Confidence in a systemically corrupt financial system cannot be restored without a complete public exposure of all the lies, fraud, misinformation and complicity.
The truth has a unique sting, and an equally unique ability to heal the destruction wrought by dishonesty, fraud and lies. The truth hurts, because the daylight of truth demands changes that the self-serving and those in denial desperately wish to avoid.
But there can be no healing or reconciliation without the truth, baldly stated and plainly spoken without artifice or spin.
If we can finally be truthful with ourselves as a nation, then we must admit that our financial system is fundamentally based on lies, fraud, embezzlement, misinformation, perverse filters and incentives, shadow systems that mock transparency and regulation, class privilege and the systemic flouting of the rule of law.
This is the truth that hurts because it reveals the financial system as one stupendous exploitative fraud; but it also reveals the complicity and irrelevance of our judicial system and the complete capture of the legislative and Executive processes of governance.
There is a system of government in which rule of law is merely a propaganda screen, where financial and political Elites run the show and escape the consequences of their actions: it's called tyranny. The truth is that we live in a financial tyranny.
There is no other truthful way to describe the U.S.
If you want evidence, then ask yourself:
How many people have been indicted, convicted and served time for financial crimes during the current era of financial fraud and malfeasance, the most pervasive in U.S. history?
Answer: essentially none; the number is signal noise.
Was the American public lied to about the need and true purpose of TARP and the other bank bailouts?
Answer: yes.
Did Congress meekly cave into the demands to "save the banks" and swallow whole the most absurd threats, i.e. save our cronies lest anarchy become the order of the day?
Answer: yes.
Did the Federal Reserve backstop the banks to the tune of $7.7 trillion in complete secrecy?
Answer: yes.
Are there two sets of laws and rules, one for the Financial and Political Elites, who are free from oversight and the rule of law, and another for the rest of us?
Answer: yes. Just look at the massive level of corruption and systemic fraud, and the near-zero number of investigations which result in indictments, convictions and prison time.
Has anything been done to change any of this systemically?
Answer: no. The Kleptocratic Power Elite likes the system as is.
This is the perfection of financial tyranny.
The Status Quo is anxious to "restore confidence" in their corrupt financial tyranny, but without confessing the corruption or naming names. In a system constructed of lies, then sweeping the lies under the carpet and acting like "everything's fixed now, let's move on" restores nothing--rather, it proves the system is a sham.
Nothing is fixed until the whole truth and nothing but the truth is revealed for all to see, in broad daylight. This is the origin of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions that have been established after a brutal tyranny has finally fallen, and the ruined nation seeks to heal itself from the misrule and exploitation of its Elites and from the officially sanctioned coverups of systemic corruption and predation.
Quite frankly, the American system of justice is too far gone, too corrupted, too worm-eaten, to issue justice at this point. It would be nice if national resources were devoted to rooting out the fraud from 2001 on, but if nothing has been done to date except wrist-slap fines, then we cannot expect a thoroughly compromised and corrupted judiciary to suddenly transform itself into a judiciary worthy of democracy.
But we can demand a Truth Commission, where every one of the millions of people who committed fraud and who lied or mis-stated the truth can come forward and state the truth and name names, under oath. Everyone from the notaries who robo-signed foreclosures and home buyers who mis-stated their income and assets to obtain mortgages to the Wall Street apparatchiks who packaged the mortgages knowing they were fraudulent, the executives who looked the other way, to the politicos who accepted contributions from the engines of financial tyranny-- give each and every one the chance to come forward and state the truth of their role in the system of fraud, collusion, avarice, lies and complicity.
Every single employee of Wall Street and the investment/mortgage banks and those Federal and State agencies tasked with their oversight should be called forth and given a chance to free themselves of the guilt of silence and self-serving complicity in a massively, systemically corrupt system. Those who refuse the opportunity will be duly noted and their names entered in a public register of those who must have known some small sliver of the system but who have refused to tell the truth under oath.
The names of those who worked the machine revealed by their peers will also be publicly listed. If they think it unfair to be identified, then let them come forth and state the truth under oath. If they lie or mis-state the truth once again, then let them go to prison for perjury.
If 10,000 citizens lie to protect themselves from the truth, then let us empty the prisons of petty drug users and fill them with white-collar perjurors.
There is no other way to "restore confidence" but to insist that the truth finally matters. This will not be justice, but it will at least release the healing power of truth.