In Gov We Trust?

In Gov We Trust?

Independent Review has published an article by Bruce Yandle on the cause of the financial meltdown.

The Gulf Spill

An excellent article by Richard Epstein, as usual, on why punitive damages and criminal prosecutions are undesirable in the BP case.

Holder: He’s not just a memo any more

Back in 1999, when Eric Holder was merely a deputy attorney general, he wrote a critical memorandum (known as the Holder Memoramdum), which unleashed a rampage of corporate bludgeoning by U.S. Attorneys, until Judge Lewis Kaplan tried to restrain it in the KPMG case. Now, of course, Holder is attorney general, and Harvey Silverglate) author of the excellent Three Felonies a Day ) has a commentary in Forbes speculating that the Goldman case may bring back the memorandum’s tactics, in fact if not in name: “With Goldman and other investment banks, look for the DOJ to return to a prior successful paradigm for bringing companies to heel while hanging the scalps of individual executives for public display. As the morality play unfolds, the government will threaten criminal charges. The firms will likely agree to "cooperate" with prosecutors in order to ultimately avoid criminal charges. Cooperation, of course, will require the firms to essentially admit to the government's version of events, making cases against individual traders and employees all but impossible to defend.”

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