Stories from the Third Dimension
Lipstick on a pig
The banks. Not a problem. An expression of a level of consciousness.
Banking : a criminal enterprise
Someone suggested to me the other day that the banking sector was becoming more conscious. Conscious banking...a term which probably suggests a greater social responsibility or awareness of the consequences of banking activity or the really popular environmentally caring (advised by Volkswagen of course). Maybe the CEOs have discovered Mindfulness or Yoga?
Unfortunately, I think Henry Ford got it right when he said :
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Do not judge the banks, or the other controlling elements of society by what they say, rather hold them to account by what they do. Whatever the clever marketing and public relations officers present remember it is all just Lipstick on a pig.
Lets look at one institution (a bank in which I really believed in my 12 years working there). HSBC.
From the Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibi
The banks' laundering transactions were so brazen that the NSA probably could have spotted them from space. Breuer admitted that drug dealers would sometimes come to HSBC's Mexican branches and "deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows."
In 2012 HSBC received a record fine for operating an organised network designed to launder money for some of the most violent drug cartels in the world.
Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a "record financial settlement" of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.
That fine was tax deductable, which means that the tax payer (as ever) eventually puts up a portion of the cash! We are fining ourselves for the banks criminality.
Stuart Gulliver, the chief executive of HSBC, apologised for the scandal. He said: "We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again." He insisted HSBC was "a fundamentally different organisation" now.
That "fundamentally different organisation" made the headlines again in November 2014 as RBS and HSBC among banks fined £2.6bn for Forex Rigging. At the same time the head of that "fundamentally different organisation" Stuart Gulliver was directing his £5mn bonus through a Panamanian Company via a Swiss Bank.
This is both very old and very current news, and it is not just HSBC. It is the whole banking industry. The fact is the banks criminal behaviour has no consequence. A fine to a bank is simply a cost of doing business (tax deductible of course), and further, because of the nature of money creation, fines have no real impact on the bank anyway.
When a bank lends money it doesn't have the money to lend, it simply creates it with a computer entry. It enters a contract in which the borrower commits a lot and the bank nothing. In any other area of life this is regarded as an unfair contract at best and fraud at worst.
The borrower pledges their future labour, creativity or output to borrow money the bank doesn't have. The contract converts imaginary money into real money through the borrowers productive capacity over a period of time and with interest levied for a little sugar on top. In fact negative mortgage rates appearing around the world shows the scam up for what it is as the bank will actually pay a borrower to keep the scheme alive!
In that sense all bank lending has become is a money laundering operation. And so when HSBC extends the model to include drug cartels its just business as usual. The outrageous and obvious criminality in the cases outlined above (and there are literally hundreds more) are just a larger, more obvious expression of the same level of consciousness which underpins the banking industry.
To suggest that this model can be evolved into something aligned to a more refined level of consciousness is just plain stupid. Conscious banking is as much an oxymoron as military intelligence.
The reason banks are fined rather than taken through criminal proceedings is that a possible outcome would be the loss of the institution's banking license which, with today's high degree of inter-connectivity, could de-stabilise the whole economic system. This is commonly known as "too big too fail". This logic has basically excluded the core operational machinery (the monetary system) from the rule of law for the past ten years at least.
To disregard the rule of law is an extremely high price to pay for economic stability, but it is the choice we have made .
Perhaps it's worth reflecting on Benjamin Franklin's famous quote Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety, and re-writing it Those who would give up essential rule of law, to purchase a little temporary stability, deserve neither rule of law nor stability.
Solutions?
First of all I wouldn't waste your lipstick. The pig will remain ugly. It's in its DNA.
Secondly, if for some reason we attempt to address the situation from the current level of consciousness, the first step would simply be to apply the rule of law equally to everyone.
Thirdly, get conscious. Act accordingly. Banks and the associated systems will become irrelevant to your life.
Lots of love as always
Bill