From this morning's International Forecaster:

If only life were like an old-time radio drama. Unfortunately in this age of liar's loans and mortgagegate, robo-signing and QE Infinity, too big to fail and too big to jail, any pretense that the globalist financial system is based on the rule of law has long since been jettisoned. In the current environment, crime not only pays, it pays handsomely. And just as Adolf Hitler outlined the old principle of propaganda that 'the bigger the lie, the more likely people are to believe it,' the banksters of our age seem to have discovered a corresponding principle in the financial realm: the bigger the fraud, the more likely they are to get away with it.

Take the SEC/Goldman Sachs debacle from earlier this year. Back in February, Goldman received a Wells Notice. For those not in the know, a Wells Notice is a type of courtesy card from the SEC letting an institution know they may or may not be facing enforcement action for their alleged crimes. The charge in this case? Goldman's role in the mortgage backed security scam in the subprime mortgage crisis that led to the housing collapse of 2007 and the near total destruction of the global economic system. You know, that little problem? Goldman's role in this debacle was not a matter of conjecture. A Senate inquiry into the MBS scam laid it bare. As Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Carl Levin put it in a statement from the inquiry:

“Investment banks such as Goldman Sachs were not simply market-makers, they were self-interested promoters of risky and complicated financial schemes that helped trigger the crisis. They bundled toxic mortgages into complex financial instruments, got the credit rating agencies to label them as AAA securities, and sold them to investors, magnifying and spreading risk throughout the financial system, and all too often betting against the instruments they sold and profiting at the expense of their clients.”

Those are some pretty heavy accusations. So what proof did the Senate have to back up those claims? Goldman's own words. “Sounds like we will make some serious money,” one senior Goldman manager emailed his colleague at the start of the crisis. “Yes we are well positioned,” his colleague responded, referring to Goldman's strategy to sell the AAA-certified toxic garbage subprime MBS to customers and cover their posteriors by betting against those very securities in the derivatives market.

Open and shut case, right? Surely this type of behaviour has to be made an example of. Surely the agency in charge of regulating the institutions at the core of the global financial system would not let this type of conduct go unpunished? Surely, even if the investigation was not to end up in the trial of the century it would, at the very least, result in hefty fines and crippling sanctions against the institutions that helped to bring about the mess. Surely, at the very very least, there would be an obligatory slap on the wrist after a lengthy, headline-grabbing show trial?

Surely not. Last month the SEC announced there would be no criminal charges at all against Goldman. The vampire squid was free to go about its business, sucking the blood from the real economy, wrapping its tentacles around the levers of finance and releasing its inky smoke trail to deflect any would-be prosecutors.

So what is a rational response to this irrational decision?

“On the sixth month anniversary of the announcement of the so-called financial crisis task force, the twin announcements yesterday that Goldman Sachs and its executives will not be charged by either the SEC or DOJ for conduct directly related to the toxic assets at the heart of the crisis is a stark reminder that no individual or institution has been held meaningfully accountable for their role in the financial crisis. And without such accountability, the unending parade of megabanks scandals will inevitably continue.”