I am posting this to make sure we all know that JP Morgan is no passive bank, that occasionally becomes involved with financial criminals like Madoff or the MF Global crowd.Â
The criminal charges are likely to be a ‘deferred prosecution’ which means that while JPM may admit to wrongdoing, unusual in the vast majority of settlements for financial crimes, there will in fact be no prosecution or revelations in court.Â
This is why the ‘stimulus’ of the Keynesians will not work. They have skipped the critical step in the FDR framework of reforming the financial system, or at least making a serious intent to do so. As it is, Dodd-Frank turned out to be the terms of surrender of the republic which Wall Street dictated to its servants in the government.
The tragedy of our day may have been the financialisation of the Democratic party and the evisceration of the progressive movement, which helped to remove the last remaining significant government counterbalance serving the people to those elements of society which had become the servile mouthpiece for Big Business and Big Money, no matter what ideological disguises or social niceties which they may wish to put upon their intentions. And as for complicity in the abuses of the world, we have the power of our refusal. Our refusal to participate in the madness, to be seduced by it, to become a part of it.
Why speak out? Why attempt to do anything? Because someday I wish, at the very least, to be able to look my grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the eye and say, “I did what I could. I am sorry. But I did not forget you.” And my poor parents, both gone now these many years, will know wherever they may be that I did not dishonor their memory.
And we may now reread history and discover that this is the challenge of every generation and the rule of our cause, to be in the world, but not of its worst elements. Not to shun the world, but to be a comfort, and a shield, and a source of hope to its victims.
