The global financial crisis, it is now clear, was caused not just by the
bankers' colossal mismanagement. No, it was due also to the new
financial complexity offering up the opportunity for widespread,
systemic fraud. Friday's announcement that the world's most famous
investment bank, Goldman Sachs, is to face civil
charges for fraud brought by the American regulator is but the latest of
a series of investigations that have been launched, arrests made and
charges made against financial institutions around the world. Big
Finance in the 21st century turns out to have been Big Fraud. Yet
Britain, centre of the world financial system, has not yet levelled
charges against any bank; all that we've seen is the allegation of a
high-level insider dealing ring which, embarrassingly, involves a banker
advising the government. We have to live with the fiction that our
banks and bankers are whiter than white, and any attempt to investigate
them and their institutions will lead to a mass exodus to the mountains
of Switzerland. The politicians of the Labour and Tory party alike are
Bambis amid the wolves. MORE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now we know the truth. The financial meltdown wasn’t a mistake – it was a con
