People may have outrage fatigue about Wall Street, and more stories about billionaire greedheads getting away with more stealing often cease to amaze. But the HSBC case went miles beyond the usual paper-pushing, keypad-punching sort-of crime, committed by geeks in ties, normally associated with Wall Street. In this case, the bank literally got away with murder – well, aiding and abetting it, anyway.
For at least half a decade, the storied British colonial banking power helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel, suspected in tens of thousands of murders just in the past 10 years – people so totally evil, jokes former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, that “they make the guys on Wall Street look good.” The bank also moved money for organizations linked to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and for Russian gangsters; helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions; and, in between helping murderers and terrorists and rogue states, aided countless common tax cheats in hiding their cash.
Trading Game
Trade Confidently and Safely
…and not one jail sentence, a fine only, which just amounts to a cost of doing business.
It’s ok though, they sponsor sport in Australia so they can’t be bad.
I still cant get over the fact that the most insightful commentator on the appalling behaviour of Wall Street et al works for a music magazine I read as a teenager.
WTF is wrong with every other journo in the world. A degree in media studies must be code for intellectually handicapped.
Maybe it’s because Rolling Stone mag is not reliant on advertising dollars from big financial institutions and hence doesn’t mind upsetting them, unlike the financial papers most financial journos work for.
I agree Chris. It could be a culture at the magazine. Generation Kill by Evan Wright, contributing editor of Rolling Stone, was an excellent book on the invasion of Iraq.
I suspect Greg also has a good point. You can’t rag out your bedfellows.