Iceland put top finance executives behind bars, but fears of cronyism remain
Exactly, the problem has got worse.Banks are larger and more centralised, the offenders unpunished know they can act with impunity, legislation is unchanged.Banking/ finance types now know that if they are losing money they must simply lose big enough to trigger more bailouts and the taxpayer pays.This is despotic anti-capitalism: they keep the winnings and losses are generational debt on which they again profit.The only ways that have ever worked to inject capital is to pay the poor and middle class by national infrastructure projects or GWBush style $1000 cheques - everyone benefits as money circulates.Keynsian economics got this right.Banks and the rich largely hoard capital where it is useless, pretending risk aversion when it was outright fraud that caused the econopocalypse, not risky but legitimate loans to business.This will happen again unless investment and savings banks are again separated, but no nation wants to do it unilaterally fearing an exodus of non-dom capital they use to cook the government figures.Finance is rotten to its core.Quantative easing is bailouts by the backdoor.Austerity stagnates an economy.