I do not normally congratulate Islamic theocracies for brutality. Today I shall make an exception. Iran has executed a billionaire for his role in a massive banking scam. This bankster defrauded a state-owned bank to buy state-owned assets. Gee, that sure sounds a lot like some of the chicanery that transpired in the US during the 2008 financial crisis. Iran sends a clear message about scammers that is lost on American executives.
The difference here in the US is that we don't execute the CEOs who commit bank fraud. We would rather let them roam free to buy off politicians and donate their ill-gotten gains to museum endowments. Our legal institutions prefer to turn a blind eye to their frauds out of concern for systemic stability. Those concerns are overblown, since the FDIC has never had qualms about shutting down unstable banks. The piles of bad mortgage paper on the Federal Reserve's balance sheet are a weapon of mass destruction. Better that we had destroyed a few big investment banks instead.
America can learn a good lesson from Iran, a former ally until they went nuts for radical Islam in 1979. The US should start prosecuting the unrepentant bankster CEOs from 2008 and ship the convicted ones to Iran for ultimate punishment. Hanging a few billionaire Westerners from lampposts in downtown Tehran would give their executioners some more practice. It may even provide a basis for an eventual US-Iran rapprochement. We can show the imams that we can meet them halfway.
Sending American white collar criminals to Iran is of a course a modest proposal, in the tradition of Jonathan Swift. Coddling them here in the good old USA is an unsatisfactory alternative if they live to steal again another day.
Full disclosure: I find ethnic Persian women to be phenomenally attractive. None of them have tried to scam me yet.
The difference here in the US is that we don't execute the CEOs who commit bank fraud. We would rather let them roam free to buy off politicians and donate their ill-gotten gains to museum endowments. Our legal institutions prefer to turn a blind eye to their frauds out of concern for systemic stability. Those concerns are overblown, since the FDIC has never had qualms about shutting down unstable banks. The piles of bad mortgage paper on the Federal Reserve's balance sheet are a weapon of mass destruction. Better that we had destroyed a few big investment banks instead.
America can learn a good lesson from Iran, a former ally until they went nuts for radical Islam in 1979. The US should start prosecuting the unrepentant bankster CEOs from 2008 and ship the convicted ones to Iran for ultimate punishment. Hanging a few billionaire Westerners from lampposts in downtown Tehran would give their executioners some more practice. It may even provide a basis for an eventual US-Iran rapprochement. We can show the imams that we can meet them halfway.
Sending American white collar criminals to Iran is of a course a modest proposal, in the tradition of Jonathan Swift. Coddling them here in the good old USA is an unsatisfactory alternative if they live to steal again another day.
Full disclosure: I find ethnic Persian women to be phenomenally attractive. None of them have tried to scam me yet.
