Welcome login | signup
Language en es fr
OccupyForum

Forum Post: They Are Thieves. $60-Million Bribery Discovery.

Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 14, 2011, 10:03 a.m. EST by vets74 (344) from New York, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Let's be clear that many individuals in "The 1%" are honest, moral people. Wealth can be amassed without committing crimes. But at the same time, modern capitalism rewards unprosecuted criminal conspiracies with what can be billion dollar pay-outs.

NY Times today covers Siemens executives running one of their multimillion dollar bribery schemes.

  • $60-million in direct bribes to Argentinian officials
  • $1-billion in contracts
  • Get-Out-Free Card from Argentinian law enforcement

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/business/global/former-siemens-executives-charged-with-bribery.html


  • Sample:

"Shell companies, Swiss bank accounts, double-crossing middlemen and cash being smuggled across borders were all part of a decade-long bribery scheme aimed at helping Siemens, the German industrial giant, secure a $1 billion contract to produce national identity cards for Argentina, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

"Eight former executives and contractors of Siemens were charged on Tuesday with criminal bribery in the case, the department said. According to the indictment, the men conspired to pay more than $100 million in bribes to “high-level Argentine officials” in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Among those indicted was Uriel Sharef, who from July 2000 to July 2007 was a Siemens managing board member, a position just below the rank of chief executive.

"Roughly $60 million in bribes were paid in the case, a Justice Department official said. ..."


This is one scheme out of many. These guys were running a check-out line for pay-to-play transactions. Nothing new. Nothing unusual.

We have to assume that the bribery payment technology was available to bribe anybody, anywhere. The Swiss bank accounts. The odd sounding transaction categories.

Got a prosecutor, anywhere? Got a purchasing officer?

They got it knocked for doing the pay-offs. Worse yet, there's thousands of these multinationals, all competing for global domination. They all have these tools. They don't give a hoot for honesty or for their impacts on society. They're only successful where they can grab off $1-billion at a whack.

They got it knocked.

For Occupy, there is a lesson here. It's not capitalism. Really. It's where capitalism gets perverted by criminal schemes. The Depression of 2008 was caused by $7.3-trillion of fully-accounted criminal schemes. Letting criminals run wild with billion-at-a-whack thefts - each one similar to this Siemens scam - was how it happened.

Occupy is anti-crime. Occupy is nonviolent. We are the 99% and we must go in peace.

7 Comments

7 Comments


Read the Rules
[-] 1 points by LSN45 (535) 12 years ago

Bongo! It is "crony capitalism" and rapidly becoming "neo-fuedalism."

Here's my 2 cents:

There are a lot of improvements that need to be made. The list reforms people Americans want to see is long and varied depending on who you talk to. That said, I believe there is one reform that would provide the American people the best chances of seeing other meaningful reforms actually happen - that is REAL, loop-hope free CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM! I have seen others on this site calling this the "fulcrum" or pivotal issue. Right now the current legalized bribery, pay-to-play system of campaign donations and paid lobbyists has disenfranchised the American voter. Until this is fixed, any other reform the politicians may try to placate us with (be it a change to healthcare, clamping down predatory school loans, new financial regulations, etc.) will be about as effective as a farmer putting a new roof on his CHICKEN COOP, but still letting the FOX guard it.

We need to go back to the original political currency. Instead of the current system of who can collect the most money from corporations and special interests it should be who has the BEST IDEAS to EFFECTIVELY RUN THE COUNTRY (we don't need "Wealth Redistribution," what we need is "Political Influence Redistribution")!

For the sake of our children and future generations of Americans, we need to take back our democracy from the rich and powerful who are using their vast sums of money to "speak" as if they represent millions of Americans. This "Corporate Personhood" that has crept into our laws is allowing them to manipulating our policies in their favor at the expense of the average American (the recent "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling is a miscarriage of justice and must be reversed. The $50 or $100 a normal American may give to a political campaign becomes meaningless when corporations or other special interests are handing our millions to buy political access to the decision making process.

For decades now the corporations and special interests have had our "representatives" bought and paid for (both on the right and the left). Concentrating our efforts on getting the money out of our politics is the best way we can create an environment in which further reforms can be realized. Until we end the current system of legalized bribery (campaign donations) and paid lobbying our politicians will continue to be the LAP DOGS of the corporations and special interests. What we need first and foremost is real, loop-hole free CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM!!!! If the corruption is not dealt with first, the chance of any other meaningful reforms becoming a reality is almost zero - the special interests will just use their money to buy votes and put forward bills that create loop-holes or otherwise twist the law in their favor. If we want our children to live in a country where there vote matters, we need to get the money out of our politics, otherwise they will increasingly become the 21st century version of the "landless peasant." Spread the word - End the LEGALIZED BRIBERY!!! CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM needs to be THE main goal of the protests!!!

[-] 0 points by vets74 (344) from New York, NY 12 years ago

There's at least a Four Horsemen of Corruption:

  • Political Bribery, including campaign donations and the revolving-door lobbying jobs for helpful/sell-out Senators and Congressmen
  • RICO Banks, for money laundering and supporting terrorist organizations and misstating values of on-the-books assets (parallel to what was prosecuted vigorously in 1991-1995)
  • Mortgage Fraud, still failing to properly verify and validate the contract text referenced through MERS and generating false increases to payment demands (remarkably where interest rates were falling) and simple forgery
  • Pension Fraud, riding in a pair with Investment Fraud, committing common law fraud with designed-to-fail CDO MBA bonds with bribery-driven "AAA" ratings and with the valueless CDS scams hidden with misuse of the legal term "synthetic ownership"

The direct crimes totaled $7.3-trillion in the period 2003-2011 that we know of.

Polluting our Congress ??? Whatever's the opposite of "priceless."

$2-million a year for a second-dipper Congressman is powerful temptation.

[-] 1 points by FrogWithWings (1367) 12 years ago

Collateral damages, somebody gets a black eye. Shell out more money and they'll walk.

[-] 0 points by Renaye (522) 12 years ago

If this gets your blood boiling, and it should, then here's another one you may like. Pay attention to the list of accused.

http://divinecosmos.com/start-here/davids-blog/995-lawsuit-end-tyranny

The gentleman in the interview, Benjamin Fulford, has been missing for two days. Suspected held against his will.

[-] 0 points by vets74 (344) from New York, NY 12 years ago

AG Coakley's civil filing in Massachusetts against the five banks is good reading.

[-] 0 points by Renaye (522) 12 years ago

Thanks! I'll give it a go.

[-] 0 points by economicallydiscardedcitizen (761) 12 years ago

And please tell me what happened to the cellophane wrapped blocks of bills that disappeared in Iraq which you can see documented here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fk6qkHs0oM The New American Century www.newamericancentury.org

[Removed]