© Gary Cameron/ReutersJamie Dimon, center, the chief of JPMorgan Chase, at the 'Justice Department' in September.
The most amazing thing about the Justice Department's new guidelines on prosecution of corporate crime is that the DOJ is effectively acknowledging there was a big problem with how it did things before.
Yes. As these criminalized institutions now perpetrate financial mega-crimes measured (literally) in the $trillions, we 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.
Is there any chance that the spoiled brat would ever reform his intolerable behavior? Of course not. Is there any possibility that telling these fraud-factories, in absolutely explicit terms that they will never be prosecuted will actually "deter crime"? No, of course not.
Yet this is precisely what the liars in the U.S. government (and the mouthpieces of Bloomberg) expect expect us to believe:
"One of the most effective ways to combat corporate misconduct is by seeking accountability from the individuals who perpetrate the wrong-doing," the memo reads. This "deters future illegal activity, it incentivizes change in future corporate behavior, it ensures that the proper parties are held responsible for their actions, and it promotes the public's confidence in our justice system."[emphasis mine]Let's dissect this utter perversion of logic and justice, on a phrase-by-phrase basis.
One of the most effective ways to combat corporate misconduct is by seeking accountability from the individuals who perpetrate the wrong-doing...Don't punish the Boss who gave the order, punish the Lackey who followed the order. Even in the complete travesty of justice which the U.S. calls its "War on Drugs", the Department of Justice does not subscribe to such warped logic. It supposedly focuses its quasi-military crusade on the "drug cartels" rather than on the lowly street-pushers.
Yet when we are dealing with Big Banks instead of drug cartels, a crime syndicate whose financial felonies are literally a hundred times larger than those of the drug cartels, we're now told that the best way to "combat corporate misconduct" is to publicly proclaim to those corporations (Big Banks) that they have complete immunity from any/all prosecution.
The despicable irony, and the reason why this is such an apt metaphor is that while the U.S. government still pretends to be fighting a War on Drugs, it has been giving U.S. Big Banks a free pass to serially launder trillions of dollars for the same drug cartels the U.S. government claims it is fighting to eliminate.
This deters future illegal activity...No, it encourages more organized/systemic crime. Knowing that they will never be prosecuted, the Big Banks can plan their future crimes with even more confidence/certainty/reckless abandon.
...it incentivizes changes in future corporate behaviorYes. Knowing they will never, ever be prosecuted, U.S. Big Banks can plan even more crimes, and even larger crimes. The Crime Syndicate has been "incentivized" to get much, much larger.
...it ensures that the proper parties are held responsible for their actionsReally? How does punishing individuals for the crimes of corporations ensure that the "proper parties" are being held responsible? To "combat corporate misconduct", and punish the "proper parties", this directly and necessarily implies that you punish corporations for the crimes of corporations - not individuals.
If a farmer has a problem with wolves killing his cattle, will he "deter future activity", "incentivize change" (with the wolves), and "ensure that the proper parties are held responsible" if he goes out and shoots a few mountain lions? Of course not. It will simply make the wolves glad and smug that they are not lions.
...it promotes the public's confidence in our justice system.Sure it does.
So why any need for "new guidelines"? Because the new Chief Crime Pimp, Loretta Lynch, was recently forced to engage in a token prosecution of these fraud factories. What could "force" the Chief Crime Pimp of the United States to prosecute her own Masters, against her will? Think "Bernie Madoff".
Some crimes are simply too big to cover up, even for a Chief Crime Pimp. With U.S. Big Banks engaging in blatant, serial and extreme manipulation of the $5-trillion-per-day global currency markets, day after day, for well over a decade, even a Chief Crime Pimp can only stall the wheels of pseudo-justice for so long.
A token prosecution took place. More, token fines were assessed. And the "reputations" of the worst organized crime syndicate in human history were slightly tarnished. Thus the decree to their servants in the U.S. government: never 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.
Once upon a time, we lived in nations which recognized and upheld the Rule of Law. Indeed, many esteemed commentators have previously asserted that it was the (previous) strict adherence to the Rule of Law which was the one factor most responsible for the decades of unparalleled prosperity which we had previously enjoyed. Honest economies tend to be prosperous economies.
No more. Today we have nothing in the West but saturation fascism: the complete marriage of "Big Business" (organized crime) and "Big Government" (big military, big corporate subsidies, Big Brother). While these fascists rely upon their war-machines to terrorize most of the world's smaller nations, when it comes to their campaigns of terrorism against larger, more-powerful nations, they typically resort to economic terrorism.
Even the nations of Russia and China have not been spared from such financial/economic terrorist attacks. Indeed, these financial psychopaths were right in the middle of their terrorist attack on the Russian ruble, when (inconveniently) the pseudo-regulators and pseudo-prosecutors of the West were forced to begin their pseudo-prosecution of U.S. Big Banks for their continuous, illegal, rigging of global currencies.
Now the Criminals have ensured that they will never be impeded in their economic terrorism with future, token prosecutions. Now they have secured a promise of complete, unending immunity from any/all crime...unless or until the people of the United States actually elect a legitimate (i.e. non-Democrat/non-Republican) government.
This is not a world that I want to be a part of. My plea for the sake of humanity is that we need change in the whole system of rules. But the reality of the situation we are living in is that the change is not welcome by the ones who have control or the ones supporting them.
Yet, many of us have chosen to be here. Why, I ask? Whether it is karmic payback or the chance that we can make a difference in the outcome, is yet to be seen. We do need a game breaker otherwise we may despair and wither away from the sheer magnitude of the corporate oppression.
I want to cheer for the punisher, the harbinger of change.