Justice Dep't Gives Corporate Fraud a Pass

This report of legalized bribes to the Justice Department was a pretty disconcerting piece of news to wake up to this morning. Why are we allowing corporate fraud to be accepted with a slap on the wrist, which admit it-- $65 million to American Express is, but drug offenders and other individual misdemeanors are sent to jail in record numbers.

Of course the article's first example- in which Monsanto bribed the Indonesian government to accept its GMO cotton seeds into the country, part of the increasing corporatization and privatization of global agriculture--was particularly disturbing to me. But the overall ubiquity of these financial non-criminal "solutions" to fraud and corruption is astounding.

Perhaps as news of increasing financial bailouts and fraudulent mortgage lenders continues, these issues will begin to surface and produce reactions. The solution? Even the "outside monitor" for the Monsanto case agrees- the Justice Department needs to actually do its job and "'insist on a guilty plea' rather than offering a deal."