Regulators and Industry "Hook-Up"
There are some real connections between Wall Street and prostitution. See this [6], this [7] and this [8].
Instead of using taxpayer-generated bailout money to help the economy, some banking executives used it for prostitutes and other gratifications [9].
The "regulators" who are supposed to act as watchdogs play a very similar game.
The Hill reported yesterday that investigators from the Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General found that some of the regulator’s employees surfed erotic websites, hired prostitutes and accepted gifts from bank executives [10] … instead of actually working to help the economy.
Likewise, senior SEC employees spent up to 8 hours a day surfing porn sites instead of cracking down on financial crimes [11].
The Minerals Management Service – the regulator charged with overseeing BP and other oil companies to ensure that oil spills don’t occur – was riddled with “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity”, which included “sex with industry contacts” [12].
Government Exists to “Serve” Banks
The chairman of the House banking committee says the role of Congress and federal regulators is to “serve” financial institutions [13]. Two other powerful congressmen say that banks “own” Congress [14].
There’s no recovery because the government made it official policy not to prosecute fraud [15] (and see this [16], this [17], this [18], and this [19]).
The cop is on the take [20] … and the government’s only actions are to cover up the fraud [17] (and see this [21]) and to leave the people holding the bag [22].
When New York Federal Reserve boss (now Treasury Secretary) Tim Geithner learned about the Libor scandal – he didn’t do anything … he simply parroted the banks’ own recommendations [23].
Indeed, the banks wrote the financial “reform” legislation [24], and “own” the regulatory apparatus [25].
Not only are the regulators are wholly captured [26], bought and paid for [27] and figuratively in bed with the people they're supposed to regulate [20], they are - as show above - literally in bed with them.
While pimping us out ...
Not Prostitutes … But Pimps
Famed trend forecaster Gerald Celente wrote [28] last year:
Politics today is little more than legalized prostitution. While a streetwalker gets busted for selling her body to a john, politicians get rewarded with campaign contributions for selling their souls to a corporation or lobbyist. With all of the whoring going on – the money exchanged and the pleasures lavished – the only
one actually getting screwed was John Q. Public.
And we noted [29] in 2009:
Many people have called politicians prostitutes.
***
But the prostitution analogy is inaccurate.
Specifically, as the chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University (Donald J. Boudreaux) points out:
Real whores, after all, personally supply the services their customers seek. Prostitutes do not steal; their customers pay them voluntarily. And their customers pay only with money belonging to these customers.In contrast, members of Congress routinely truck and barter with other people’s property…
Members of Congress are less like whores than they are like pimps for persons unwillingly conscripted to perform unpleasant services.
Consider, for example, agricultural subsidies. Each year a handful of farmers and agribusinesses receive billions of taxpayer dollars. These are dollars that government forcibly takes from the pockets of taxpayers and then transfers to farmers.
The customers, in this case, are the farmers and agribusinesses. The suppliers of the services performed for these customers are taxpayers, for it’s the taxpayers who possess the ultimate asset — money — that farmers and agribusinesses lust after. And the intermediaries who oblige the suppliers to satisfy the base lusts of the customers are politicians. Just as pimps facilitate their customers’ access to prostitutes’ assets, politicians facilitate their customers’ access to taxpayers’ assets.
We taxpayers have less say in the matter than we like to think. Sure, we can vote. But if even just 50.00001 percent of voters cast their ballots for the candidate proposing higher taxes, the assets of not only our pro-tax citizens, but also those of the remaining 49.00009 percent of us anti-tax citizens are put at the disposal of our pimps’ customers. (And note that many of those who vote for higher taxes are not among those persons actually subject to higher taxation)…
Politicians force taxpayers to pony it up — just as the services rendered for a pimp’s customers are rendered not by that pimp personally, but by the ladies under his charge. The pimp pockets the bulk of each payment; he’s pleased with the transaction. His customer gets serviced well in return; he’s pleased with the transaction. The only loser is the prostitute forced to share her precious assets with strangers whom she doesn’t particularly care for and who care nothing for her.
Also like the ladies under pimps’ power, taxpayers who resist being exploited risk serious consequences to their persons and pocketbooks. Uncle Sam doesn’t treat kindly taxpayers who try to avoid the obligations that he assigns to them. Government is a great deal more powerful, and often nastier, than is the typical taxpayer. Practically speaking, the taxpayer has little choice but to perform as government demands.
So to call politicians “whores” is to unduly insult women who either choose or who are forced into the profession of prostitution. These women aggress against no one; like all other respectable human beings, they do their best to get by as well as they can without violating other people’s rights.
The real villains in the prostitution arena are those pimps who coerce women into satisfying the lusts of strangers. Such pimps pocket most of the gains earned by the toil and risks involuntarily imposed upon the prostitutes they control. No one thinks this arrangement is fair or justified. No one gives pimps the title of “Honorable.” Decent people don’t care what pimps think or suppose that pimps have any special insights into what is good or bad for the women under their command. Decent people don’t pretend that pimps act chiefly for the benefit of their prostitutes. Decent people believe that pimps should be in prison.
Yet Americans continue to imagine that the typical representative or senator is an upstanding citizen, a human being worthy of being feted and listened to as if he or she possesses some unusually high moral or intellectual stature.
It’s closer to the truth to see politicians as pimps who force ordinary men and women to pony up freedoms and assets for the benefit of clients we call “special-interest groups.”
The Chinese may have a more realistic view of politicians than most Americans do: they believe that prostitutes are more trustworthy than government officials [30].
Postscript: There are other connections between prostitution and banking fraud. For example, desperate women all over the world are turning to prostitution [31] after being hit by austerity … caused by bank excess and fraud.
And many have noted the parallels between the corrupt systems which allowed Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky to sexually attack boys and the predatory financial system. See this [32] and this [33].
Fortunately, the mainstream media is working hard to educate us ... oh wait [34].