Should someone go to jail from destroying our economy?

"and there is no investigation in sight." - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLx2Xc1EXLg But I sincerely doubt anything will ever come out of it like prison time (sure hasn't so far) after all Goldman Sachs was the biggest corporate donor to the president.

Yes I think so,but you know if the person was a politician or government employee and have a lot of money to get a best lawyer to protect them, it's hard for them to go to jail right away it's takes a decade to probe them guilty.I think it's common happened all over the world.

I think it is a very interesting point. How come a booming economy suddenly collapsed? How come the rich continue to get filthy rich and the rest continue to bear the grudge of the slow down. I think unfortunately the people running the show are all busy filling their pockets leaving the common man out there to bear the brunt. The cycle is endless whoever seems to be in a position of power simply seems to be succumbing to this notion and he himself becomes corrupt. I think sooner rather than later a revolution would be required to tackle this menace. Cheers! Ram

Surely, as much when there's corruption polititians should go as well. I don't know how they arrest Animal Right heroes for giving laboratory animals freedom and the real criminals stays free.

Hi! I think it depends on the situation. If that person is corrupt then that is a crime and he should really got o jail for that. Many officials are really living a well off life while many citizens suffer from poverty. Where is justice in that. Some people are rich but wants to acquire more wealth rather than give this to the poor.This is a sad reality.

Interesting question.If someone is protesting against the state or NWO,IMF of whatever he is called an anarchist.But if our leaders have destroyed our states and turned them into scam machines nothing will happen to them.You say they haven`t done something illegal,well they make the laws so they allowed all these scams to happen,they allowed bankers to make money out of thin air and Wall Street to trade everything you can imagine.So yes it will be nice to see all our political leaders sent to jail together with the bankers and the wall street scammers but who will send them to jail ? We need an alien to be the judge ...or we can believe there is a god and they will get what they deserve one day.

Simply put, nobody can say what crimes were committed. Failing to repay a loan is not a crime. Giving out bad loans under pressure from the government, is not a crime. Government officials and morons at ACORN pressuring banks to give out bad loans is not a crime either. Any investigation, with absolutely NO EVIDENCE OF A CRIME is a fishing expedition. No judge who cares about his job will sign a subpoena for a fishing expedition. You and I both know that the root of this is the morons who took out mortgage loans that they couldn't pay back because they were too stupid to realize that the housing bubble would burst. If those people had made their payments, we'd be fine. Still, what those people did was not criminal, it was just stupid and irresponsible. Here's the big question though, would putting someone in jail fix the problem? Of course not. You could jail all the people who took out loans, all the bankers who gave the loans out, and all the government officials, ACORNs and other left wing groups that pressured and threatened banks to make them give the loans out. Do all that and what would it fix? NOTHING. We'd still be in a recession. We'd still have unemployment. Any gratification from seeing these people go to jail would be short lived when we realized that all it's really doing is costing us more money to house, clothe, and feed them while they're in prison. Since they're not violent offenders people would start saying how stupid it is to waste money keeping them in prison. So no, nobody should go to jail unless they committed a crime that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. People should just do a thorough analysis of their finances and income before buying homes, banks should vet people more thoroughly before giving out loans and ignore pressure from ACORNs and politicians, and politicians and ACORNs should leave banks alone and let them do their jobs.

No, I don't think people should be jailed for poor economic decisions. Mistakes and poor judgement are not, by themselves, criminal.

Interesting, stupid, but interesting. I'd say a whole lot of someones would be in jail over it. They do realize obama would be wearing the orange jumpsuit too, right? Then you have entire companies that you could hold responsible. Most of those working for BOA probably do belong in jail. Instead of focusing on how to punish those they think are responsible, perhaps working on a solution would be a better way to go.

There have been investigations albeit not especially by law enforcement. These have been published as books by various authors. I've read numerous books about the decline and fall of the economy. The best one so far that I've read is All The Devils Are Here by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera. However, I do doubt that anyone will be brought to court and given a sentence. There are too many big names involved who have a lot of money to inoculate them.

If America's economy was the only struggling economy on the planet, and if our economic system was somehow the only type of system prone to crash, then I'd say we'd need to focus more on hindsight instead of looking to fix problems going forward. But economies are incredibly fragile. There is no right way to do things. People with the best of intentions can cause economies to crash. It's not always greed; it's not always criminal. Sometimes it's just bad choices. And these bad choices in America range from government trying to force the issue of home ownership and people getting into contracts they couldn't afford, to fat cats gambling with investments trying to turn millions into billions and using their daddies in government to clean up the mess and save them. Going back through it and putting people in jail for being shortsighted, stupid and greedy doesn't help us going forward. You don't deter bad behavior in this context by making an example out of the folks responsible. That will just push unsavory activity further underground and make it much harder to spot. The biggest step we should take as a nation should be to stop rewarding it. Once people realize their actions will result in their failure if they're wrong, we'll see better actions.

Yes, there should be law process for them who destroyed or like you said hurt the economy of your country. Destroying economy is crime or delinquency. Someone who did destroying economy and in which finally hurt people throughout the country should be given punishment in the form of putting the doer into the prison or locked in jail. They did not deserve to get fine service from the community surround. They had to be separated far apart, because they can be a virus to people who live around them.

Jailing bankers is not without precedent, FDR had a Pecora commission which locked up a lot of the bankers who caused great depression 1.0 . As for the ones who caused great depression 2.0, they could be tried under the RICO laws as selling dodgy mortgage derivatives as AAA rated, could be classed as racketeering. In an ideal world, if people have broken the law, then they should'nt be able to get away with it just because they have a lot of money but we don't live in an ideal world and a lot of these guys will get away with what they have looted........

It's a fact that everything with a cause has an effect. But taking one to jail can't be the ultimate solution to curb those destroying the economy. It's a question of whether strategic measures are put in place or they already exist but are not yet implemented. This is of vital consideration especially from the political and social point of view

Hopefully it would be by trial and not by mob and riot! Of course we need to only proceed according to law, so the answer is to pass regulations against practices which harm others and the nation. We can't make up new rules after the fact.. that could set a real bad precedent! There should now be in depth analysis, as it's so easy to propagate that easy answer, the blame game, missing some of the string pullers and some of those who benefited from what shifty things were done. We also could use some unbiased and bi-partisan in depth analysis about what makes an economy / jobs robust (without being greedy and destroying lives and the planet!)

I have long felt that each incoming administration should have a department set up to study the records of the outgoing admin for illegal and unethical activities. That might keep the b*stards honest. I would also welcome giving an ombudsman the powers to investigate corporate dealings, and the teeth to fine or jail those who they find to have committed crimes. It will never happen. Lash

you said 5 people managed to manipulate system in their favor and are guilty.I would like to know who they are and how do you know they manipulated system.

I don't believe that it is fair to place the blame for the economy's decline on just a chosen few. Even if we do , placing these individuals in jail will not bring the econpmy back to where it was. this is something that will take time and effort from several.

Many are in the prison for their entire lifetime.I can say one thing when they are in that political seat or job they can enjoy whatever they want,Once they are caught then they are finished for their life.

yeah..like that guy George Soros..lol..