Gluttony II

Yesterday's post on what amounted to a modern day depiction of Dante's Second (lust), Third (gluttony) and Fourth (greed) Circles of Hell was also covered, in his own unique way, by Rachel Maddow sub Chris Hayes. That's why I posted the short clip above. Chris is discussing the law and order aspects of the systemic criminal activities in the financial sector, the wealthiest and most politically-protected members of our brave new world, and how it-- the sector-- tanked the entire economy to help enrich a few people. One thing in particular caught my attention:

[M]uch of what created the crisis was systemic deception and institutional corruption. Yet, aside from Bernie Madoff, we've seen hardly a perp walk or conviction.

"There were more morons than crooks, but the crooks were higher up" is how Chris describes what happened; it's a grand-slam of explanations too. But I want to go off on a tangent. Madoff was a lone wolf, a rogue operator, much the way Duke Cunningham turned out. Madoff and Cunningham are in jail. The bigger fish-- Tom DeLay, Jerry Lewis, Duncan Hunter, Darrell Issa, on the one hand, and the major banksters on the other hand-- well... none of them are in prison and none are likely to go to prison. Between them, they run the show and they protect each other.

Since 1989 the Finance Sector has spent over 4 billion dollars in lobbying the federal government ($4,274,060,331, to be exact). That's the most of any other industry. They're #1. And when it comes to more direct bribes-- what they quaintly call "campaign contributions" Inside-the-Beltway-- another $1,442,282,374 has been spread around-- $775,150,202 directly to Republicans and $656,026,035 directly to Democrats, although mostly to the kinds of Democrats who vote with Republicans on financial matters. These interests have given Barack Obama $42,285,749, John McCain $34,036,462, John Kerry $18,135,477, Chuck Schumer $17,720,436, Chris Dodd $14,016,862, Joe Lieberman $10,114,346, Dick Shelby $5,887,130, Miss McConnell $5,338,828, Max Baucus $4,955,337, Lamar Alexander $4,944,975, Harry Reid $4,842,318, Charlie Rangel $4,826,590, Eric Cantor $4,458,585, Spencer Bachus $4,450,324, Bob Menendez $4,292,622, Johnny Isakson $4,251,233, Mark Kirk $4,153,094... all public officials in a position to protect their interests, all public officials who did protect their interests.

Yesterday Ryan Grim reported on a new poll that shows, "by a double-digit margin, voters want Congress to amend the Constitution to overturn the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United that allows unlimited corporate spending on elections." Donna Edwards has authored the Amendment and both John Kerry and Max Baucus are pushing it forward in the Senate.

Back to business: officially the Financial Sector only contributed $5,513,718 to Phil Gramm, the Texas senator who rid them of the unwelcome regulatory regime of Glass-Steagall, which allowed them to go on an uncontrollable rampage of greed and avarice. (Many of the names above-- particularly McConnell, Dodd and Alexander-- have conspired to make sure that the recent Wall Street reforms have still not righted that wrong.) But the $5,513,718 in bribes that Gramm took was diddly squat compared to the millions he got as a lobbyist as soon as he accomplished what they paid him to do and he went to work for them. But it isn't just Republicans like Gramm who pull that kind of revolving door criminality. Rahm Emanuel, nominally a Democrat, took $2,893,113 in direct bribes from the Financial Sector. But in between his Wall Street-friendly service at the White House-- where he forced through NAFTA-- and his stint in the leadership-- unexplainably out of the blue-- Rahm went to "work" as a "banker" for a few months and walked away with $16.2 million.

I wouldn't bet on any of the higher ups going to prison, not the banksters, not Gramm, not Emanuel... none of them. Maybe some poor schnooks who went along for the ride and got sloppy the way Duke Cunningham and Bernie Madoff did. No one else.