Between fantasy, or make believe, accounting, and rating agencies with a 10% success ratios, who are protected by the Feds....

Between debt securitization and shoddy underwriting of real estate, and debt....

Between oil companies who care more about the rape of national resources and their own bottom lines, then about safety and cleaning up catastrophes...

Between off balance sheet accounting and Repo 105's....  

Somewhere between banks that are too big to fail, and multi-trillion dollar government bailouts…

In the middle of the present sovereign debt bubble and politicians, who will not hold oil companies and banks accountable (before the crisis occurs, or even during or after): Lie the Roots of Our Global Financial Crisis and World-Wide Economic Slow Down....

And now the Elite Institutions (the European Banks) are reluctant to lend to one another, because there is no trust in on anothers financial statements.... which leads to a credit freeze, caused by moral hazard, and all of the above...

The cycles, and catastrophes, are coming closer and closer together now, and the monetary and fiscal tool kit - to keep fixing each reoccurring crisis - is wearing thin; that is to say, ineffectual or aggravating the situation (read massive-crushing sovereign DEBT).

What if we slowed down and gave honesty and integrity a shot?  Sounds, almost, passé.  Transparent accounting, the end of off balance sheet accounting, the end of casino banking on Wall Street (with Derivative use reined in and exposed to the light of day) would be a fresh approach.  Politicians – who actually provided good stewardship of the land for the people (as opposed to hooking up with Lobbyist); and politicians standing up to Big Oil, and insuring that they were not allowed to drill, until they prove they can clean up a catastrophe on the scale seen in the Gulf. 

Obama appears to be on the right track, but he needs support, from both parties.

My guess is that BETWEEN doing the right thing, and looking past the next quarterly statement, there’s a whole lot of money to made in honesty and responsibility.  Just ask B.P.   This month’s Leper!

- J.M. Hamilton