Crikey Chicken you are old. It was Masson by the way

It makes you sick. If it was Joe Public who'd fiddled 30 grand from the accounts company he worked for he'd be in jail. These banking shysters fiddle millions and just get a slap on the wrist and a fine that may sound a lot, but in the grand scheme of things is actually a drop in the ocean. The old ''we need to stop the cream of the employees moving on'' excuse is wearing thin too.

It's a measure of mainstream media's influence over people's minds that throughout the world poverty, starvation, joblessness etc. are repeatedly pinned on the hubris and pork-barrel largesse of enigmatic "bankers" who, aside from the two or three which flutter in front of a camera to attend some sham court meeting, remain overwhelmingly anonymous.

Everyone (including the government) agree they are guilty. Which, if they were "terrorists" and we lived in the US, is sufficient burden of proof to instigate executive action and launch an assassination drone - even for a thirteen-year old banker.

But do the bankers of JPM simply get up one morning and whilst shaving concoct some audacious scheme through which they can bet the Morgan oligarchy's money - [icompletely without their knowledge?[/i

Does the Rockefeller clan look only straight ahead as it marches through the marble offices of Citibank for fear that employees might think they've come to spy on them? [iIf so it must have come as a great shock to discover back in 2009 that they were sitting on a mountain of bad debt. If only they'd remained vigilant![/i

If Paul Mason were half as honest as he wants you to believe he'd admit this is as much a sham as any offered up by carnival hucksters. [iYeah.... let me look as though I give a hoot standing outside whilst shouting at those GREEDY BANKERS[/i. But a serious investigation into the major American financial oligarchies and their role in this debacle? Go back to sleep, Paul.

Expanding the point further - there's an excellent and thoroughly well-researched book by Nomi Prins titled [url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Presidents-Bankers-Nomi-Prins/dp/156858749XAll The Presidents Bankers[/url which really does shine much needed light on the big banking families.

It's easy to think crooked investment bankers are a relatively modern phenomenon. But blaming "a few bad apples", "rogue traders", "risk takers" etc. dates back to the creation of the modern banking system three hundred years ago.

Prins' work kind of tails off circa Bush-Clinton largely because her source material (formerly in voluminous and surprisingly honest and accurate detail) was increasingly choked off by red tape and mysterious state secrecy laws.

But based on the eighty years of material going back to the creation of the United States Federal Reserve she concluded there was rarely an economic crisis which wasn't initiated by one or more of the giant banking oligarchies and such invariably made off like bandits in the aftermath whilst every third family was losing its house.

Let us remember that this is an industry which bats not an eye as billions (even trillions) of dollars of drug money is cycled through its systems each year. And before anyone seriously suggests they DON'T KNOW it's drug money I should point out that no lesser source than the Financial Times reported a couple of years ago that the chairman of Citibank had actually flown down to Columbia in order to swing a deal which would see the biggest cocaine trafficker in that nation receive the kind of checking account privileges you and I can only dream of.

The whole JP Morgan, Rockerfeller, Rothchild banking family conspiricy has been around for donkey's years. There's countless books and documentarys about it. It's commonly called the Illuminati. The Zietgiest movement is probably the most famous recent example of a group trying to lift the lid on the whole thing. There's other more 'out there' 'Illuminati commentators' like Alex Jones and David Icke. David Icke actually has a lot interesting things to say... Until he talks about the reptilian master race of course.

I have no interest in "The Illuminati" whatsoever.

I did watch the first Zeitgeist documentary and agreed on a couple of broad issues. But I have no interest in watching subsequent editions or aligning myself with some "movement".