Andrew Cuomo Subpoenas Bank of America's Ken Lewis. 
The opera builds and builds around significant characters with potent motives to misbehave on a national scale. NY State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo pursues the argument that Ken Lewis colluded with John Thain to conceal the facts of Merrill's beggarly condition from the public during the Bank of America purchase of Merrill in December 2008. What Andrew Cuomo actually pursues is the decision either to run for the U.S. Senate against the appointed Kirsten Gillenbrand, or to challenge quixotic accidental Governor David Paterson in the Democratic primary next year. What Andrew Cuomo wants is the presidency. Therefore the fair assumption is that he will go after Paterson and Albany. And the surest way to Albany is to walk over the broken reputations and trashed fortunes of Ken Lewis and John Thain and their kindred of Cain. Will delivering the heads of Lewis and Thain be enough for the Democratic nomination of 2016? Yes.
FDR and the Bankers.
The two most critical heads that FDR delivered as governor of New York were Bernard K. Marcus and Saul Singer, president and vice president of the Bank of the United States. Late 1930, rumors about the bank made for long lines around the branches in New York. On December 11, the bank closed its doors, beggaring or wiping out tens of thousands -- the worst failure in the country till that date. Late June, 1931, the trial was closing with Marcus and Singer convicted of misapplying $8 million and wrecking the bank. Judge George L. Donnellan lectured them, "I believe it was greed..." and then sentenced them to Sing SIng for three to six years. Singer's son Herbert was given three months to three years. The public jeered and cat-called. After sentencing, the bankers ate egg and cheese sandwiches in the Tombs. Their appeals delayed their fate for two years but did not erase their crimes from the public memory. March 1933, FDR ascended from Albany to Washington, passing an Emergency Banking Act in his first week. FDR's first fireside chat made a pointed reference to Marcus and Singer: "Some of our bankers have shown themselves either incompetent or dishonest in their handling of people's funds. They had used the money entrusted to them in speculations and unwise loans..."
Sing Sing.
Two weeks after FDR passed the Emergency Banking Act that began the rebuilding of the crooked and broken banking system, Marcus and SInger their appeals exhausted, took the train from Grand Central to Ossining along with two deputy sheriffs. They took a 25 cent taxi ride to the prison, paid for by the bankers, and reached Sing Sing at 5 PM. The clerk John McCue entered Singer in the books: 51 years old, home in Larchmont, turning over $22.60. Saul Singer, 42, from West 77th Street in Manhattan, gave over $22.55. Both men were asked, "To what do you attribute your criminal act?" Both answered, "I am here to do my time." Marcus also handed over his large gold signet ring. Their first meal in prison grays was corned-beef hash, sliced cheese, corn cake, bread, tea and milk.
Lewis and Thain.
It is too much to much to hope that Ken Lewis and John Thain could ever be obliged to take a train to Ossining and eat corn bread alongside other crimnals. Still, Andrew Cuomo surely knows that anything close to the headline-dominating popular prosecution and humiliation of Marcus and Singer would aggrandize him. The public wants the spectacle. No one in America can find votes or profit in defending the bankers. They are everyone's villains. Marcus and Singer helped to carry FDR to the White House. Lewis and Thain can help carry Cuomo as well.
The changing light during a solar eclipse is truly amazing! Small wonder that the ancients were both frightened and fascinated by it. Should you happen to be standing under a tree during such an event and should you be looking at the ground, you will likely see a myriad of tiny, identical arabesques, each reflecting precisely what is happening above as the uncanny light continues to filter through the foliage.
So too it is now re our current political situation. As government eclipses the private sector, we see the same failed choreographies reenacted precisely (as JB notes above) as if only a single playbook exists to be dusted off each time similar events happen to repeat themselves. This much would apply to the (dark) lunar side (of the proverbial coin).
The other side - the bright, shiny side that remains exposed to the sun – is also in play. It accounts for the sun’s rays bravely contorting themselves to circumvent the dark orb’s obstruction in the display of Baily’s Beads; annulus; and/or spectacular ‘Diamond Effect’, each one equally manifest in the arabesques on the ground.
On a recent ride into town - to market, the hardware store, the coffee shop, the bank - I overheard snippets of conversation, each and every one singularly identical, expressing similar concerns tinged with outrage.
The American people are waking up. They are beginning to see the outlines of the struggle ahead. It is no longer the Steelers vs. the Cardinals; Slumdog vs. Benjamin Button; Democrat vs. Republican; rich vs. poor; religion vs. religion; etc. It is government vs. “we the people”.
Yes, let's focus on bad bankers and businessmen... it takes the light off of crooked politicians. Use the taxpayers money to investigate the crimes of business while government fraud and corruption roll on and on and on...just like the train in Atlas Shrugged.
Bankers going to jail is when the Federal Government has the nerve to actually lay down the law. Look at the Madoff Scandal, he rips off 80 billion dollars in the biggest Ponzi scheme ever next to the Banker Bailout. Yet he is walking around New York City and smiling. I think the judge gave him house arrest. Any other person would be jail and the judge would throw away the key. Until Madoff, Bernake, et al go to jail then it will be one rule for the rich and one for the poor.
The Bank of the United States was more solvent than BOA, from Milton Friedman's account of the earlier scandal.
finally found something relevant from bing lol