Thinking is Revolting

And so another major bank is found to be committing fraud against it's customers.

And so another major crime goes unpunished.

And so the executive in charge of the fraud has had to quit her job with the pitiful sum of $125,000,000 in shares and options. This only works out at about $125 per false account or credit card her management encouraged to be opened to steal from existing customer accounts. Surely such a level of criminality deserves more than that these days.

Admittedly the clip above of Elizabeth Warren "grillling" of the CEO of Wells Fargo John Stumpf on his accountability in this scam makes for good theatre. But theatre is all it is. Stumpf is not even embarrassed (embarrassment has an element of shame within it) and certainly not concerned. He simply knows this charade is one of the (extremely small) prices to pay for doing business in banking. The $235bn (nearer $300bn by now) that the 20 major banks have paid in fines since 2008 is another small price paid by this criminal cartel to be at the front of the queue for free money from the Central Banks (incidentally owned and controlled by those same 20 banks). 

The number of senior bankers prosecuted in that same period is zero. It would appear that they should not be punished for breaking the law because that is simply their job. The fines are not a punishment, just a business cost. A cost which incidentally is off-settable against tax and consequently paid in a large part by the taxpayer.

At the same time Deutsche Bank is on the verge of collapse and its share price took another dive last week as it refused to pay a $14bn fine. The market took this as an indication that it could not actually afford to pay that fine. If that is in fact the case then any of the banks on the other side of Deutsche Bank's $50 trillion derivative book should be a little concerned.

So what?

As I write this I can almost feel my own shoulders shrugging. So what indeed? I can't do anything about it. Why don't I just get on with my life and ignore these issues and to be fair that has been reasonable advice for some time now. However, when the banking edifice finally destroys itself through its own greed and immorality we will all be affected, and we will all bear a responsibility to construct a new system which serves rather than steals, nourishes rather than leeches, creates rather than destroys.

This doesn't require an in depth knowledge of the monetary system or economics. What it necessary is a strong internal compass which recognises an appropriate balance between giving and receiving, and a willingness to demonstrate that with every choice and every action. It requires an active engagement with reality as opposed to the subservient group think engineered by society (see the The War on Reality mini-documentary above).

Connecting to our own reality as opposed to that presented by the system will allow us to reclaim our true human nature which is grounded in service and love as opposed to the reality of fear and greed propagated by those whose insatiable thirst for more has created an unsustainable imbalance permitted by a passive audience comfortable in its own victim-hood.

In short we have to start thinking for ourselves. 

Now that is a revolutionary idea!  

Love

Bill