Cockburn on Spitzer, Wall Street, and UFE

Alexander Cockburn's column in the March 31st issue of

(alas, not the most recent issue—some magazines are

more timely than

) argues that former New York governor Eliot Spitzer's downfall was due partly to the fact that he frightened Wall Street.  "There were plenty of powerful financial institutions that craved his downfall and whose employees cheered wildly when it happened."  Cockburn goes on:

A little perspective is useful here.  We are now well advanced in an election year where the prime candidates, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, have scarcely made a centerpiece of their campaigns the outrageous and racist thievery practiced by Wall Street in the subprime scandals. A lawsuit filed by the NAACP on March 7 makes for instructive reading in this regard. It seeks to fast-track the NAACP's class-action lawsuit against Washington Mutual, Citi, GMAC and fifteen other mortgage firms that steered African-American borrowers into predatory loans.

And here Cockburn cites a report by our neighbors and comrades, United for a Fair Economy:

a 2008 study

(We were happy to be able to provide technical support for UFE's report, with the help of D&S collective member Bryan Snyder and Prof. Irvin Morgan of Bentley College.)

Cockburn goes on to point out that whereas the federal government, including the SEC, has no prosecutorial powers with respect to subprime powers, this was not the case for New York State, whose Martin Act is:

Counterpunch