UK, US govts hand in hand with bankers committing financial crimes

Iceland is a great example of a country which had the courage to prosecute bankers, and that’s largely because it’s not controlled by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, Max Keiser, financial analyst and host of the Keiser Report on RT, says.

Four former bank bosses in Iceland have been jailed for financial fraud. They were accused of hiding the fact that a Qatari investor bought into the firm [Kaupthing Bank], with money lent illegally by the bank itself. It went bust in 2008, helping to cripple Iceland's economy.

Keiser says, what is considered a crime in Iceland is flourishing thanks to government support in the UK and the US.

RT: What are the broader ramifications of this case?

Max Keiser: I think we need to understand that in this crime that was committed in Iceland, with the participation of the government in Qatar, you have a classic Ponzi scheme where a bank was lending money to Qatar to buy shares in banks in Iceland to artificially inflate the price of the stock of the bank, and then they would use that artificially high bank stock price to make loans, to make acquisitions and then when the bubble burst it all came down. And of course there was a crime committed, and the Icelandic government is now prosecuting for that financial fraud.

But what's interesting is that if you look at what's happening in the UK right now - HSBC, Barklays, Lloyds, and the Royal Bank of Scotland in particular - they are participating in exactly the same fraud with the help and participation of the Bank of England. It's a program called quantitative easing where central bank loans to the commercial banks to buy stock or bonds in this case in the central bank. So they are doing the same exact thing that in Iceland is a crime.

I think because Iceland, Russia, Iran and China are all banking systems that are outside of the control of the Federal Reserve in America or the Bank of England in the UK, they are free to prosecute financial crimes. They don't have that freedom in the UK because the bankers are protected by the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland, the Federal Reserve in New York who collude on a global basis to line the pockets of the criminals, in this case the bankers in the UK and the US, and of course their economies are suffering catastrophically as a result of this: poverty is on the rise, and living standards in the UK are crashing worse than they've ever crashed since the Victorian times.

RT:Any chance other high-flying financial scammers will now find themselves in the dock on similar charges?

MK: The banking zones outside of Russia, Iran, China and Iceland are pretty much controlled by what's known as the Rothschild influence. The Rothschild of course in their family really owns the Central Banks in America and the Bank of England. But China, Russia, Iran and Iceland don't have to answer to the Rothschild, so they are free to prosecute what I call financial terrorists.

RT:To what extent should governments control financial institutions and their deals.

MK: Governments are completely co-opted by the bankers. The UK government has been co-opted by Barclays. And the Royal Bank of Scotland in particular was just caught targeting small businesses for death where they were setting small businesses up to fail so their affiliates could swoop in and buy assets for pennies on the dollar. So [they've been] acting as what I call financial terrorists with the full cooperation of David Cameron, George Osborne and Mark Carney, head of the Bank of England. They are fully engaged in the confiscation of wealth using what I call financial apartheid and other tricks to essentially steal wealth from the vast majority for the benefit of a very few bankers who work globally.

But not in Iceland! Iceland had the courage to do what we've seen in some other territories, by prosecuting bankers. In Vietnam a banker caught committing a financial crime was executed. There needs to be a deterrent against a financial fraud of this magnitude.

Capital punishment seems maybe a good idea if it will deter bankers from committing acts of financial terrorism. In the US, capital punishment is legal. I say use it to go after the really bad guys, the people of Wall Street, the people of the Central Bank; stop killing poor black kids in Texas because you don't like the way they look and go after the white guys on Wall Street who commit genuine acts of financial terrorism. They've got capital punishment - use it to better society, not just kill poor kids.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.