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How is it, Western nation taxpayers might openly wonder, that no one has been brought to the bar for befuddling EuroZone governments while putting tens of millions of people out of work?

Washington

Last Friday ( January 13, 2012 ) Standard & Poor’s downgraded credit ratings for nine euro-zone countries in a move that had implications far beyond Europe. At it’s heart, S&P’s statement on the credit worthiness of certain EuroZone governments was at the very least disquieting — if not outright scary.

Avoiding Proximate Cause

What S&P does not say is that absent restoration of responsible governance in and among the world’s richest and most sophisticated nations, credit watch status is only the first step in what could lead to the effective collapse of the Euro.

The issues raised by S&P are appropriately technical and financial, but their underlying causes are neither. What S&P does not say is that absent restoration of responsible governance in and among the world’s richest and most sophisticated nations, credit watch status could foreshadow a collapse of the Euro.

The problem, of course, is not the Euro — or the ridiculous notion that a single currency can survive when every participating nation is free to debase the shared currency’s value to all in favor of short-term benefit at home.

The proximate cause of Europe’s financial instability — and monetary turmoil among the weakest of the EuroZone nations — is an invisible elephant in the room ignominiously labeled failed governance.

Europe is not alone in ignoring the elephant, for the ongoing unraveling of Western Governance is every-bit as shameful and debilitating here in Washington as the old World Capitals where the political class is still trying to kick the can down the road in the vain hope that the goddamn elephant will go away.

By whatever name the unseen and unaddressed elephant is known, the reality at hand in and among the major Western nations is failed governance enabled by those who pretend to be responsible adults who openly suborn truth yet abdicate responsibility.

No matter the debt issues in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy out-of-control banks and criminal bankers remain joyfully in control — inexplicably uncharged for their crimes and for the moment out of jail.

Faultless Criminality

How is it, Western nation taxpayers might openly wonder, that no one has been brought to the bar for befuddling EuroZone governments while putting tens of millions of people out of work?

Four years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers there have been no meaningful penalties for either those institutions or persons who recklessly brought down global credit markets. Who were the people who so severely damaged everyone else by their greed, fraud, corruption, mismanagement and reckless risk-taking?

What S&P is telling us is neither obscure, nor complicated.

In a world where there are no consequences for the most egregious crimes and misdemeanors governance has failed. Absent responsible governance the issues of trust upon which finance and banking depend quickly fade from certainty into uncertainty.

Now Is The Time To Weed Out The Criminals

It’s as if two centuries of Western thought, philosophical foundations, values and ethics have mysteriously disappeared.

The unfolding failures of governance in Washington are more than ideological for both the body politic and the levers of government are deeply corrupted by money in politics and the power of institutions seeking private advantage at public expense.

If our nation, or the EuroZone is to survive, government by and for the people must be restored. The place to begin is a public investigation, on both sides of the Atlantic, of those persons and institutions who killed the Golden Goose by their own greed, avarice and criminal behavior.

It’s time to put criminal bankers in jail and end the tyranny of high risk financial institutions and irresponsible shadow banks.