need to add title here

Banking: A Crack In the Swiss Vault

August 15, 2010 5:00 PM

Swiss bank accounts offered people, including U.S. tax cheats, a safe place to hide money. But the largest Swiss bank has released formerly sacrosanct data on its U.S. customers because of tips provided by whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld, who tells Steve Kroft some of the secrets Swiss bankers never tell.

Offshore Banking: A Crack In The Swiss Vault
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by Graciela2010 August 23, 2010 5:38 PM EDT
If we are serious about stopping criminals from cheating our government (and costing the honest tax payers more money!), please visit the National Whistleblowers Center website at www.whistleblowers.org and sign the clemency petition letter to support Bradley Birkenfeld and all future whistleblowers.

Additional support can be given on the "Causes" section of Facebook titled "Support Clemency Campaign for UBS Whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld."
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by Graciela2010 August 22, 2010 5:15 PM EDT
The definition of a ?whistleblower? from Wikipedia is:

?a person who raises a concern about wrongdoing occurring in an organization or body of people. Usually this person would be from that same organization. The revealed misconduct may be classified in many ways; for example, a violation of a law, rule, regulation and/or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud, health/safety violations, and corruption. Whistleblowers may make their allegations internally (for example, to other people within the accused organization) or externally (to regulators, law enforcement agencies, to the media or to groups concerned with the issues).?

Didn?t Bradley Birkenfeld do just that? No, he did much more than merely blow the whistle. It isn?t difficult for people of good will to point out wrongdoing, but it takes a person like Bradley Birkenfeld, with unparalleled courage and strength to bring to justice the criminal activities of countless of bankers and U.S. tax cheats. It is every U.S. citizen?s legal obligation to pay taxes and evasion to do so is a criminal act. And how is our government bringing to justice these criminals? By negotiating with them and allowing them to buy out their freedom. And how are they thanking Birkenfeld for the billions of dollars he helped our government save? By putting him in jail!?! The fact that Birkenfeld is in jail is a sad and clear demonstration of the level of corruption that currently exists in our justice system. They are killing the very spirit this country proclaims it instills by jailing the most important tax whistleblower in history and the only person with class and dignity to do the right thing. What is the message here? Reward the criminals and destroy the informant? What a sham!
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by eXecuTech August 20, 2010 8:31 PM EDT
Money is not evil, it's just a tool. The passage goes, "For the LOVE (emphasis mine) of money is the root of every evil." Timothy 6:10
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by ubs_youve_been_screwed August 19, 2010 12:11 PM EDT
Yeah, sure. Obama is really going to punish UBS. Not in this lifetime.
Let me remind readers who donated heavily to his campaign, oh yeah, shock, that would be UBS.

And who played golf with Barry last year, oh coincidence, that would be buddy ole pal Robert Wolf, UBS Americas President.

Kodak moment here http://*******.com/m95bfd

The takeaway to this story are the following points:

1) Leona Helmsley had it right - Only the little people pay taxes.

2) Whistleblowers like Birkenfeld are not rewarded, they are punished, especially if you try to blow the whistle on schemes benefitting the TPTB (the powers that be) and those "on their VIP list".

3) CBS, late to the party as always, finally spoon feeds the masses this spin story years later after most of this transpired, and well off most people's radar. It took awhile for the Producers to get directions from Barry on how this should air. CBS makes UBS look clean and paints Birkenfeld as one bad egg. Imagine that.

4) The real truth is there are thousands of rotten eggs inside UBS and they should be prevented from doing business in the US, but they still have their doors open. The clients also should share jail cells and be forced to pay heavy fines and back taxes. Yet only a few are fined (wrist slap) to paint the picture of justice taking place. NOT!

5) The US government is never on your side, even if you think they are. Birkenfeld thought he would get immunity for helping them to crack this nut, and assist the IRS. Well, Brad, you had the right idea, yet you opened the wrong can of worms. Don't open a can of worms exposing TPTB. You can't turn them in, they are above any law, as they "are the law". Just remember the US government re-writing contracts at will during the takeover of GM?

6) This whole story is about as transparent to every day Americans as the toxic, corrupt swamp that is UBS and other bank's balance sheets and funny accounting. And now that this story has aired, the TPTB think this whole issue is cleaned up and swept under the rug.

7) Outraged yet? Or are you like most Americans and either asleep or too stupid to make sense of this. Good, then vote by closing your account at UBS and other US banks and let justice be served by "the invisible hand".
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by saturday8pm August 17, 2010 12:32 AM EDT
"Kill the Messenger", no surprise here. Gotta hand it to the money launderers, they sure know how to knuckle the system. How much you wanna bet many of these 19,000 cheats are self-described card-carrying American patriots? So, it's OK for them to decide how much THEY pay in US taxes while the rest of us pay our share. I too feel we're overtaxed, but we've got to remember that we've gotta invest in our infrastructure constantly. If they have a beef with what they pay, they oughta solve their problem through ethical means. These are the same people who are hot to call for American defense when we're attacked but let others do the heavy lifting THEN turn around and take away funding for the lot who do the actual funding. Face the Facts: People who do this are not patriots, they're traitors who hide behind the flag who'd ditch this country with their loot in a heartbeat if the poop ever hit the fan.
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by MaverickDH August 16, 2010 11:08 PM EDT
Bully for Bradley for taking the initiative. Why is Bradly in prison? Obviously there are a number of powerful public officials who are friends with UBS and the money hiding/campaign contributing lot. Of course they're going to send the message that you mess with us and our friends, you pay the price, while the criminal friends get off scott free. Isn't funny how a shop-lifter at Walmart goes to jail for stealing some small items, while tax cheaters of billions of dollars get to pay a relative small fine and walk away? Welcome to the world. iamd1 is right, it's all about the money. But life is short and they better pray that there is no God. But pray to who? Their money?
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by andora63 August 16, 2010 8:21 PM EDT
Not surp[rised that the big fish get off paying fines and the whistleblower gets to do time. As long as Washington is run by lobbysits and the buddies of all the fine payers who ought to be wearing jail stripes, instead of pinstripes, this will continue to be the norm. Sure he should have told about his largest client too. But with the door he opened, you have to weight the value of one versus the other as a prosecutor, etc. Heck, it took some real cojones to do what he did and will never behired by most in the banking industry again. I hope he does get the big check from the IRS. He deserves it. The list of people who paid fines should be printed in the paper to see if any of them are politicians or others living a public, yet duplicitous life.
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by pjdarling12 August 16, 2010 7:53 PM EDT
Do we need adverts covering part of the screen?
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by pseud0nym August 16, 2010 6:56 PM EDT
I just went through your BS registration process to say this.

- When you play commercials, I mute the volume and go do a different page waiting for it to finish.

- There are adds all over this site, I do not want to watch them in the videos

- The products that I see advertised this way I boycott as a matter of principal, most people I know do as well, we don't like advertising shoved down our throats.

So good job! You just lost your sponsor a customer.
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by iamd1 August 16, 2010 4:23 PM EDT
Money,is root of all evil.The evil that some of us can't get enough of
Its more powerful than sex, more addictive than any known drug on the face of this earth. So its safe to say that all Bankers are on the same level as drug lords. Their transactions are the same and will use everything in their power to get what they want at any cost. The government's is suspect. On one hand they would say "help us" and we will "help you" with all the perts aside. Once when they make the big score from the info you provided. Then amnesia set in while they slowly distances themselves away from you. Which is the history of the government. In all honesty, it took a crook to catch a crook by a crook. Now lets see is the government will do the right thing.
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