There is really only one realistic way to deal with bank failure, stop rewarding it. I hate to sound like a simple “capitalist” but there is a lot of truth to the idea that people will not take unnecessary risks when they know nobody will rescue them.

Then this brings up the “too big to fail” concept. “Make them smaller” was the best response to that. I don’t take Corporate law until fall (with Prof. Frank Partnoy!) and Antitrust is about a year out, but I think we can find plenty of legal routes to deal with this BEFORE we have a repeat of 2008 rather than try to criminalize the lines an industry is supposed to get close to but not go over for the sake of prosecuting those that lost their bets AFTER the crash.

And I’ll be honest, there are PLENTY of laws the government could be utilizing to go after these firms. I think a better question to ponder is why aren’t they? In all those trillions lost, no one was involved in fraud?

Good post though and I am totally in agreement that we young law students and those in the industry (I also work for a firm devastated by this, rhymes with Bith Smarney) need to find a way to restart this country on Capitalism 2.0

This seems to be part and parcel of our cancerous – someone has to pay because I was too stupid to pay attention – society.

Anthropological evidence shows that division of labor, social stratification and wealth accumulation began with agriculture.

This was the original sin which began the nightmare of history.

“Things aren’t what they used to be
and they never were.” Will Rogers

John Bennett

Have things
ever been
different?
Sure they have.
Way back before
fire when
everyone’s concern
was clubbing a
beast to
the ground &
devouring its
innards.
But whoever
put together the
first organized hunt
had an eye
on the future–
he saw the
labor of
others as a
commodity.

This was
the beginning of
mankind’s
first great
schism,
& the gap
has grown until
now there are
two separate
species–
bankers &
credit card holders.

Yes, it’s a
simplification,
but there’s
no need to
get complicated
to get to
the core of things.

There’s no way to
make poetry
out of
such a
situation.

Which
sums up what’s
wrong with it.

Strict liability would be if your car splashed the baby and the baby died from it, assuming there was no duty of care to avoid splashing babies.

It’s easy to twist words, but frankly I think this is exactly what that term means.

The family has to pay a fee to the Chinese government for the price of the bullet used to execute criminals. No joke. They’re not too sentimental about human life over there. They’ve killed more of their own people (mostly through starvation) than any other nation on the planet. Mao is still scene as a hero for not “bending to the will of foreigners” by excepting food from the outside world.

Mr. Collier and James’ bankslaughter idea is great. But as for your idea of RICO I don’t think we need to be copying too many ideas from China. Unless you want to slave all day for greasy noodles and formaldehyde flavored beer, like 90% of the Chinese do now. In which case, be my guest.

I think TBTF banks are laughing fit to bust as they are on a win-win game