Professors Ramirez and Ramirez painstakingly describe the many and various frauds perpetrated by corporate executives leading up to the housing market crisis of 2008 and wonder aloud why the Obama administration failed to bring criminal fraud charges against any of the corporate leaders that collapsed the global economy in 2007 and 2008. Publisher's Weekly reviewed the book as follows:
"This is a thought-provoking call for the prosecution of criminal bankers--and investigation into why such prosecution has not yet occurred--from two who should know: Mary Kreiner Ramirez, a former prosecutor for the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, and . . . Steven A. Ramirez, a former SEC enforcement attorney. They charge that in a "historically unprecedented breakdown in the rule of law," the U.S. government failed to prosecute the people at the center of the 2008 financial crisis, opting instead for a huge civil payment from shareholders. Providing some historical context, the authors demonstrate that never before in modern U.S. history have white-collar criminals enjoyed such immunity."
Inexplicably, the Department of Justice and the Obama administration have been satisfied to see Wall Street leaders agree to hundreds of millions of dollars of civil penalties for misleading investors (i.e., fraud), paid out of corporate coffers (shareholders value) rather than pressing criminal prosecutions against these leaders for engaging in fraudulent corporate behavior. The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty describes that unlike the federal government during the Savings and Loan scandal and the Enron-era scandal, this time the government did not have the steel/backbone to prosecute Wall Street.
