Washington Cover-UP? Swiss UBS & Politicians - Where's the list of 19,000?

[WhiskeyGirl]

As Nick Baumann emphasizes for Mother Jones, the SEC’s suit against Goldman is just the tip of the iceberg. During the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s, literally thousands of bankers were jailed for financial fraud. Today’s crisis was much larger in scope, yet the Goldman allegations are among the first serious charges of legal wrongdoing to emerge (other complaints have been filed against Regions Bank and former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo). If the SEC or the FBI are doing their jobs, we should see many more of these cases.

Anyone at Goldman charged with a crime yet?

As Nomi Prins emphasizes for AlterNet, much of the Wall Street profit machine has been divorced from the economy that the rest of us live in. These days, banks make most of their money from securities trades and derivatives deals. Their actual lending business is taking a beating. That means big banks have very little incentive to promote economic well-being for every day citizens. We need to create these incentives by banning economically essential banks from engaging in securities trades, and make sure all derivatives transactions are conducted on open, transparent exchanges, just like ordinary stocks and bonds.

Making money on gambling...taxpayers keep getting stuck with the bill...and Obama wants a new slush fund...right

Protect whistleblowers

The Goldman case also raises significant questions about the government’s enforcement of existing financial fraud laws. Bradley Birkenfeld, a banker for Swiss financial giant UBS, helped the Department of Justice bring the largest tax fraud case in history against his company, which was helping rich Americans hide money from the IRS in offshore bank accounts.

For his cooperation, Birkenfeld was rewarded with a four-year prison sentence, even though nobody else at UBS—nobody—has been sentenced to prison over the scam. As Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman emphasize for Democracy Now!, Birkenfeld’s imprisonment could have something to with who exactly is hiding money with UBS.

Gonzalez discusses an interview with Birkenfeld, in which the former banker notes that the bank had a special office to handle the accounts of “politically exposed persons”— American politicians. Moreover, the top brass at UBS includes key advisors to top politicians in both parties. This is exactly the kind of influence smuggling that breaking up the banks would help fix. UBS is a multi-trillion-dollar institution with no less than 27 U.S. subsidiaries.

But protecting Birkenfeld would accomplish still more—by jailing him, the Justice Department is actively discouraging others from coming forward, and making it more difficult for regulators to enforce the law.

I wonder how many US politicians took part in amnesty for offshore accounts?

Will the list of account holders be made public?  Will it be comprehensive or scrubbed by the Obama administration?  Historical?

That is exactly the task that now presents itself before Congress: Developing a system to prevent and constrain economic destruction wielded by Wall Street. The U.S. had a system that did exactly this for more than fifty years. For the last thrity years, it has been systematically dismantled. How well Congress lives up to that challenge will define much of our economic future for decades to come.

Does the current reform restore the reliable system, or create new bigger slush funds for Wall Street?

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/media-consortium-blog/2010/04/weekly-audit-how-deregulation-fueled-goldman-sachs%E2%80%99-sca

If folks in Congress, and the job rotation destroyed the protections, made lots of crony money, is it possible they're working for taxpayers?  Doing what's right for America?  Or just for themselves and their cronies?

[WhiskeyGirl]

Who owns those 19,000 bank accounts?

I seem to recall that during the Bush administration they wanted names.  I though WTF, if someone has a little on the side, and they make low interest, so what?  Why embarrass 19,000 folks?

Today, they don't seem to be after the list of names.  What changed?  Administrations.

Why aren't the names important anymore?  Whose names on on that list?

Why isn't the full list of name important anymore?

[WhiskeyGirl]

Who owns those bank accounts and how were they funded?

I often wonder where all the money goes that is spent on helping out countries, and at home.  Obama sends stimulus money to China and Korea and no jobs for Americans.

The poor are still poor, taxes continue to go up, life isn't getting better.

Are those accounts growing?  Where did the politicians and others get the money to fund those accounts?

Same with Panama.  How much money is transferred to Panama?

[WhiskeyGirl]

Many Swiss banks conspicuously kicked out their American clients last year after U.S. authorities discovered employees at UBS were helping Americans avoid the tax man.

Switzerland is home to more than a quarter, or $1.8 trillion, of the world's offshore money. As much as 80% of Europeans' offshore money via Switzerland is undeclared, amounting to hundreds of billions of francs, KPMG estimates. Americans in contrast make up no more than 5% of Switzerland's offshore-banking business, according to analysts.

Offshore accounts can be twice as profitable as onshore because noncompliant clients don't press their bankers as much on fees and are reluctant to shop around for better terms. Peter Thorne, an analyst with Helvea, a Swiss brokerage house, estimates that about a quarter of Switzerland's four trillion Swiss franc ($3.7 trillion) private-banking sector could be non-tax-compliant.

more here - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703832204575210321201717384.html

Where did the money go?  Panama? 

Who are these American and what is the source of their money?  The more Washington spends, sends overseas, the poorer the nation becomes. 

Where did the money in all these accounts come from?  Hard work?  Or money taken out of the pockets of working or unemployed folks on Main Street?  Money borrowed on the backs of our children and grandchildren?

[WhiskeyGirl]

Shedding more light on the similar issue of alleged corruption, Robert Dornan writing for The National Enquirer of January,1993 had this to say: "Nigeria's national treasury is systematically looted by government officials. Roughly 3,000 officials now have Swiss bank accounts totalling $33 billion (dollars). One high official even owns a bathtub of solid gold!" Yet, this piece of annoying news came when the UN Report claimed that 40 per cent of all under-5 children in Africa, especially Nigeria, were suffering from preventable under-nutrition.

more here - http://allafrica.com/stories/201004280185.html

While Americans are deeper and deeper in debt, where is the money really going?

If officials in Nigeria can have Swiss accounts totalling $33 billion, how much do American politicians have in Swiss, Panama, or other offshore accounts?  Trillions?  Enough to pay off our debt?

Where did all the money come from to fund those accounts?