Oliver Koppell, a New York attorney general in the 1990s and now a New York City councilman.

Of course, The 'Fabulous Fab' has another advantage... he's a 'ferner' so is doubly responsible. Personally I'd lock him up just for being called Fabrice but them I'm a hard-liner in these things

Still, it's nice to see that the authorities have finally caught the man responsible for all the worlds economic problems.

 

OK! There are two people we need to lock up then.

 

Make that three...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18612279

Barclays has been fined £290m ($450m) for trying to manipulate a key bank interest rate which influences the cost of loans and mortgages.

Its traders lied to make the bank look more secure during the financial crisis and, sometimes - working with traders at other banks - to make a profit.

Barclays said the actions "fell well short of standards". Chief executive Bob Diamond is to give up his bonus.

The Financial Services Authority is now looking into other banks

Barclays has been fined over £1Bn over the past couple of years due to miss-selling of payment protection insurance, (PPI), for tax evasion and now for the latest 'scam'.

As the piece goes on to say...

The statement from the US regulator, which levied a big chunk of the fine, talks about how Barclays was working with other banks to try to fix this interest rate.

This of course implies that Barclays is simply the first bank to settle and we will see fines and punishments against some of the other big banks of the world.

Still, it's obvious to me that none of the other banks have done anything wrong and it's just this one 'bad apple' of Barclays and it's head, Bob Diamond, that's at fault. Once he's out of the way everything will go on swimmingly I'm sure

Something ELSE that's obvious is that nobody, and I do mean NOBODY, has done anything illegal and deserves to go to prison.

I'm sure we can all agree on that