Credit Suisse: Big Crimes Become Big Business

I haven't posted much lately, I've rather lost heart recently and don't like the feeling so much.

The following angered me enough to post.

I had an 'ethics' teacher in college who used the 'titans' of industry as examples of those ethics, that castigated His Holiness the Dalai Lama on how monks were trained (metta meditation didn't change how they scored on ethical development tests after - get this - two months and he concluded metta (or loving kindess) meditation wasn't effective) and stated another theory (Carol Gilligan's) of moral/ethical development was nonsense (I think it's more accurate in many cases).

So, I dropped out of this guys class, but it did educate me on 'academic' ethics just as finance courses (which I didn't drop out of) taught me about the 'science' of finance and it's 'ethics'/'morals'.

This article by Ralph Nader shows very clearly "the morals of the wealthy" (corporate and individual). And before you rail about the exceptions - and there are several - keep in mind these are the people who are telling you (through paid media mouth pieces) that they - and they alone can fix OUR economy and that YOU have to suffer to ALLOW them to fix it.

The basics:

In May of 2014, financial firm Credit Suisse AG pled guilty to serious criminal charges. The giant bank aided and assisted approximately 22,000 wealthy U.S. taxpayers (whose names Credit Suisse AG escaped having to send to the Justice Department for law enforcement) for over a decade in filing false income tax returns and other documents with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Just what did they do, stuff that could land you or me in jail:

“assisting clients in using sham entities to hide undeclared accounts;” “soliciting IRS forms that falsely stated, under penalties of perjury, that the sham entities were the beneficial owners of the assets in the accounts;” “failing to maintain in the United States records related to the accounts;” “destroying account records sent to the United States for client review;” “using Credit Suisse managers and employees as unregistered investment advisors on undeclared accounts;” “facilitating withdrawals of funds from the undeclared accounts by either providing hand-delivered cash in the United States or using Credit Suisse’s correspondent bank accounts in the United States;” “structuring transfers of funds to evade currency transaction reporting requirements;” and “providing offshore credit and debit cards to repatriate funds in the undeclared accounts.”

And you or I would have consequences, beyond a penny to a dollar fine, but they do not....

This routine ability to evade proper punishment is the root of the issue of so much corporate and Wall Street crime—a slap on the wrist leads to a perpetual cycle of wrongdoing with no end in sight. Their corporate lawyers turn laws into “no-law” laws. Corporate crime pays.

ALL PERSON's should be RESONSIBLE for their actions - lawful and unlawful.

But somehow it's US the 98% of people in the US who work for a living who pay the price for the unlawful and immoral corporate and individual people's behavior:

James Henry, former chief economist at McKinsey & Co. and current chair of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice, estimates that the United States loses between $170 billion to $200 billion a year in tax revenue through offshore tax havens. He told the Corporate Crime Reporter in 2013:

I just can't get my mind to understanding about how regular people, people who work hard and just want a modest - but secure life, support these people, make excuses for them, and mindlessly repeat nonsense.

I guess I believe in the concept and ideal of justice. The simple justice of a seven year-old on the playground and am confused by those that don't.

Deliberately so my friend...The confusion is sown............The whole system is tilted in the direction of the elite.....after all they paid the government big money to skew it that way......
Money is unnessessary......It is a creation of those who had control at the time, and it cements their power......
Switzerland is owned by the banks....

what you say has been going on for along time now. a lot of us already knew this is taking place, but lack the financial or political muscle to change it for the better.

Without the collusion of the Banks....Most organised crime would not be so entrenched in our system....and the criminals would stand out far better from the honest crowd.
The Banks have consistently laundered TRILLIONS for organised crime...willingly, knowingly and enthusiastically......
When caught, they pay piddling fines, nobody goes to jail, and its business as usual at the laundry right away.....
Nothing will change without impetus......

originally posted by: stirling
Deliberately so my friend...The confusion is sown............The whole system is tilted in the direction of the elite.....after all they paid the government big money to skew it that way......
Money is unnessessary......It is a creation of those who had control at the time, and it cements their power......
Switzerland is owned by the banks....

With respect, on another thread just today, I find you ranting about a raise in the salary exempt/non-exempt threshold from around $22K to $42K. You said that would, I paraphrase, RUIN small business.

The fact is it will hardly impact small businesses or medium businesses at all.

I find this inconsistancy very conflicting.

The threshold change, argued against by 'monied' interests that it will effect, will only help people working for those monied interests and not (with exceptions, as in all things) those working for businesses owned and run by those in the lower 98%.

Can you explain this insconsistancy to me because I find it a very common one????

And it is a huge part of my current lack of heart.

"1.5 times pay in worthless currency is still worth.....nothing.
The upshot would be small business going out of business......
Good way to further corporatize America.....
A better way would be to limit everyone to forty hours a week and hire extra people no?"

This is hardly a rant....just get me going....I CAN get out of hand......as some well know....
I see this as harder on small to medium business because they have far less room to allay the costs of the overtime as easily as the large corporations can.
The low wage figure probably applies to many average business wages looks like about roughly 80 to 100 bucks for 8 hours.....give or take....
Id say the small outfits have many more employees that make under 45000 %age wise than larger corporations too.....
So I see a shrinkage possibility in that bracket....which has already seen a great DEAL OF BANKRUPTCIES IN THE LAST DECADE.....
I DONT SEE A CONTRADICTION WHEN YOU REASON THE REASONS OUT....
Whats the problem with sharing the work with more staff and everyone getting paid something....? too anti American?

originally posted by: stirling

This is hardly a rant....just get me going....I CAN get out of hand......as some well know....
I see this as harder on small to medium business because they have far less room to allay the costs of the overtime as easily as the large corporations can.
The low wage figure probably applies to many average business wages looks like about roughly 80 to 100 bucks for 8 hours.....give or take....
Id say the small outfits have many more employees that make under 45000 %age wise than larger corporations too.....
So I see a shrinkage possibility in that bracket....which has already seen a great DEAL OF BANKRUPTCIES IN THE LAST DECADE.....
I DONT SEE A CONTRADICTION WHEN YOU REASON THE REASONS OUT....
Whats the problem with sharing the work with more staff and everyone getting paid something....? too anti American?

I think you misunderstand the whole concept of salaried employee, let alone the exempt/non-exempt issue specifcally.

You are talking about hourly wage employees which the rule change will not affect/effect in any way. This only affects low end salaried workers which mostly work in big businesses.

This belongs in the other thread as this one is about TAX-THEFT by weathly people (real and corporate).

My bad for confusing you.

You didn't answer my actual question about the inconsistancy in your 'rhetoric'. Down on banks and 'criminal businesses' but opposed to any thing that will actually the oppressed worker as in the other referenced thread.

I'm coming to believe that this common inconsistancy is actually a self-centered and twisted defense mechanism. Since you, have or may be 'down on your luck', everybody else should be too. You may stand a better chance of bettering your circumstance if you applaud the gains of others. But then you may prefer to just want everyone to suffer.