Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

We know you’re all just poor corrupt officials, but bleating excuses won’t save you from the karmic payoff.

The Federal Reserve can be summed up in two famous lines from the classic film Casablanca in which the corrupt police official Renault is ordered to close Rick’s cafe.

Renault: I’m shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here.

[The croupier hands Renault a wad of cash]: Your winnings, sir.

The Fed is totally, completely, fatally corrupt. Only those being handed their ill-gotten gains defend the Fed. Everyone who is isn’t totally, completely, fatally corrupt wants America’s financial Politburo tossed on the bonfire of history.

The Fed’s response to its highest-level officials minting millions in insider trading is as transparent as Captain Renault’s shock: only when the putrid corruption filling every nook and cranny of the Fed seeps out under the door does the Fed suddenly announce it’s shocked that insider trading is going on in here.

Any agency with the faintest wisp of integrity would claw back all the trading gains of every Fed official and employee, but since the Fed is totally, completely, fatally corrupt, the Politiburo’s mega-millionaires are handed their winnings like the comically corrupt Captain Renault.

At least the fictional Captain Renault had a sense of self-deprecating humor: at one point he declares, "I’m only a poor corrupt official." Chairman Powell, here’s your cue: go ahead, say it: "I’m only a poor corrupt official."

But the fatal corruption of America’s financial Politburo isn’t unique; it’s of a piece with the rest of America’s fatally corrupt status quo, from the mega-millionaires in Congress minting millions in stocks (here’s looking at you, Ms. Pelosi) to the Big Pharma parasites who evade responsibility for killing tens of thousands of Americans with their falsely labeled medications (non-addictive, huh), the entirety of America’s ruling elite is totally, completely, fatally corrupt, from the billions collected by contractors in Afghanistan to the corporate insiders minting billions with stock buy-backs–a form of fraud that was illegal back before America became a moral cesspool.

Kleptocrats around the world are taking lessons from the Fed and the rest of America’s corrupt ruling elite: how to launder money? Easy–open opaque LLC accounts in South Dakota. America is the world’s best protected tax haven, because it’s designed for America’s own corrupt elite.

The cost of corruption is a bit higher in America, but you get what you pay for: world-class corruption costs more. Here is America, a few million in lobbying and campiagn contributions can buy pretty much anything: you need a tax loophole involving some obscure life insurance ploy? Pony up the cash and you got it on a silver platter.

Are loopholes available to the debt-serfs and tax donkeys? Of course not. Our designated role is limited to making monthly debt payments, paying taxes and distracting ourselves with binge-everything.

The higher you go up the food chain, the more profound the corruption. The croupier at Rick’s doesn’t have many opportunities for corruption; skimming anything will quickly lead to termination and prosecution. But at the top in America, the opportunities for corrupt gains, skims, scams, thinly veiled bribes and insider trading are essentially limitless. As Cato the Elder observed: "Thieves of private property pass their lives in chains; thieves of public property in riches and luxury."

America’s corrupt elite is blind to the outcome of their skyrocketing wealth: skyrocketing inequality. And as a result, they’re blind to what will wash away their putrid palace, for inequality is a systemic toxin that brings down even the greatest empires.

Dear corrupt Fed and corrupt ruling elite: the banquet of consequences of your corruption is being served. 

We know you’re all just poor corrupt officials, but bleating excuses won’t save you from the karmic payoff.

Who benefited from this Fed-inflated bubble?

Who benefited from this Fed-inflated bubble?

The answer: billionaires and the top 0.1%, with a few dregs draining down to the top 5%:

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