Turn On The Lights, Watch The Roaches Scatter Part 66

The banksters are going to walk.  On everything.

The U.S. government's investigation into the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has hit daunting hurdles that could result in no civil or criminal charges ever being filed against the company's former executives, people familiar with the situation said.

In recent months, Securities and Exchange Commission officials have grown increasingly doubtful they can prove that Lehman violated U.S. laws by using an accounting maneuver to move as much as $50 billion in assets off its balance sheet, which made it appear that the securities firm had reduced its debt levels.

SEC officials also aren't confident they could win any lawsuit accusing former Lehman employees, including former Lehman Chief Executive Richard Fuld Jr., of failing to adequately mark down the value of the large real-estate portfolio acquired in Lehman's takeover of apartment developer Archstone-Smith Trust or to disclose the resulting losses to investors, according to people familiar with the matter.

People close to the investigation cautioned that no decision has been reached on whether to bring civil charges, adding that new evidence still could emerge. Investigators are reviewing thousands of documents turned over to the SEC since it began its probe shortly after Lehman tumbled into bankruptcy in September 2008 and was sold off in pieces. Officials also have questioned a number of former Lehman executives, some of them multiple times, the people said.

But after zeroing in last summer on the battered real-estate portfolio and an accounting move known as Repo 105, SEC officials have grown more worried they could lose a court battle if they bring civil charges that allege Lehman investors were duped by company executives. The key stumbling block: The accounting move, while controversial, isn't necessarily illegal.

Playing "hide the sausage" with $50 billion isn't illegal, folks.  There's nothing to see here.  Go back to your American Idol and Dancing With The Stars and your Happy Meals.  Tyler Durden explains why the "hurdles" have appeared.

The problem is that should the SEC actually pursue it and win, that act would open up the floodgates for hundreds of lawsuits against everyone from Bank of America and Citi, which have also disclosed they used comparable tactics to misrepresent the true status of their books, to shady accounts like Ernst & Young, all the way to FASB at the very top of the corruption pyramid. And with hundreds of millions if not billions in legal fees about to be paid out if the fraudclosure back door settlement fails, the SEC simply can not allow the pursuit of justice to threaten the viability of America's only national interest: that of its criminal banking syndicate. 

Goodbye banksters, goodbye America's only growth industry.  The Powers That Be will never allow that.  War is around the corner, and so is massive austerity for 95% of us.  But our most precious national resource, America's super-rich, will be fine.

We're at the point in the chess match where even if there was a way out of this mate in seven scenario, one side is willing to take a 20-pound slegehammer to the board as a last resort.  No way to win.  A million ways to lose.

The people who destroyed America's economy are going to walk.  They will keep every dime they stole.  They will use that money to profit even further.  And you and I will pay for it for the rest of our natural lives.