Watch 'em run

In the hush-hush world of Swiss banking, the unthinkable is happening: secrets are spilling into the open.

UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland, agreed on Wednesday to divulge the names of well-heeled Americans whom the authorities suspect of using offshore accounts at the bank to evade taxes. The bank admitted conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and agreed to pay $780 million to settle a sweeping federal investigation into its activities.

[From The Swiss Bank UBS Is Set to Open Its Secret Files - NYTimes.com]

You gotta appreciate the entertainment value here. In 2002 or thereabouts there was a bill in Congress called the Financial Services Antifraud Network Act which was about creating a computer network to link bank databases as a way to combat banking fraud - it was passed by the House but defeated, after heavy (and bipartisan) lobbying by some big-bore financial groups, in the Senate. So now we have a government that claims to be able to track money sent to "terrorist" groups and consequently makes donating to certain charities a terrorist act, and subjects people who write checks for more than a few grand to investigation, but at the same time can only know if some heavy US hitters are defrauding the IRS by hoping some Swiss bank spills the beans. And was shocked - shocked! - do discover the entire banking system was stuffed with funny money.

It's like the whole thing's being run by Larry, Curly, and Moe.