12:19 pm Nov. 1, 20113
Former New York City mayor Ed Koch said he wanted to see criminal charges filed against the Wall Street executives whose actions harmed the economy, saying it was unfair for them to pay fines and avoid jail.
Speaking at an ABNY breakfast in midtown featuring Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former mayor David Dinkins, Koch responded to Bloomberg's assertion that Congress, not big banks, was to blame for the mortgage crisis and ensuing collapse of the financial industry.
"I would differ with respect to blame here," said Koch, who prefaced his remarks by saying how much he liked the private sector. ("I'm not an enemy of Wall Street. I'm reasonably wealthy and it came as a result of me staying in the stock market. I love the stock market.")
"Let's take Goldman Sachs," said Koch. "It's fined by the S.E.C. $550 million. What the hell do they care. That's the cost of doing business. Citigroup, fined $285 million. What do you think they got fined for? Schmutz on the sidewalk?
"They got fined because they abused their relationship with their clientele," said Koch. "And I want to see somebody, and I haven't seen it happen yet, some C.E.O., some F.O. C.F.O., I want to see one of them from a major corporation punished, criminally. They beggared the people in this country. More than $2 trillion was lost in the great recession.
"There's something wrong with a kid who steals a bike going to jail and someone who steals millions paying a fine."
Koch's remarks in front of the crowd of mostly business people and private-sector advocates, was greeted with applause. Bloomberg, who sat on the opposite side of the stage from Koch, with Dinkins between them, didn't have any visible reaction to Koch's comments. The moderator was Charlie Rose.
Umm yeah, but the kid stealing the bike can't hire attourneys and lobbyists, and that's the kind of system we finally have: Libertine.
I worked with some of these executive clowns at a company which once was a competitor of GE. My impression was all would bugger their grandmother's corpse in the middle of Times Square on New Year's eve if they thought they could make money from it. I don't mean money for their employer - the employer and ethics be damned - their loyalties were solely to themselves. For example, one used to brag that he made more money off of his expense report than he did from his salary.
I observed this behavior often. When I started with this company, it had 200 divisions and roughly 200,000 employees. Every few years the senior executives would find themselves in a sclerotic financial/legal crisis of their own making. Invariably, they would find a way to sell off a few profitable divisions using the rationale - "we are doing this so we can focus on our core competencies."
It took 30 years of such management to completely destroy the company. When I was finally outsourced to a "route step" outfit, the residual company had only two operating units and about 8,000 employees. The experience was like being in a slow motion Enron. They would have destroyed the company quicker, but lacked Enron's smarts.
What is sickening about the government of the United States ----- they funded leaders that were dictators of their country with billions of dollars for so many years. Another mistake they too gave tax credits and bailouts to CORPORATE AMERICA. 2012 elections is around the corner ------- IN GOD WE TRUST! Where is the future of America heading too as we do not trust our elected officials anymore. Hopefully President Obama can get back the trust of the American people. One's trust that is completely distorted already. WHO WILL SAVE AMERICA?