Franklin's Focus 8/4/10

The revelations regarding
big banks are a powerful condemnation. The role of federal law
enforcement in allowing big banks to engage in massive corruption with
no more than a slap on the wrist is at a minimum interesting. If you
hate banks, you might find this article rather interesting. It adds a
new dimension as to who is keeping the vast and futile drug war going.

Legalizing marijuana would be a rational start. Filling our prisons
with folks who smoke pot is no less than insane. It would seem that
jailing many bank officials instead of pot smokers would another
stepping stone toward a rational drug policy.

The Title 'Too Big to Jail' says it all.

I enjoyed the writing style of the person who wrote this think piece.

Warmest regards,
Richard

=======================================================

Taipan Daily: "Too Big to Jail" - How Big Banks Are Turning Mexico
Into Colombia
by Justice Litle, Editorial Director, Taipan Publishing Group

The Dogs of War
are men of hate...
With no cause,
We don't discriminate...
- Pink Floyd, "Dogs of War"

Ah, Megabanks, how we love thee. Let us count the ways... Like
clockwork, you create a new crisis every five to seven years or so
with your greedy, pig-headed lending. You routinely cover your tracks
with torrents of lobbying cash poured into Washington. In the subprime
mortgage crisis and the financial meltdown that followed, you nearly
succeeded in blowing up the global economy. And then, in the
aftermath, you arranged one of the greatest swindles ever, getting the
system to make you whole again (via taxpayer blood and treasure) even
as a majority of Americans suffered.

The above is plenty of reason to be disgusted, one could fairly
conclude. But as that legendary pitchman Ron Popeil likes to say: "But
wait - there's more!"

Now we learn that, joy of joys, plundering and pillaging the rotten
financial system was not enough for these men. They also saw fit to
directly fuel the Mexican cocaine trade... knowingly aid in the
laundering of billions, even tens of billions, in bloody drug money...
and do their part in helping turn Mexico into Colombia, a struggling
developing world country slowly descending into the hell of a narco-
state.

Exaggeration? Sadly not...

Black Suitcases and a DC-9

A recent issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine ran a deeply unsettling
story titled "Wachovia's Drug Habit."

The story opens with the seizure of a DC-9 jet loaded up with "128
black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine," good enough for a
street value of $100 million.

"Law enforcement officials also discovered something else," Bloomberg
Markets magazine reports. "The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with
laundered funds transferred through two of the biggest banks in the
U.S.: Wachovia Corp and Bank of America Corp"...

"This was no isolated incident," the story adds. "Wachovia, it turned
out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug
smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has
admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected
money laundering by narcotics traffickers - included the cash used to
buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine."

Blind Eye, Greedy Eye

Narcotics is big business in the United States. According to the U.S.
Justice Department, Bloomberg reports, "the cartels have built a
network of dealers in 231 U.S. cities from coast to coast, taking in
about $39 billion in sales annually."

Thirty-nine billion is some serious dough. You don't move that kind of
cash without the help of your friendly megabanker.

"It's the banks laundering the money for the cartels that finances the
tragedy," says Martin Woods. "If you don't see the correlation between
the money laundering by banks and the 22,000 people killed in Mexico,
you're missing the point."

And just who is Martin Woods, you ask? He is the former head of
Wachovia's anti-money-laundering unit in London. Woods is no longer in
that role, having quit his job in "disgust" as higher-up executives
ignored his documentation of the drug-money funneling process.

The profits from quietly washing that $39 billion clean were too big
to pass up... and so the banks turned a blind eye instead.

The list of banks with questionable connections to the multibillion-
dollar drug trade sounds like a "who's who" of financial might:
Wachovia (now Wells Fargo). Bank of America. American Express Bank
International. HSBC Holdings. Citigroup. Banco Santander. Western
Union. There are probably more...

Too Big to Jail

"No big bank - Wells Fargo included - has ever been indicted for
violating the Bank Secrecy Act or any other federal law," says
Bloomberg. "Instead, the U.S. Justice Department settles criminal
charges by using deferred-prosecution agreements, in which a bank pays
a fine and promises not to break the law again."

In plain English, "Too Big to Fail" has become "Too Big to Jail." The
megabanks are seen as too important to the health and functioning of
the U.S. financial system to risk hitting them with criminal charges.

Perversely, the current setup actually reinforces criminal activity.
When breaking the law results in a small financial fine, it doesn't
take long before the fine is seen as a simple "cost of doing
business." The megabanks, protected as they are from on high, are thus
encouraged to do whatever they please and take their slap on the wrist
later.

A Descent Into Hell

Roughly a month ago, Rodolfo Torre was ambushed and gunned down on a
rural Mexican highway. Torre was the clear front-runner in a bid to
become governor of Tamaulipas, a Mexican state bordering Texas. Along
with Torre, his chief of staff, campaign chief and bodyguard were also
killed.

This happened just across the border. Just imagine if a U.S. political
candidate running on a strong anti-trafficking platform were hunted
down.

In fact, we may not have to imagine at all, because a similar threat
has arisen in Arizona... Joe Arpaio, the Sherriff of Maricopa County,
Ariz., now has a $1 million bounty on his head. It was placed there by
a Mexican drug cartel, Fox Phoenix reports. Do you think the cartel
really has the money? I do. I wonder how they got it...

The number of people killed in the never-ending drug war continues to
escalate. By some estimates 22,000 has become 25,000. Less than a week
ago, four journalists were kidnapped. Attempts by the local police
force to stand up to gang threats result in people's heads in baskets.
Mexican pop singers who compose song ballads to drug barons, known as
narcocorridos, are gunned down in cold blood when a rival baron gets
offended. The Mexican Army, supposedly fighting the gangs, has gotten
so out of control as to become a source of local terror themselves.

Mexico is on the way to becoming a failed state, or rather, a narco-
state. The war on drugs has been completely and irrevocably lost. We
are at the point where further efforts to "crack down" only serve to
increase the profits of the cartels by raising the street value of
various illegal substances. And the money poured into drug-fighting
enforcement measures by both the U.S. and Mexican governments only
serves to increase the size and frequency of violent, bloody shootouts.

Meanwhile, the dogs of war - i.e. the 'Too Big to Jail' banks -
casually sit back and help fund it all.

No Redemption?

As Mexico morphs into Colombia - a de facto fiefdom for drug barons -
America's "Great Recession" is showing more signs of being a Soft
Depression for some. The latest stats indicate 25% of Americans have a
credit score of less than 600, making them ineligible for any basic
loans. A frightening majority of Americans are two paychecks or less
from total destitution. And things are getting worse...

There seems to be no way around the final conclusion. America is
gorging itself to death on complacency and ignorance. Our delusions
and self indulgences are now, literally, costing thousands of lives.
And the white-collar travesties being perpetrated at the highest
levels are helping to transform an immediate neighbor, Mexico, from a
promising developing world nation into a blood-soaked third-world
hellhole.

What can we do about any of this? "Throw the bums out?" Which bums
exactly? Replace the Democrat in the White House with another
Republican? Fat lot of good that would do... just look what the last
Republican did. When an empire shows itself to be in the final stages
of crumbling, perhaps the only sane thing to do is stay wise, stay
wary, and focus on the well-being of your loved ones...

End