Past Performance
Past performance is no guarantee of future results; just future greed.
We are an optimistic people. We do not celebrate Constitution Day, the day we actually stood up the machinery of government. We celebrate July 4, 1776, the aspiration. The Supreme Court, SCOTUS, takes the Declaration of Independence as seriously as the Constitution, and has ruled based on things it says.
Consequently, financial scandals are as old as the country. Older than I am. I am not going back through every time we created a United States Bank, killed it, stood one up again, invented the Federal Reserve, then toasted the economy in 1929. I am starting with the first financial scandal I remember: the savings and loan crisis.
You sit a chair in 1979, before that crisis is a fact. Paul Volcker at the Federal Reserve has not yet jacked up interest rates. The audits still pass. Can you find the moments to get off the train? People who commit financial crimes are accountants. The people who check them are also accountants. Accountants know how to lie to other accountants. To catch a criminal you have to leave the office and drive to the address printed on the invoice.
The StreetPlay as the StreetYou run a savings and loan. You pay depositors 3 percent, you make home loans at 6 percent, and you are on the golf course by 3. That world is about to end.
WashingtonPlay as WashingtonYou are Jimmy Carter. Inflation is eating paychecks. Paul Volcker, who runs the Federal Reserve, wants to crush it with high interest rates. The savings and loans will scream.