The Credibility Trap Is at the Heart of the Failure to Reform

Unfortunately it appears that the political process is bogged down in fighting an ideological trench warfare in which both sides are taking top down positions about what is right and wrong, without the ability to address the actual conditions that plague their nation in the sixth year of The Recovery™.

It reminds one of an old beer marketing campaign, in which one cadre of devotees yells 'Less filling' and the other shouts back, 'Tastes great!'

 

Why is this? What causes such willing blindness to what is actually happening?

The credibility trap explains much of it.

In this corrupt political process, the deeply complicit politicians say and do what they are being paid to think, say, and do by a narrow band of powerful constituents amongst the competing moneyed interests.

 

They seem less like political parties than competing crime families.  And they are deeply entrenched in exactly what has gone wrong.   So deeply, with such strong ties to past mistakes, influence peddling, and corrupt practices, that they can no longer even speak freely and frankly about it.

 

The SEC is 'probing why companies mistreat whistleblowers.'   Hah!  And where do you think that companies might have gotten the idea that cracking down on whistleblowers was the thing to do?

 

They talked about change and hope, but they never let up on deception and fear.

 

Nobody's right, if everybody's wrong..

Reforming the Fed: Who’s Right; Who’s Wrong?

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

February 26, 2015

...Republicans are locked in some kind of mind warp where the remedy for every problem is to deregulate. Despite six years of books, academic studies, investigative findings, and a 600-page report from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission proving that deregulation was responsible for the financial crash of 2008 – the greatest financial implosion since the Great Depression – Republicans refuse to let facts get in the way of pushing for more deregulation.

Democrats on the other hand, despite overwhelming proof that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act has actually allowed Wall Street to grow systemically more dangerous and more corrupt since its passage, is irrationally wedded to this legislation.

No amount of evidence will change the Democrats’ position on Dodd-Frank. JPMorgan gambling with hundreds of billions of bank depositors’ money in the London Whale fiasco where $6.2 billion got flushed down the toilet will not change their mind. Cartel activity among the big banks in the interest rate market, precious metals market, foreign currency market will not change their mind. Bank chat rooms called “The Bandits Club,” “The Mafia” and “The Cartel,” where brazen market rigging is alleged to have occurred will not change their mind. Endless criminal investigations and multi-billion dollar settlements will not change their mind. Scandal after scandal destroying public trust in Wall Street and its regulators will not change their mind...

Read the entire article here.