You may have missed some news that I, for one, think is pretty significant. A jury of their peers recently acquitted two former Bear Stearns executives of all charges brought against them by the U.S. government in what was the first significant criminal trial to be conducted in the wake of the global financial crisis. Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, who were hedge fund managers at Stearns and saw their funds collapse after their heavy portfolio bets on the subprime mortgage market went the way of the wind, were quickly acquitted on multiple charges of securities fraud and wire fraud. Prosecutors are surprised at the abruptness of the acquittal, so much so that legal experts are now speculating that future, prospective criminal cases brought against bank and investment executives over the financial collapse may be in jeopardy.
This was both a correct and telling decision. It was a grandiose and misguided effort on the part of the government to scapegoat two individuals as the “problem.” The real problem was and is the subprime mortgage crisis in its entirety, and these guys didn’t cause it. Jurors deserve a lot of credit for checking any feelings of class envy, as well as any personal financial difficulties, at the door and looking at the facts. One juror rhetorically asked after the trial’s conclusion, “How much can two men do?” Another juror said simply that “they were scapegoats for Wall Street.”
There are large collectives of people to blame for the problems we have endured for the last few years, but who shall we put in jail? Greedy bankers and investment execs who took advantage of a government-mandated relaxation in mortgage underwriting standards? The politicians who relaxed them in the first place? The home buyers who took on more house than they could afford but cared nothing about the consequences to come? If you want to start locking up the people who were the “cause” of this meltdown, then you’d better start building a jail on every street corner in America.
Agree or disagree; please register your comments below.
Follow me on Christian Chirp at www.christianchirp.com/robertyetman.
Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor-At-Large www.ChristianMoney.com
Recent Comments