Renew Urgency On Wall Street Probe

The Obama administration’s investigation of major international banks for manipulation of the “London interbank offered rate,” or Libor, has been in the headlines lately, and that’s good news. The banks’ actions have cost savers and investors dearly; shaken anew confidence in our financial markets, and revealed once again pervasive corruption within our banking system. On this critical issue, the administration has shown teeth — and the international community is hopefully moving swiftly to ensure accountability.

But the administration’s action on this scandal raises a key question: When will we see results from the investigation of Wall Street for the mortgage securities fraud that led to the devastating collapse of the housing, jobs and financial markets?

The president announced the investigation in this year’s State of the Union address, saying a new working group would be staffed by “highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud.” New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the co-chairman of that working group and a strong proponent of aggressive action, predicted [1] results within six months.

But the jury is still out on whether the investigation will bring Wall Street CEOs to justice and deter future wrongdoing.