“Guilty, But Not Punished”: Another Banking Criminal Let Off The Hook

It is a verdict which we see over and over when it comes to the crimes of the Big Banks, the central banks, and their minions. These felons are caught committing serious offenses, again and again, yet receive either no punishment, or at worst some token slap on the wrist.

The banking felon to escape punishment this time is IMF criminal, Christine LaGarde. LaGarde’s criminal conviction came while she was still France’s Finance Minister. It involved a $400 million government pay-out authorized by LaGarde, against the advice of several other Finance Ministry officials, to “French tycoon” Bernard Tapie. LaGarde announced she wouldn’t appeal being let off the hook for her crime. How magnanimous.

Of course the phrase “French tycoon” is just a Corporate media euphemism for French oligarch, Bernard Tapie. LaGarde funneled $400 million of government money – the People’s money -- into this oligarch’s pockets, against the advice of Ministry colleagues, in what was officially ruled “a misuse of public funds”. Even with the watered-down charge of negligence, LaGarde’s crime could have carried a penalty of up to one year in prison.

The problem is that it would be difficult for LaGarde to continue to serve her oligarch Masters – in her new role as head of the IMF – from inside a prison cell. So she was given a pat on the head and told to go back to work. Indeed, one has to wonder if LaGarde’s reward for enriching Bernard Tapie (even further) with public money was her prestigious appointment at the IMF?

If (mis)using $400 million of public money to line the pockets of an oligarch doesn’t warrant at least a year in prison, what does? But this is nothing more than what we have now come to expect in the two-tier “justice” which now prevails across the Western world.

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