It’s not just the economy, stupid, it’s the culture:
We are experiencing an ongoing financial coup d’état that is centralizing power. Symptoms include an absence of transparency, deteriorating integrity of contracts and agreements, environmental deterioration, a “breakaway civilization” that appears “out of control.” I would add to this the use of financial markets for warfare as opposed to facilitating the allocation of capital and trade.
The ultimate codification of things like transparency and integrity of transactions is not the law; it is the culture. A variety of forces are systematically breaking down our physical health and our culture. That cultural corruption is the greatest obstacle. — Catherine Austin Fitts [Emphasis added]
Fitts is a financial adviser. She recalls:
In the summer of 2000, I asked a group of 100 people at a conference of spiritually committed people who would push a red button if it would immediately stop all narcotics trafficking in their neighborhood, city, state and country. Out of 100 people, 99 said they would not push such red button. When surveyed, they said they did not want their mutual funds to go down if the U.S. financial system suddenly stopped attracting an estimated $500 billion – $1 trillion a year in global money laundering. They did not want their government checks jeopardized or their taxes raised because of resulting problems financing the federal government deficit. [Emphasis added]
It would seem that for some people morality and profit work in their lives in inverse proportion to each other.