Hang the bankers... ? Bernanke, Paulson, Geithner, Rubin, Corzine, Dimon and Blankfein are safe for now, but perhaps if we moved Wall Street to downtown Tehran.
We have an entire class of people and financial corporations who do little more than use their money (via lobbying) and power to extract (e.g., legally steal) billions of dollars from both taxpayers and shareholders, and they are heralded as 'job creators' and 'captains of industry.' When caught doing something that is actually illegal (Libor manipulation, for example), they blame rogue traders and call upon political connections with Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer via the Covington & Burling infested Department of Justice.
Scoundrels, every last one of them.
Meanwhile, those who steal from grocery stores generally go to jail.
It is not fair. It is not just. It is not right. And it is why, according to a new Gallup Poll, 'Reducing Corruption in Government' has become the second most important issue to American voters, with a whopping 87% of all votes.
Now, onto Iran, where banksters get punished.
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Here are the 2 sources for this story:
Iran's Judiciary Spokesman Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei:
- Of 39 defendants, whose charges were heard, the court’s judge has sentenced four to death and two others to life imprisonment. The remaining defendants received prison terms of 25 years, 20 years, 10 years, and less severe sentences.”
DUBAI, July 30 (Reuters) - An Iranian court has sentenced four people to death for a billion-dollar bankfraud that tainted the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state media reported on Monday.
Iranians, hit by sanctions and soaring inflation, were shocked by the scale of the $2.6 billion bank loan embezzlement that was exposed last year and by allegations it was carried out by people close to the political elite or with their assent.
Of the thirty-nine people tried for the fraud - the biggest in the Islamic Republic's history - four were sentenced to hang, the IRNA state news agency reported.
"According to the sentence that was issued, four of the defendants in this case were sentenced to death," prosecutor general Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei told IRNA.
Two people were sentenced to life and others received jail sentences of up to 25 years, Mohseni-Ejei said. In addition to jail time, some were sentenced to flogging, ordered to pay fines and banned from government jobs.
Mohseni-Ejei did not name the defendants and Iranian media have identified them only by their initials. State television broadcast parts of the trial but blurred out the faces of the accused.
The man described by Iranian media as the mastermind of the scheme, businessman Amir Mansoor Khosravi, is said to have forged letters of credit from Iran's Bank Saderat to fund dozens of companies and buy a state-owned steel factory.
Mahmoud Reza Khavari, the former head of Iran's biggest bank, state-owned Bank Melli, resigned over the affair and fled to Canada where records show he owns a $3 million home, Iranian and Canadian news agencies reported.
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Geithner AIG Fraud: