What did US tax-payers actually get in return for US Justice Dept. officials spending more than $120 millions?

Shyam

It has been suggested to me that I am crazy to say that America has turned into Fascist State, simply because some US Justice Dept Officials have apparently been involved in a fiddle involving 250 $16 muffins.

Obviously, if that was what I had said, then I probably would be crazy. However, the accusation I'm making, is far more serious and specific.

Today, with world stock markets again in free-fall due to more gloomy forecasts from the US Federal Reserve http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15014843, the latest word from America on the recent scandal surrounding the US Justice Dept. wasting tax-payers' money, beggars belief. According to one Blogger, US Justice Dept. officials did 'over-spend' on their conferences, but the $16 muffins and $10 cups of coffee and cookies reported as being served at these conferences, is all a myth extrapolated by the press from inaccurate catering bills http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/great-16-muffin-myth.

Now, even if this generous interpretation of the available evidence is entirely true (which personally I very much doubt), the fact remains that US Justice Dept. officials submitted accounts in which they pretended to have legitimately spent more than $120 millions on around 1800 conferences during 2008-2009. Unfortunately, this is the very same period during which the current world economic crisis hit, due to revelations that the bosses of some of America's largest financial institutions had been allowed to rake in indecently huge bonuses (right under the noses of the US Securities and Exchange Commission) by fraudulently authorizing astronomic quantities of apparently 'profitable' loans to countless borrowers who actually had no means of repaying them, before parcelling-up this mountain of toxic debt into small bundles, giving it a fancy name and then fraudulently selling it as 'a low risk investment.' 

To date, the US Justice Dept. (despite all of its many conferences) has not yet managed to hold anyone fully to account for this titanic US based, organized fraud and chronic regulatory failure. This begs the question:

What (other than a flock of docile, and well-fed, attorneys and a pile of inaccurate catering bills) did US tax-payers actually get in return for these US Justice Dept. officials spending more than $120 millions?

Unfortunately, these shameful events are frighteningly reminiscent of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy - where corrupt, and fabulously-wealthy, leader/racketeers and corrupt, and fabulously-wealthy, businessmen/racketeers worked hand in glove to exploit the people whilst a morally-bankrupt, but well-fed, justice system looked the other way.

David Brear (copyright 2011)