Wall Street Slow To Develop Despite Cries For Justice - Full News

NEW YORK -- After the last major banking crisis, some two decades ago, roughly 3,800 bankers were prosecuted and sentenced to prison terms, by the Justice Department's count.

The politically divided Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is likely to detail the referrals on Thursday in releasing its final report, based on testimony from more than 700 people in coast-to-coast hearings and a review of millions of pages of documents.

"There are some who, despite this track record, have expressed disappointment that we have not yet criminally prosecuted the leading financial institutions or their principals for conduct that may have helped lead to the financial crisis," Breuer said Nov. 4 in New York. "Though I can certainly understand the impulse and desire to hold someone accountable, I also want to stress an equally important principle - that we can, and will, only bring charges when the facts and the law convince us that we can prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt."

However, The New York Times reported late Tuesday that it had obtained a copy of the 576-page report, which it said concluded that the financial disaster was "avoidable" and laid blame on a range of factors from federal regulatory failures to shoddy mortgage lending and reckless risk-taking.

Commission spokesman Tucker Warren said the report will be released Thursday and declined to comment further.

View Full News On Controversy Remains After Priest's Confession Of Sexual Indiscretion During Exorcism

An increasingly shrill and sometimes threatening tide of Catholic online debate about the reasons for the sudden and unexpected Aug. 27, 2010 departure of Father Thomas Euteneuer from his post as president of Human Life International led to a flurry of official apologies, explanations and defenses of both Euteneuer’s past behavior as not only the superstar of the international pro-life movement, but also an exorcist for the Catholic Church.

Meanwhile, Paulson got off scot free. Not only was he never charged, he actually kept his winnings from betting that Abacus would fail -- which it did spectacularly. More miraculously still, the financial media now hail him as the Harvard-educated genius who so wisely bet against the housing bubble -- supposedly a cool head bucking against an irrational stampeding herd. But if Paulson was so insightful about the housing bubble, why did he need a near criminal conspiracy with Goldman Sachs to pocket a cool billion? Don't ask CNBC. Ask Tony Soprano.

Maybe to keep our sanity we'll just have to make peace with the idea that Wall Street can never be controlled, that our political system has been bought, and that we're in for generations of austerity. If so, people will start plugging their ears when they hear from crazies like me.