Re: Banking Secrecy and Nazi Gold

[Rich Graves <rcgraves@disposable.com>]

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According to the archives, Tim May wrote:

> I suspect the U.S. pressure on Swiss banks has a political dimension
> related to forcing a New World Order on international banking. The
> U.S. wants banking secrecy subject to U.S. control (so that banks
> like Castle Bank, Nugan Hand Bank, Banco Ambrosiano, BCCI, and the
> Bank of America can continue to be used for U.S. interests, and
> only U.S. interests).

I think this is the first time I've ever said this about Tim, whom
I usually read first, but "That's nuts."

The political game is simple: The Wiesenthal Center and the World
Jewish Congress are in a pissing contest to see who can recover
the most cash. (There are two different class action lawsuits
going, one from each organization.) Senator Alphonse "I Love to
Make Noise" D'Amato is pandering. Some former members of the
intelligence community are involved, but that shouldn't be
surprising given the fact that they grew up as Nazi hunters.

In general I agree with Tim's argument and the mean (if not all the
details) of the followups, but I'd like to restress a few things:

1) The reason Jews used Swiss banks is precisely that they were
   secret, fercryingoutloud.

2) Sure, some banks took advantage of the power disparity (even if
   the victims had little guarantee that they'd be able to recover
   their assets, if they didn't squirrel them away soon they'd be
   sure to go to the Nazis). That makes them scum. But screwing
   with bank secrecy ain't the way to fix that Reputation Problem.

3) The reason governments and not just banks & individuals are
   involved is that some unclaimed deposits went to the government,
   which sent them off to Eastern Europe.

- -rich
 http://www.stanford.edu/~llurch/

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