Sometimes, a news story can be so crammed with irony that it boggles the mind. Consider just the headline on one such story that ran recently in my town’s daily paper: “Man gets 10 years for defrauding banks.”

That just screams for a rewrite, doesn’t it? I yearn for a story with a headline in boldface type that, at long last, would trumpet this joyous news: “Banker get 10 years for defrauding man.”
Alas, though, while the FBI, IRS, and the judicial establishment went all out to nail the bank defrauder, they allow big-time Wall Street crooks who defraud us to escape prosecution, much less jail. High-flying bankers systematically commit serial acts of blatant fraud, bilking millions of people out of billions of dollars, but they keep their positions, paychecks, perks, and prestige – free to bilk again.

The latest marquee Wall Streeter to admit to grand scale larceny, yet pay no personal penalty, is Jamie Dimon, honcho of JPMorgan Chase. Shareholders in Dimon’s felonious operation have been socked with a record $13 billion in penalties, but not a penny comes from Jamie’s pocket. Still, popping the bank for 13 Big Ones shows that the Justice Department is finally getting tough on corporate crime, right? Not exactly. JPMorgan’s punishment will be softened significantly by this unannounced outrage: A corporation – unlike a person – can deduct criminal fines from its income taxes. That means we taxpayers will, in effect, cough-up some $4 billion to help America’s richest bank pay for its wrongdoing.

This corporate tax scam puts the “con” in unconscionable. But We The People can shame Dimon and his bank’s shareholders into paying the full price for their criminal acts. To help a grassroots coalition of citizen groups that are demanding just that, go to www.CampaignForFairSettlement.org.

“Man gets 10 years for defrauding banks,” Austin American Statesman,” November 3, 2013.
“Email: Tell Chase: No Tax Breaks for Wall Street Crime,” Campaign for a Fair Settlement, October 28, 2013.

Too few people control too much of America’s money and power

Sometimes it pays just to go away. You could ask Jim Skinner about that. He was CEO of the hamburger behemoth, McDonald’s, pulling down a hefty $8.8 million in pay. Last year, though, Skinner retired, and, rather than getting a gold watch, he was given a load of gold – so large that even a Brink’s armored truck would have been too small to haul it all away. His salary of $753,000 was the least of it. The Big Mac chain also served up $1.7 million to the chief in stock and $3 million in option awards. Then it slathered on another $10.2 million in retirement pay. All that was topped by a super-rich dessert: $11.6 million in “incentive pay.”

What? Why does a guy with millions already on his food tray need any incentive to do his job? Maybe because Skinner found it hard to stomach the biggest part of his job, which was to pay poverty wages to McDonald’s 860,000 workers, shove thousands of them onto food stamps and other programs paid for by taxpayers, and lobby aggressively to prevent any increases in the minimum wage or any tax hikes on über-rich elites like him.

It’s dirty work, but Skinner did it, finally skipping away with a 2012 pay package totaling $27.7 million. Yet, in the phantasmagoric plutocracy of CorporateLand, too much is not enough. Last year, for the first time ever, the 10 highest-paid CEOs in America hauled in at least $100 million each, even as the great majority of workaday families have lost income.

This gaping (and ever-widening) inequality is the greatest threat to our society’s cohesion. Too few people now control an unconscionable and untenable share of America’s money and power, using it to grab more of both for themselves. They can build a $100-million wall, but it won’t be high enough to hide their greed from the rest of us.

“McDonald’s gives new, ex-CEO big pay bumps,” www.usatoday.com, April 12, 2013.
“Billion Dollar Pay Check? 10 CEOs in America Break All Records for Executive Pay,” www.alternet.org, October 22, 2013.
“In the United States of Inequality, CEOs Get ‘Astronomical’ Pay,” www.commondreams.org, October 22, 2013.

“CEO Pay In 2012 Was Extraordinarily High Relative To Typical Workers And Other High Earners,” www.epi.org, June 26, 2013.

Congress critters kiss Wall Street butt for cash

On the day before Halloween, the ethically-challenged members of our lobbyist-haunted House of Representatives did a perverse imitation of “Profiles in Courage,” turning that body into “Profiles in Spinelessness.”

In particular, they cravenly caved in to an outrageous and dangerous demand by Wall Street whiners. Such financial powerhouses as Citigroup just hate having their profiteering recklessness restrained by the regulatory reforms passed after their 2008 financial meltdown. Even though the shockwaves from that Wall Street collapse continue to devastate America’s middle class, the banking elite have completely recovered – including recovering their swaggering arrogance and ability to sway money-hungry congress critters with rich campaign donations.

Thus, a majority of the House happily did Wall Street’s bidding, passing a major bill that undercuts the reforms so banks can return to the risky casino games that wrecked our economy. Of course, the members insist that banker money didn’t influence them. For example, Rep. Jim Himes, the second-largest recipient among Democrats of Wall Street cash, asserted after the vote that money “hardly determines, thank goodness, how legislators think about these issues.”

Really? Then why did they let Citigroup lobbyists write the bulk of the bill? And why did they let Wall Street lobbyists orchestrate the debate by handing out talking points and questions for members to parrot during consideration of what became known as “Citigroup’s bill?” Even a Republican staffer warned against simply mouthing the industry’s lines: “I know that some of our members are inclined to whore,” he wrote in an email,” but we cannot be apes.”
Yet, for this Halloween trick-and-treat show, the majority of House members did, indeed, pose as apes and parrots for Wall Street.

“House, Set To Vote on 2 Bills, Is Seen As An Ally of Wall St.” The New York Times, October 29, 2013.