Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Not Just a Few Bad Apples - Corruption is Systemic in America
In case you believe that there are only "a couple of bad apples" in the United States, here is an off-the-top-of-my-head list of corruption by leading pillars of American society:
- Senior military officials stole approximately $125 billion dollars out of Iraq reconstruction funds, dwarfing Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme (in turn, the looting which is now occurring under the bailout/stimulus programs will far surpass $150 billion)
- Texas billionaire Robert Stanford ran a multi-billion dollar fraud scheme of his own
- Senior judges in Pennsylvania have pleaded guilty to falsely convicting and imprisoning hundreds of youths (they got kickbacks from the prisons).
- The government-endorsed ratings agencies which were supposed to accurately rate the credit-worthiness of companies and nations committed massive fraud
There are hundreds of similar stories of corruption which have come out recently.
But surely government employees would have done something to stop such corruption if had known about it, right?
Well, actually:
- Whistleblowers alerted the government about the looting of Iraq reconstruction funds, but nothing was done
- A whistleblower "gift-wrapped and delivered" the Madoff scandal to the SEC, but they refused to take action
- The Treasury department allowed banks to "cook their books"
- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court refused to hear a case regarding the corrupt judges. A month later, only after the judges confessed to criminal wrongdoing, did the Supreme Court change its mind and take any interest
- Instead of insisting on accurate books, the government encouraged fraudulent bookkeeping. For example, as of 2006:
"President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar ... broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations."
- The government knew about mortgage fraud a long time ago. For example, the FBI warned of an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud in 2004. However, the FBI, DOJ and other government agencies then stood down and did nothing. See this and this
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Imagine that and all in the last 10 years. I guess closing your eyes is the latest conservative deregulation tactic.
ReplyDeleteMeantime the banks are becoming more like pay day loan sharks. Raising interest , lowering credit lines on folks who have not missed a payment and some with high 700 credit ratings.
Hell, I could start a credit card company with money borrowed at next to 0 interest rate and lend it at 30.
Nationalize the crooks.
I'd never be that naive to believe there are only a few bad apples; psychopaths dominate the scene and usually make up the top ranks of all businesses and groups -- technically speaking, they have wait it takes to be ruthless and domineering.
ReplyDeleteAs for the billionare who took part of a scam to make even more money, geesh, when is enough enough? These people are truly vile.
You missed the big one. During the Bush years the national debt grew by more than $5 trillion. Most of that can be accounted for by the massive tax cuts during those years which benefited mostly the countries wealthiest. Since these tax cuts were paid for wholly by increasing the national debt and not through a reduction in federal outlays they can be considered the largest transfer of wealth in human history or the greatest hiest in human history, as you choose.
ReplyDeleteThis model, passing money out to the wealthy elite and saddling the masses with the bill, is a strategy the US has used repeatedly in the third world in order to control the politics of foreign countries. It was just a matter of time before the policy perfected abroad was used on us.
In a related foot note: I recall that at the time of the Abu Ghraib revelations a retired US general said that never in human history has a country tortured foreigners that didn't eventually torture its own.
Perfected , only if the destruction of a country was you goal. Chicago School Economics has never worked anywhere. You are right on when you say and now we get the joy of watching the countries destruction.
ReplyDeleteNow the hot ticket theory being pushed is the Austrian School which appears to me to be the Chicago School with a twist.
free enterprise is the only deterent to corruption .... if gov't is to be the refferee then they can not also be a player
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I see Free Enterprise I'll take a second look as of the last 30 years all I have seen is rigged enterprise. When you are playing a game and you have your own set of rules and the referee in this case is the world economy , you loose.
ReplyDeletesomebody who is sad don t be sad yrr its all our life part
ReplyDelete