DOJ Proclaims Big Banks Have License to Steal

Banking, the Consequence-Free Road to Riches

In a recent multinational banking scandal, it became clear that banks around the world were manipulating interest rates, known as LIBOR rates.  Interest rate information is provided by the banks to the British Bankers Association (BBA), a group that distributes an averaged rate to banks throughout the world.  This information is used to set rates for lending, and regulators are working to determine if banks artificially manipulated the rates to the detriment of customers worldwide. That means you and me.

It will come as no surprise to most of us that in fact there was wide acknowledgement that many banks did, in fact, cheat. More disturbing is the lack of a penalty or legal sanction when the cheating was discovered. The U.S. Department of Justice acknowledges that there was a big problem with how previous prosecutions of banks were carried out. But the expected penalties never appeared, and here is why:

We now have the so-called Justice Department claiming it has been too hard on this financial crime syndicate. Yes. Presumably if the DOJ hadn’t taken its previous, supposed “tough love” approach to these financial criminals, they would now already be perpetrating multi-QUADRILLION dollar crimes. And the U.S. government certainly won’t stand in the way of “progress”.

Supposedly, giving these fraud-factories microscopic fines as their sole punishment was being too harsh – when it comes to enforcing the law. Let me reiterate; we have the U.S. Department of Justice effectively implying that even its previous, token enforcement of laws against financial crimes was impeding the (crimes of the) financial sector. In the United States of Crime, any time there is a conflict between “law” (the Rule of Law) and “profit” (the proceeds of crime), the U.S. Department of Justice sides with profit — i.e. the criminals.

What the Big Banks really “need”, according to the DOJ, is absolute immunity. It’s like the grandparents of a spoiled brat. No matter how horrific the deed perpetrated by the brat, the grandparents never do anything more than muss-up his hair a bit, and then say “run along, you little Scamp, and don’t do this, again.”

From now on, no matter what the crime, no matter how large the crime, no matter how frequent the crime; the Big Banks will never even be prosecuted, let alone actually punished. From now on, the U.S. Department of (Anti-)Justice has promised it will never prosecute any banksters, except for a few, token Scapegoats whom the Big Banks will serve-up-on-a-platter, on the rare occasions when the American Sheeple can raise up their lazy carcasses enough to belch-out a demand for law-enforcement.

I am not yet ready to throw in my lot with the kids from Socialist U down the road.  But I am disturbed when I find that the fix truly is in, and we on the outside are being played for rubes by the big money. And more disturbing still is that our government is in on the game as well. Who the heck is running this show?

It’s no wonder that Princeton Univ. declared that the US became an oligarchy back in 2002?

Source:www.sprottmoney.com