US jails its financial whiz kids...we knight them.

It could only happen in the USA, Allan Stanford a financial whiz-kid was jailed for one hundred and ten years [do people live that long?] for ripping off the system according to a court in the US. He received 40 years less than Bernard Madoff [pictured] who was jailed for 150 years for running a Ponzi scheme that most US financial giants used, and still do from most accounts, outfits like Merrill Lynch have all been fined millions and millions of dollars for offences not unlike that committed by Allan Stanford, who claimed that his bank did not use Ponzi schemes. He said “What was different was that I was not a part of the Wall Street crowd that took bailouts from the government to prop up their Ponzi type schemes”. He has a point; from his point of view it would seem that there is one law for some and another law for others. To my mind it simply proves how corrupt our financial system has become. Spain, Greece and Italy are all victims of a open slather Ponzi based corrupt corporate and international financial market systems that robs the poor to pay the rich, and we here in NZ are half way down the same track.

Stanford’s sentence must please the Sensible Sentencing Trust dream for NZ, but does it, because it’s not tough or outspoken on white collar crime…funny that don’t you think.

The Sunday Star Times letter of the week [June 17^th 2012] was named: “How not to set an economic example” And I quote: “It is interesting to observe the different reactions from world leaders to the current economic problems. France calls for a 30% cut for government members, plus a limit to CE salaries at 20 times that of the lowest paid employees. India decrees a ban on meetings in five star hotels, travel curbs, no new diplomatic posts and bans buying new vehicles.

Here National buys new BMWs, locks in ex-politicians’ and family members world travel perks, refuses to consider a reduction in MP numbers, and gives tax cuts to higher income earners. All this while forcing reductions in the public service; when are we going to get a government that leads by example?

David F Little [Whangarei]

David makes a valid point and one we should all take note of. It is absolutely ironic if not amazing that the regions richest leader should be asking the nation to tighten its belt to save the country while he continues to accept his one thousand plus dollar a week tax cut. After all part of the mess we are in is because of his past behaviour in an industry that has brought the world to its knees.