And the wheels on the bus go round and round....

Note:  The politician in the middle could have been any one of many from either political party.

In today's news:  "Federal authorities are scrutinizing private consultants hired to clean up financial misdeeds....taking aim at an industry that is paid billions of dollars by the same banks it is expected to police."

Yep, it seems the banking biz is still just one, big happy family.  Federal regulators uncover some sort of fraud, money laundering, etc, so they mandate the guilty bank hire outside "consultants" to clean things up and get the banks back on the straight and narrow.

Really?  Can anyone but me see this is just one big good 'ol boy charade?  Is anybody going to even attempt to follow the money trail?

Here's how it's worked so far:  Fourteen big banks were fined a record (combined) $8.5 BILLION dollars for screwing over consumers.  The private consultants were charged with finding out who was eligible to participate in the settlement.  Of the $8.5B the banks coughed up, $3.3B was paid to customers, most of the rest went to THE CONSULTANTS!

I'd love to see how much the consultants (Deloitte & Touche was prominently mentioned) contributed to various political campaigns. 

(Late update:  An online search found that in 2011 and 2012 D&T alone contributed approx. $700,000.)

And of course the consultants won't ever be in a position in the future to help out the bankers.  No, of course not. 

S