Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives
Jill on Money with Jill Schlesinger
Audacy
4.6 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 17 August 2017
⏱️ 39 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
It’s hard to believe that we’re coming up on the ninth anniversary of the financial crisis that contributed to the Great Recession. What’s frustrating and mystifying is how many people, or lack thereof, actually faced the music for contributing to the debacle. The anemic response from the Department of Justice sparked today’s guest, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jesse Eisinger, to write The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives. How can it be that no major bankers were charged or put in prison after the financial crisis of 2008? The Chickenshit Club, an inside reference to those prosecutors who were too scared of failure and too daunted by legal impediments to execute the duties of their jobs, explains why. The pages span the last decade and a half of prosecutorial flops, corporate lobbying, trial losses and culture shifts that have stripped the government of the will and ability to prosecute top corporate executives. But it wasn’t always this way. In the 1970s, it was commonplace that top corporate executives, not just seedy crooks and drug dealers, could commit crimes and actually be sent to prison. What changed between then and now? Is it a problem that can be corrected? If so, how? The Chickenshit Club provides a clear, detailed explanation as to how our Justice Department has come to avoid, bungle, and mismanage the fight to bring white-collar criminals to justice. You can follow Jesse and his latest reporting on Twitter. “Better Off” is sponsored by Betterment. We love feedback so please leave us a rating or review in iTunes. "Better Off" theme music is by Joel Goodman, www.joelgoodman.com. For a recap of every episode, visit https://www.betterment.com/resources/topics/inside-betterment/better-off-podcast/ Connect with me at these places for all my content: http://www.jillonmoney.com/ https://twitter.com/jillonmoney https://www.facebook.com/JillonMoney https://www.instagram.com/jillonmoney/ https://www.youtube.com/c/JillSchlesinger https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillonmoney/ https://soundcloud.com/jill-schlesinger http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/jill-on-money http://betteroffpodcast.com/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/better-off-jill-schlesinger/id431167790?mt=2
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Jill Schlesinger. On this episode of Better Off, we're going deep into the financial crisis and its aftermath with Jesse Eisinger. |
| 0:12.0 | He's the author of the Chicken Chick Club, |
| 0:14.1 | Why the Justice Department fails to prosecute executives. |
| 0:17.4 | This is why you prosecute individuals, individual executives, |
| 0:21.3 | because if you're worried about the collateral consequences of |
| 0:24.4 | prosecuting a large company if you're worried about the employees who might be put |
| 0:27.9 | out of business or the destabilization of the capital markets that would come from an |
| 0:31.6 | indictment of a large company focus on |
| 0:34.1 | individuals that's the solution. |
| 0:37.7 | Welcome to the Better Off podcast sponsored by Betterment the largest independent online |
| 0:42.3 | financial advisor. |
| 0:44.0 | Well, we are coming up on the anniversary of like the worst part of the financial crisis. |
| 0:50.5 | You probably tried to forget about this September, October of 2008 and almost nine years later. |
| 0:57.0 | Where do we stand? |
| 0:58.0 | Who's been thrown in jail, you ask? |
| 1:00.0 | Not that many people, by the way. |
| 1:02.0 | Our guest today is Jesse Eisinger. He's a senior reporter and editor at ProPublica. |
| 1:08.0 | He is the author of a new book. It's called The Chickenschit Club, Why the Justice Department fails to prosecute executives. |
| 1:15.8 | Now, you probably know Jesse's byline. |
| 1:18.4 | He and his colleague won the Pulitzer Prize |
| 1:21.9 | for National Reporting back in 2011. |
| 1:26.0 | He and Jake Bernstein for their national reporting |
... |
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