Although they were not able to escape our "traditional" method behavior correction -- they were told to "go sit in the corner and take a time out."
Economically speaking that is. They were told to pay the "traditional fines" -- for someone of their stature and great influence, in our dreary class-based system.
Those that they ultimately harmed -- around 12 million -- were told to "vacate the premises."
S&P reaches $1.5 billion deal with U.S., states over crisis-era ratings
by Aruna Viswanatha, reuters.com -- Feb 3, 2015
(Reuters) - Ratings firm Standard & Poor's will pay $1.5 billion to resolve a series of lawsuits over its ratings on mortgage securities that soured in the runup to the 2008 financial crisis, the company said on Tuesday.
The settlement comes after more than two years of litigation as S&P fought allegations it issued overly rosy ratings in order to win more business.
[...]
"On more than one occasion, the company’s leadership ignored senior analysts who warned that the company had given top ratings to financial products that were failing to perform as advertised," said Attorney General Eric Holder said in announcing the settlement.
Under the deal, S&P does not admit to any violations of law.
The system is not broken, for those who invented it. It works perfectly well to keep the "privileged class" warm and safe in the homes. But just
steal a loaf of bread sell a few "loosies", miss a few mortgage payments, or protest in the streets --
Watch Out! The hammer of injustice comes down then.
Like a ton of bricks.
Just like the "ruling class" intends it. Or rather, lets it happen
... and happen ... and happen.
The "scales of injustice" -- tilt very much in favor of the wealthy few.
As thinkprogress.org puts it:
[...]
And because the financial crisis sucked something like $14 trillion out of the economy and destroyed tens of trillions of dollars in wealth for homeowners, the DOJ can hardly claim to have delivered a proportional response.
Tens of Trillions (with a T) ... versus 1.5 Billion (with a B) ...
I'll leave it to you, to balance those scales, if you can. It's gonna take a pretty Big Thumb, of Re-enablement.