Why is this activity not being investigated and prosecuted under the federal RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] statutes against racketeering? The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act was designed to punish exactly this kind of behavior, whether the defendant’s name ended in a vowel or not. How is it not a racket to deliberately and systematically construct investments designed to fail so you can collect what amounts to insurance against them — and then to sell those financial instruments to customers without telling them that these investments were engineered to blow up? At the very least it amounts to a failure to disclose material information, which is the basis for distinguishing illegality. More to the point, it almost certainly amounts to prosecutable criminal fraud and insider trading.
Civil penalties with fines not paid by the criminals is just letting them get away. That’s what control fraud is. A few at the top loot the system. It needs to end and end now.
Former Full-Term Michigan Governor Jesse Ventura asked the same question of Bill Mahre just the other evening.