Courtesy of Larry Doyle.
I thank the many devoted readers of Sense on Cents who made sure I was aware of a riveting, must-read article in yesterday’s New York Times written by Bill Cohan, a Wall Street-Washington critic without peer.
Cohan writes of the travails of Richard Bowen, former whistleblower at Citigroup, who ran headlong into the fortress manned by Robert Rubin and friends. Bowen was a Citi employee who blew the whistle regarding the preponderance of defective mortgages running through the Citi pipeline.
He brought the knowledge of this activity to the highest perch within the bank including the attention of Robert Rubin. How was he treated? With what most would define as ‘the silent treatment.’ Once silenced, he was then subsequently shown the door.
While Bowen was pushed out of Citigroup back in 2009, he has not been silenced since then.
Cohan asks — then answers — whether Bowen was muzzled in the process of his providing insights to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission as to what was really going on inside Citigroup prior to and during the crisis. (I address in my upcoming book that Bowen very much believes he was strong armed and censored.)
What does Bowen believe now? He has come to the same conclusion that I have and upon which I based the title of my book (In Bed with Wall Street). Both Cohan and Bowen have little company in heroically writing and stating:
. . . he (Bowen) continues to believe he was censored and bullied into changing his testimony. The experience has shaken his faith in the country’s institutions.
“It was devastating,” he said. “It truly was. From my standpoint, the corruption extends to the highest levels of government. I feel absolutely, completely violated. Every principle that I grew up with, and even when I did a brief stint in the R.O.T.C. and the Air Force, it’s just completely violated.”
And those in Washington and on Wall Street still wonder why trust and confidence levels throughout our nation have not yet rebounded significantly?
Corruption that is widely believed to have occurred and still occurs yet remains buried under a Wall Street-Washington blanket will do that.
I strongly encourage readers who care to see just how the heavy hands of the Wall Street banking lobby work in stifling the truth from coming out to read all of Cohan’s fabulous expose.
In fact, I welcome characterizing Was This Whistle-Blower Muzzled? as a Sense on Cents instant classic. In doing so, I also welcome further elevating both Cohan and Bowen into the highest echelon of the Sense on Cents Hall of Fame.
I would ask readers to please share this commentary liberally so that the corruption might be aerated and our nation might be helped.
Navigate accordingly.
Larry Doyle
Please pre-order a copy of my book, In Bed with Wall Street: The Conspiracy Crippling Our Global Economy, that will be published by Palgrave Macmillan on January 7, 2014.
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I have no business interest with any entity referenced in this commentary. The opinions expressed are my own. I am a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.
