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Robert answered on
Dec 21 2021
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1
Administrative Ethics.
The issue this paper will address is covered in the “Whistleblowers Warfare” and
“Great Mortgage Cover-Up” section of the Center for Public Integrity pages. They essentially
tell a sorty of a group of economic agents who have, through particular legal subversions of
the system and intimidation, managed to win exceptions both to the rule of law as it is
oadly applied and the spirit of the law, despite always being legally covered by settlement
agreements and powerful legal representation. There are clear
eaches of public sector ethics
in several places, such as the well-documented „revolving door‟ between Goldman Sachs, the
Federal Reserve, and the Treasury.
In essence, large corporations – particularly banks, and including state-owned lenders
– have systematically escaped protection for fraud on such a large scale that they caused the
cu
ent global economic crisis. This was done in collusion with successive governments,
pushing a neoliberal model that saw removal of necessary legislation controlling the scale
and possible risk of activities, and including coming to settlement agreements with the
Department of Justice. To date, no major bank or representative has been found guilty of a
criminal charge, with the recent Federal Settlement of Foreclosure Misconduct Claim
amounting to a fine and a waiver of the admission of guilt (as is true of all settlements)
(Lehman, 2012). This is the highest such award since the Tobacco Settlement in 1998, in
which the tobacco industry managed to avoid admission of guilt for hiding and denying the
knowledge that smoking causes a wide variety of health disorders, such as cancer.
More recently, it has become clear that despite the incentives instituted in the Dodd-
Frank Act (2010), the major banks are supressing whistleblowing severely, punishing staff
simply for questions visibly fraudulent practices. There are several stories detailed of
Countrywide in particular firing staff for pursuing internal investigations or questioning
illegal behaviour, and yet despite this whistleblowing cases of fraud are yet to materialise.
2
Again, this is a situation that is likely to increase over time, since the threat of ensure and
advantages of fraud remain high and low, respectively.
The pattern of government acquiescence to the desire for such settlements is reducing,
however, with judges increasingly refusing to allow a settlement to occur. On the other hand,
it has become clear that The Troubled Asset Relief Programme (Frank et al., 2008) and
equivalent relief programmes were actively undermined by the banks that were meant to be
enacting them. The results have been poor for all stakeholders except for the corporations and
persons involved; and even there it actually does harm, since they continue with the same
practices having suffered no meaningful censure as a result of their fraudulent actions. The
Department of Justice, and government in general, are steadily losing public support and trust
as the economic crisis continues and these most directly responsible are seen to be in
positions of power still, rather than under trial. This is critical, since it indicates a
deterioration of the...