Wall Street Settlements Ruin 'The Daily Show' Accountability Party
Recently the Department of Justice went after Bank of America and JP Morgan for mortgage-backed security fraud, and no one's more excited about that than John Oliver. He threw a mini-party on the Daily Show stage, with balloons falling from the ceiling and Kool & The Gang's "Celebration" playing in the background.
.Recently the Department of Justice went after Bank of America and JP Morgan for mortgage-backed security fraud, and no one's more excited about that than John Oliver. He threw a mini-party on the Daily Show stage, with balloons falling from the ceiling and Kool & The Gang's "Celebration" playing in the background. "Yes, sure justice has been a long time coming, but that is just going to make it all the sweeter now," Oliver said. "So let's start with Bank of America. How many people are going to jail? Just for the sake of simplicity, round it up to the nearest hundred."
Unfortunately for Oliver (and the box of celebratory doves he planned on releasing) these are civil suits, so no one's going to jail. "There's a note," Oliver said, reaching into the box and pulling out a letter from the deceased birds. "'The lack of Wall Street accountability is complete bulls**t. We can't go on. Love, The Doves.'"
Instead of being held accountable through jail time, banks' preferred method of handling these incidences is to settle out of court with a small fine and admit no wrong doing. There is, however, one guy out there who made it to court: former Wall Street trader and Goldman Sachs vice president Fabrice Tourre, also known as Fabulous Fab. "What? Fabulous Fab? Do you think you're in Cirque du Soleil?" Oliver asked. "And frankly, I didn't even know you were allowed to pick your own nickname... so, with that being said, from now on you may address me as Joke Master Johnny Fresh. No, actually, that's a bit of a mouthful, let's go with Juicy Johnny. No, I take that back, too sexy. I've got it — Carlos Danger." Yes, even now Oliver is still finding ways to make Weiner jokes.
As for Fabbity Fab, he's not even a top rung guy. Goldman Sachs has about 12,000 vice presidents, enough that you probably can't even toss a penny without hitting one. "If you hit the janitor, you'll be hitting the vice president in charge of urinal cakes, or as he insists on being called, Scrubtastic Steve." Worse, Fabtastic Fab isn't going to jail, and the banks are already repeating their fraudulent patterns. As Oliver put it: "Aaaaand we're back to where we started."