Abacus: Small Enough to Jail

I don't know if you've heard, but the American justice system is probably too cozy with the Big Banks. The beauty of this little doc is that it puts a personal face on the decidedly impersonal numbers, giving a portrait of a family unjustly taking the fall for corporations much worse than them. Especially love the natural comparison it makes to It's a Wonderful Life...because maybe it's not always that wonderful.

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is a suspenseful David v. Goliath documentary of family loyalty and stubborn courage facing a gigantic government agency and an ego to match. As follows: Tom Sung emigrated from China at 16 and became in time a citizen, a successful lawyer and a resident of upscale Connecticut. Nevertheless he noticed that 'establishment' banks were happy to take his deposits, but when it came to getting a loan, he didn't, as the saying went in the hateful days of the racist Exclusion Act, 'have a Chinaman's chance.' Sung then took a chance and started his own bank—Abacus Federal Savings. His timing was perfect: new immigration laws in the 1960s meant Chinatown soon had a] plenty of customers for Abacus and b] something besides Cantonese restaurants. He was a genuine positive force among the Chinese population, admired and respected by all. Then about a decade ago low-ranking Abacus personnel were caught falsifying mortgage applications; they were immediately sacked and their misdeeds reported to feds, as required. Mistake, as it turned out. The subprime- mortgage crisis was big news: until then, few Americans used the word 'trillion' for anything but the national debt or the distance from here to Alpha Centauri. Villains included Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and while some were fined, no one went to jail and most bonuses were paid as usual. Unfortunately for Abacus, new-minted New York D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr., who was as hungry for publicity as NY's Sen. Charles Schumer, saw a chance for headlines and photo ops. Seeking a halo as the sole public avenger of the crisis, Vance charged Abacus with 80 counts of criminal wrongdoing, launching a court battle that ran five years and cost $10 million. Although the major villains had got off lightly as being 'too big to fail,' Vance's target was indeed 'small enough to jail': in size, Abacus was 2600th among U.S. banks. About the size, as it turned out, of David. This is an excellent documentary, suspenseful but lightened with some bursts of humor among the Sung family as they fight for the reputations and their principles.

Very well-done documentary about small (2,651st largest bank in the U.S. at the time) family bank in Chinatown New York prosecuted for financial crimes after 2008, has interviews with all the major players (bank employees/owners, prosecutors, defense attorneys, jurors, audio from witnesses, etc.)

Absolutely head-scratching as to why the D.A. thought this was a good place to satisfy public outrage over the Great Recession (politics and racism are hinted at but not fully explored). (I do wish this angle has been pursued in more depth.)

Basic plot: low-level employees are fleecing home buyers into giving them cash fees and then falsifying their loan applications so they get approved by higher-ups, the government decides this is evidence of a systematic conspiracy and tries to go after the bank itself (this despite it having an extremely low default rate, which makes it strange that Fannie Mae is named the defendant in the case because overall it got much more money from this bank proportionally than from thousands of others, particularly the giant ones who not only didn't get prosecuted but actually got bailouts (courtesy of you and me)).

Also shows incredible scenes such as the bank employees shackled together in a chain gang and paraded into the courthouse in front of news cameras (which by all accounts is an unheard-of practice nowadays); the Manhattan D.A. (Cyrus Vance Jr.) and one of his underlings ("Polly Greenberg" iirc) are both masterful in denying any kind of prejudicial motivation in selecting and prosecuting Abacus (the case took five years and cost taxpayers ten million USD and resulted in *zero* convictions).

Anyone need anymore evidence that giant corporations run this country? Anyone?

This documentary had me fuming. The Too Big to Fail Banks got off scot-free, and actually made money from the crisis they created. Meanwhile, a bank catering to a migrant community, who tries to do the right thing gets screwed by an overzealous, politically motivated DA.

UNBELIEVABLE! I have never written a review but feel compelled to by the emotional response and anger this documentary has stirred. It is a well-done documentary, and I guess I am just shocked by its content.

I have studied the 2008 financial crisis extensively. I had no idea this happened. The US government and the New York DA's office should be absolutely ashamed. The fact that this happened makes me disappointed in my government. Part of me is holding some hope that the documentary is extremely biased and one sided (though I do not believe this is true). It makes me physically ill to think that the large financial institutions such as Citi Group, Bank of America, JP Morgan, etc., got away with what they did in causing the financial crisis and our government spent its resources persecuting this small family run community bank. Unbelievable.