Cold feet
Eliot Spitzer caved to Wall Street criminals. Maybe he decided that taking on the most powerful people in the country might not be the best strategy for a man considering a run for governor.
By Arianna Huffington
Jan. 16, 2003 | To hear the media tell it, the headline-grabbing settlement agreement between crusading New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and scandal-rotted Wall Street investment banks is a cause for investor celebration -- a towering, game-winning home run belted out of the park by the new Sultan of Shareholder Swat.
Actually, it's a boneheaded error. A botched play of Billy Buckner proportions.
Spitzer dropped the ball in so many ways, it's hard to know which to criticize first. Let's start with the fact that none of the flimflam men behind the high-level financial swindles will have to do any time behind bars. The settlement doesn't include the criminal indictment of a single person or institution. Even though Spitzer vowed to "restore integrity" to Wall Street and claims to have the goods on the banks and bosses, he suddenly developed a terminal case of ice-cold feet.
The sweetheart deal also slams the door on an investigation that had only begun to plumb the depths of Wall Street's nefarious ways. And, perhaps most galling of all, the settlement doesn't require any of the wrongdoers involved to admit any wrongdoing. This kid-glove treatment of Wall Street crooks provides a profound example of how we continue to operate under two vastly different sets of rules in this country -- one for a select group of elites and one for the rest of America.
When I asked Spitzer if he was concerned about this disparity, he replied: "While I would prefer to have a statement of wrongdoing, the firms never admit wrongdoing because it would drive them to bankruptcy." So? Isn't the genius of capitalism to let the free market -- not the attorney general of New York -- pick winners and losers depending on how they play the game? Break the rules, and you lose.
Professor Paul Lapides, director of the Corporate Governance Center at Kennesaw State University, describes the sleaze-geist thus: "I used to tell my students that if you commit a white-collar crime, the time will come when you will serve your time. Now I tell my students, if you commit a crime, commit a big one."
Lapides adds, "If you commit a big enough crime, you'll probably have to return only some of the money, and you won't have to do any jail time. Is America a great country or what?" ...
<http://www.salon.com/opinion/huffington/2003/01/16/spitzer/index.html>
Carl
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