I had the most interesting comment to my post that pointed out that OVDP is a money-laundering program in which the IRS takes a piece of the action (e.g., Walter White puts meth money into a foreign account and launders it through OVDP):

Yeah, it’s an amusing story; but so far-fetched, I don’t see where the humor connects with reality. Far from being “so right on”; …transferring 600’000 cash offshore, letting it sit for a while, then entering the OVDI is so impossible and far-fetched these days, that one might as well have included aliens in the story too.
Sorry, Forrest Grumpy

I really like this comment because it expresses my own doubts about what I wrote. It seems very far-fetched indeed.

Nevertheless, I’ve been personally oppressed by the policies of the Treasury Department. I’d never committed a felony until about four years ago, but now I fear to return to the country of my birth because the Bank Secrecy Act has become an instrument to extort money from me and other innocents. This oppression has opened my eyes. But still I doubt. Would government officials dispense with truth, justice and equitable application of the law? Is that really far-fetched? What is in it for them?

Well, money of course. If you are a government bureaucrat, you play with the big boys on a measly six figure salary. But there is of course a way to profit from all this, and it is a kind of corruption that the media has learned to wink at. Once powerful people with government positions, whether politicians or bureaucrats, have left the government employ, they can legally collect on the favours that they extended to their cronies. It merits examination if a senior FDA official gets a nice cushy job with a pharmaceutical company or if a former president or treasury secretary receives speaking engagements and makes millions from the industries that they winked at while in office. Yet somehow this wide-spread practice elicits barely a frown. But this is the new world-order, in which corrupt officials and politicians cash in on their good fortune, and they are doing it legally right in front of us.

Here is an example of corruption that invoked the wrath of only a few during Bill Clinton’s last few weeks in office: He pardoned Marc Rich, the eponymous big fish, whose indictment charges included tax evasion, illegal trade with Iran, wire fraud, and racketeering. Rich’s wife manage to buy him a pardon through a few well-placed gifts. What money changed hands behind closed doors or what speaking engagements the Clintons managed to obtain afterward, is well below the surface. But the tip of the iceberg is so slimy that it is to my bewilderment that Clintons still enjoy any respect among the American people. Now if some comparatively small donations to the Democrat party and the Clinton library can essentially launder hundreds of millions, how much more could the 27.5% OVDP penalty  grease the process?

I’ve noticed that Timothy Geithner didn’t stay in his position as US Treasurer for the full eight years of the Obama presidency. Perhaps he was too eager to cash in on his good fortune to languish in his public sector salary for a few more years. But now he has been amply rewarded for his favours to the banksters, and I’m sure he continues to cash in. I wonder what Douglas Shulman is doing these days.

Let me state my basic premise: Criminals usually try to hide their criminality. Seldom are thieves so brazen that they would steal out in the open. But when we see open criminality, then we can be sure that the perpetrators have lost the capacity to care whether the public discovers their corruption. Yet I surmise that much more filth exists where we cannot see it. In the US, the rot has become very extensive indeed and has the destructive force to undermine the foundations of trust upon which American society rests.

One time I arrived in Bangui, Central African Republic, and the customs officer that inspected my baggage saw that I had some D-batteries in my suitcase. He asked me for a couple which I gave, being intimidated by the soldiers standing nearby holding machine guns. This kind of corruption is rampant in poorer countries, and Americans look down their noses at these people. Why? Because America has brought corruption to a whole new level. Why bother extorting Duracells when you can give million dollar speeches?

I have an inkling what Obama is going to do once his term is finished. He is going to play golf and give speeches. It is the American dream.