"'They had to know,' Mr Madoff said. 'But the attitude was sort of: "If you're doing something wrong, we don't want to know."'"
Yves Smith of NakedCapitalism.com quips: "This sounds credible -- but it also seems more than a tad self-serving."
Andrew Leonard asks in Salon: "Should we trust him? After all, if there is one thing we know about Bernie Madoff, it is that he is one hell of a liar. But as evidence emerges that bank executives were exchanging emails wondering about Madoff's amazing investment record, the possibility that the banks were purposefully looking the other way is not inconceivable."
The truth is that many of us still do not really want to know -- because, if we did, we would have to do something about it.
By their actions, both Democrats and Republicans clearly appear to prefer the most simplistic understandings -- or misunderstandings.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), like the 9/11 and Warren Commissions before it, avoided key issues. The FCIC inquiry did not call for a criminal indictment of wrongdoers. While informative, its report was ultimately a dud -- telling us mostly what we knew, although there were some disclosures that our tepid press still missed.
Now the Republicans want to water down the regulations on derivatives in the Dodd-Frank financial "reform" legislation, claiming they will lead to a loss of jobs. This is predictable: Every effort to defend big business is always couched in terms of helping the public.
The New York Times reported: "Representative Stephen Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts, warned: 'You think regulation is costly? How about the $7trillion we just lost from not regulating the derivatives markets?'"
There was no response from his colleagues.
So who will do anything about it?
The political right prefers to change the subject, while the left does not seem to have the time or energy to make economic justice its principal concern -- even as polls show the economy is the number one problem for most in the US.
Progressives should hang their heads in shame at the minimal amount of activism taking place against the banks and the escalating numbers of foreclosures. Homes and hope are being stolen from people for whom the term "depression" now has a personal, as well as economic, meaning.
The other day, economist Jeff Sachs -- who has a lot of atoning to do for his own misguided, destructive economic advice to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union -- warned that little is being done about economic inequity and the growing ranks of the poor in the US. He asks if people who run things in the US want "another Egypt." He is a policy wonk, not an activist -- and likely fears the idea.
Many activists say they want to emulate the Egyptians, but who will organise anything as effective -- even in a land that used to be known for people's movements -- to raise hell? In Egypt, young people used the internet to organize and mobilize for change. In the US, the internet seems to function more as an escape valve, consuming hours of our time and giving us another way to talk to each other -- and ventilate against the government. Social media here seems to be more for socializing.
The government supports internet freedom abroad -- but restricts it and spies on it at home. Obama has already supported a law allowing him to shut it down here in a national emergency.
The passivity of the public is one result of the inundation by middle-of-the-road media and effective information deprivation.
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