Financial fraud: When gatekeepers see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil

Media’s ‘bad apple’ theory no longer works

By Naomi Wolf; The Guardian
Published: 00:00 July 16, 2012

Last fall, I argued that the violent reaction to Occupy and other protests around the world had to do with the one-percenters’ fear of the rank and file exposing massive fraud if they ever managed get their hands on the books. At that time, I had no evidence of this motivation beyond the fact that financial system reform and increased transparency were at the top of many protesters’ list of demands.

But this week presents a sick-making trove of new data that abundantly fills in this hypothesis and confirms this picture. The notion that the entire global financial system is riddled with systemic fraud and that key players in the gatekeeper roles, both in finance and in government, including regulatory bodies, know it and choose to quietly sustain this reality is one that would have only recently seemed like the frenzied hypothesis of tinhat-wearers, but this week’s headlines make such a conclusion, sadly, inevitable.