“The Bottom line is when you get away from your fundamental principles, bad things happen. Kind of like what's happening with our government and media”. — from the OP
The simple truth is that — historically speaking — Credit Suisse’s “fundamental banking principle” has been to protect the absolute “privacy” of its richest depositors.
It never mattered if it was Nazi gold, or Saudi royalty “petrodollars,” the stolen gains of the Marcos clan in the Philippines or that of corrupt African dictators, or whether it was simply a matter of quietly facilitating transactions of drug cartels & arms dealers. In the “good old days” every very rich capitalist or crook seeking untraceable tax harbors was also welcome.
This history is shared by many bank centers, from “independent” British Commonwealth islands to the “City of London.” Indeed, today Swiss banks are not in any sense worse than British banking. Russian oligarchs until very recently preferred the genteel “City of London” banks to those in Switzerland. Of course now much of that wealth is being confiscated by the British bank giants under U.S. pressure … due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
What are “fundamental banking principles” anyway? Much of the great fortunes of European and American banks originally arose from the slave trade, from colonial resource extraction, from the forced opium trade between India & China, etc.
The popular rightwing idea that it is the “political correctness” of “Liberal” bankers & politicians that has caused world financial instability is … preposterous.
Hypocrisy may indeed be the guilty compliment that vice pays to virtue, but it is not the root cause of vice, or of corruption and greed. It is also not now (nor has it ever been) at the root of fear, panic and … runs on banks.
www.theguardian.com
