Prem Sikka: Credit Suisse leaks expose an industry that has got away with too much for too long /Joseph Stiglitz: Credit Suisse has allowed the morally bankrupt to steal from the poor

By Dilip -

How do the banks continue to get away with it? The latest revelations about Credit Suisse provide yet another glimpse into the corrosive nexus of banks, corporations, accountants, lawyers and financial intermediaries that enables the wealthy and political elites to profit from illicit practices. The bank itself is no stranger to predatory practices. Since 2001 it has been fined at least 47 times by the US authorities and paid fines totalling $10.7bn. Since 2010, it has also been fined on at least six occasions by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and paid fines totalling more than £300m. The fines have become just another cost of doing business, and are passed on to customers.

Credit Suisse is not alone. The roll of dishonour shown by the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Pandora Papers, HSBC leaks, Luxembourg leaks and others shows that virtually every major bank is involved in predatory practices. All these leaks have provoked a public debate – but have drawn a minimal response from governments…

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/21/credit-suisse-industry-government-inquiry-bank


King of Jordan used Swiss accounts to hoard massive wealth


Joseph Stiglitz: Credit Suisse has allowed the morally bankrupt to steal from the poor for too long

The bombshell revelations of the Suisse secrets, reported by the Guardian and a number of international outlets, are a continuation of the path-breaking work of the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers. In one sense, it’s the same old story over and over again. Every time journalists lift the financial sector’s curtain of secrecy, a web of corruption and nefarious activities is revealed, disproportionately from shady customers and families of dictators, with a smattering of seemingly respectable politicians in democracies caught in the net.

But this time, there’s something different. This time it’s not a small, obscure offshore island or a struggling developing country trying to figure out an alternative business model to drugs. It’s a major bank in the middle of Europe, in one of the most prosperous countries in the world; a country where the “rule of law” is supposed to reign supreme. …

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/21/credit-suisse-secrets-morally-bankrupt-steal-poor-switzerland


Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?


WHITNEY WEBB: Wall Street now monetizes nature


Walter Benjamin: Capitalism as Religion (1921)


Sam Kriss: 'Neoliberalism' isn't a left-wing insult but a monstrous system of inequality


Defying capitalism and socialism, Kumarappa and Gandhi had imagined a decentralised Indian economy - Venu Madhav Govindu & Deepak Malghan


Noam Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction (Universalizing Resistance)


Society of the Spectacle / 'इमेज' - 'Image': A Poem on Deaths in the Age of Covid


George Monbiot - Asymmetric force: Pegasus spyware is the latest tool autocrats are using to stay in power


George Lakey on Capitalism, public health and the Nordic model


Lynn Parramore: The perverted dreams of western modernity and capitalism may be exhausting themselves


Dilip Simeon: What is corruption?


Tanya Gold - How materialism makes us sad


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