Don: "The world financial system is in a fragile state. Would a house cleaning on the big banks make it more or less fragile?"
I think that attitude is what has helped make our problems much worse. Similar to the claims of "To big to fail." Bull hockey! Let a bank or two go broke and be bought out by other banks. Let a couple of Wall Street CEO's and executives do some jail time and I think things will improve in the long run. Right now crooked bankers are actually being rewarded with tax payer bonuses and have little to fear from their immoral and illegal behavior.
I agree Don that I was not happy with Bush and his D.O.J.'s actions as well all though they might be able to better use the excuse they didn't have adequate time to investigate. However Obama's D.O.J. has now had 4 years to investigate.
The Sarbanes -Oxley Act is a federal law that was passed in July 2002 in reaction to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom. These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of affected companies collapsed, shook public confidence in the nation's securities markets.
I'm no lawyer but according to the 60 Minutes show several Wall Street banking executives have clearly broken the Sarbanes - Oxley Act by knowingly signing inaccurate financial statements that showed their banks to be in better financial health then they actually were. 60 Minutes interviewed some of the various banks own investigators that had warned the executives about their banks true financial standing yet the were ignored. 60 Minutes implied it should be an easy case for the feds to make the case against the crooked bankers.
Speaking of other administrations D.O.J., I have to say that I have not been happy with several of our past administrations and how they have used their D.O.J. to enforce various opinions of theirs that I did not agree with. We have had past Repub and Dem administrations threaten prosecution for importing less expensive prescription drugs from Canada under the guise of safety concerns. Remember they were talking Canada and not China. Big Pharma like Wall Street banks are big donors to political campaigns.
We have also seen past administrations threaten to arrest doctors in states that have voted to allow the use of medical marijuana. I believe this is an abuse of power by the feds and that individual states should have the right to make such distinctions and especially when science and medicine backs their decision.
that Hitler is a piece of $hi+. But, that is being redundant and I repeat myself. - Craig, You are as bad as Dale. It would be easier to teach an elephant in high heels the pride of Erin than to convince YOU that a little bit of socialism never hurt a country. All throught the years of the USA there has never been a government which resembled communism, hitler, etc, never. Why do you feel the democracy of the US is under threat with this government? It has got to paranoia. It doesn't add up. 
