Wall Street Duplicity
Wall Street companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year on lobbyists to make sure industry regulations favor companies and not investors. Then Wall Street spends additional millions on advertising that tells investors their financial interests always come first. Lobbyist efforts are real. Advertising messages are spin. The result is a major travesty of justice that costs investors hundreds of billions of dollars per year in lost profits and excessive expenses.
A recent example of regulations that favor the industry occurred when Goldman Sachs and other financial services companies paid hundreds of millions of dollars of fines for cheating individual and institutional investors. However, the companies did not have to admit guilt when they paid the fines. Consequently, fines for cheating clients were nothing more than a minor cost of doing business for these companies.
If they are not guilty, then why did they pay the fines? Their public relations departments say they paid the fines to avoid costly legal battles with state and federal regulators. However, this is more spin. These companies employ hundreds of high-priced lawyers to fight their legal battles. The truth is, they wanted to avoid publicity that would document their illegal business practices. This type of exposure is bad for business. They also know investors have very short memories, so the quicker they pay the fines the sooner they can get back to business as usual.
Wall Street is an exclusive group of companies that are controlled by executives who put a high priority on short-term profitability. Companies pay fines for decisions that are made by these executives. Paying fines without admitting guilt is a major travesty of justice because it protects executives from civil and criminal prosecution.
Many of these executives should be serving long prison sentences for their decisions to cheat investors. They earned millions in compensation for decisions that caused massive unemployment and major damage to the U.S. economy. But, like some type of medieval royalty they are not accountable for their actions. They are protected by powerful politicians who allow these regulations to exist.
A recent example of regulations that favor the industry occurred when Goldman Sachs and other financial services companies paid hundreds of millions of dollars of fines for cheating individual and institutional investors. However, the companies did not have to admit guilt when they paid the fines. Consequently, fines for cheating clients were nothing more than a minor cost of doing business for these companies.
If they are not guilty, then why did they pay the fines? Their public relations departments say they paid the fines to avoid costly legal battles with state and federal regulators. However, this is more spin. These companies employ hundreds of high-priced lawyers to fight their legal battles. The truth is, they wanted to avoid publicity that would document their illegal business practices. This type of exposure is bad for business. They also know investors have very short memories, so the quicker they pay the fines the sooner they can get back to business as usual.
Wall Street is an exclusive group of companies that are controlled by executives who put a high priority on short-term profitability. Companies pay fines for decisions that are made by these executives. Paying fines without admitting guilt is a major travesty of justice because it protects executives from civil and criminal prosecution.
Many of these executives should be serving long prison sentences for their decisions to cheat investors. They earned millions in compensation for decisions that caused massive unemployment and major damage to the U.S. economy. But, like some type of medieval royalty they are not accountable for their actions. They are protected by powerful politicians who allow these regulations to exist.