

Letter from Elizabeth Warren to Ben Bernanke, Eric Holder, and Mary Jo White - cinquemb
http://www.scribd.com/doc/141677401/Warren-Letter

======
wordplay
I am continually impressed with Warren. If only more of the politicians in
this country were as interested in serving the public interest as she is.

~~~
joshuaheard
Warren lied about being Native American to benefit from affirmative action.
Her credibility is shot.

As to Warren's letter, she has spent her entire career in academics and has
never worked as a lawyer. She does not know the amount of resources required
to participate in a lawsuit and trial. As lawyers, we are constantly
encouraged to settle cases to resolve issues rather than spend the time and
expense going to trial. We should not be encouraging the government to sue
people and take them to trial when they are willing to settle. To take a case
to a show trial in order to make an public example of the defendant is bad
policy more fitting of a dictatorship.

~~~
rsingel
Right. So taking HSBC to trial for rampant, repeated money-laundering for drug
cartels would have been more fitting of a dictatorship? Instead we let a
criminal conspiracy go unpenalized except for a lame monetary settlement.

Warren's dead right. The finance guys all know they'll almost never get
prosecuted.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/11/hsbc-bank-
us-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/11/hsbc-bank-us-money-
laundering)

~~~
joshuaheard
A $2 billion fine (from the article) is hardly "unpenalized".

~~~
eightyone
They paid a $1.92-billion fine after laundering $881-million of drug money.
Also, dont forget that they helped finance terrorists. [1] No one at HSBC went
to jail. If you get caught with an ounce or two of cannabis, you're going to
prison for 10 years. That's messed up.

[1] [http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/12/16/hsbc-
executives-...](http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/12/16/hsbc-executives-
get-no-jail-time-for-terrorist-financing-while-somali-sentenced-for-giving/)

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MichaelAza
My first reaction was "Fuck me, you don't say". Of course they have no
goddamned incentive to follow the goddamned law! You're going around rewarding
them with taxpayer money for what is, at best, piss poor financial work and,
at worst, criminal all this while saying they're "too big to fail" and that
you'll take care of them no matter what and you expect anything else?

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kevingadd
Link to PDF:
[http://www.scribd.com/document_downloads/direct/141677401?ex...](http://www.scribd.com/document_downloads/direct/141677401?extension=pdf&ft=1368678675&lt=1368682285&user_id=82580762&uahk=OWAcfGIE1gkGkp0QyHfQb5F8NAY)

(Seems like it might expire, but I didn't see any other way to get at the PDF
on the page... what happened to HN automatically adding [pdf] [scribd] to
submissions?)

~~~
dbaupp
I think the [pdf] [scribd] thing is something that happens for /\\.pdf$/
links, a scribd link itself isn't treated specially.

~~~
kevingadd
Ah, that makes more sense, thanks. It's a shame Scribd doesn't have a 'fit
width' option that I could find - small viewport drove me straight into a real
PDF viewer.

EDIT: Oh, one of those unlabelled, tooltipless buttons is actually 'fit
width'. Heh.

