Reddit mentions of The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives

/u/trjb is right, limiting personal liability is one of the primary purposes of a corporation.

Having said that, individual officers and directors can be held liable for criminal and civil penalties. It's not common, largely because it's a huge pain in the ass to "pierce the corporate veil" of a well-funded defendant. Edit: also because you typically have to show intentional wrongdoing to get an executive, and that's also very difficult to prove in court.

Ken Lay is probably the prototypical example. Ironically, Lay is technically innocent today. Convictions aren't final until the defendant has had the opportunity to appeal them all the way up the chain. Lay died before he exhausted his final appeals, so would technically be considered an innocent man in the eyes of the law.

Here's a quick explainer: http://info.legalzoom.com/can-officer-corporation-held-personally-liable-20882.html

And here's a whole book about why it isn't more common: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XBZFQR2/

(Not an affiliate link. And I haven't read the book myself yet, but it's got good buzz in the legal community.)

After the financial crisis I read as much as I could about the subject, I read "All the Devils are here", The Big Short, Too big to fail, Crash of the Titans, The Chicken Shit club and many others. So I'm well aware of the culpability of the ratings agencies. But that doesn't excuse the big banks or their actions like you seem to be implying. The banks knew that the MBSs were stuffed with dog shit subprime loans, yet they also knew by getting a CDO from AIG they could get a Triple A rating. They deliberately gamed the system so individual bankers could make huge short term profits selling MBSs. Yeah, Moody's, Fitch, and Standard and Poor's were incredibly corrupt, but who was corrupting them? The big banks that were paying them. The Big Banks were not innocent players, who naively saw a short term advantage that they could use. They were an active participant, they gamed the system, then paid off the referees.

On your second point, I agree, the financial recession wasn't caused by bankers being malicious or evil, but I do think it was caused by short term greed, and willful ignorance. A see no evil, hear no evil, let's not rock the boat, while a good thing lasts greed.

This is tangentially related, but you might enjoy this book if you haven't read it already.

https://www.amazon.com/Chickenshit-Club-Department-Prosecute-Executives-ebook/dp/B06XBZFQR2

Cheers.

>Didn't GOP campaigns commission and/or pay for the Steele memo?

The financing is still murky, but they seem to implicate both parties.

>It wasn't just something that could have been on the market, it was actually purchased on the market. If so, it's a strong example of oppo being a thing of value under the proposed market test.

That is right, but first, it was a purchase. Are market exchanges contributions? I don't think so. But even if it was not purchased, and was contributed, it would broaden the definition of a 'ToV' to a degree where I do think it starts to infringe on freedom of political speech. Hence why it would be absurd to include things of this nature under election finance law.

>Maybe. I take a less conspiratorial view, I think it would just be too expensive and difficult to prosecute.

I don't actually think that there is a conspiracy not to prosecute in order to protect the political class. I think the decision is reached independently that it would not be desirable thing to pursue because of structural reasons. It can be explained through coordination games where 3 conditions are met. One particular combination of strategies will lead to an outcome everyone involved considers best, everyone knows it, and everyone knows that everyone knows it. There is empirical research that coordination without communication can be successful even if the outcome is not considered best by any of the participants.

>Speaking of which, I just picked this up. Haven't read it yet, but I've heard good things: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XBZFQR2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Looks really good, adding it to the list. Thanks for the recommendation.

Yeah, chickenshit reasoning.

Go read the Holder memo.

It's the Department of Justice, not the Department of Justice When It's Easy.

Fraud is always illegal.