Probe of Goldman financial crisis? Gone thanks to the Justice Department

The U.S. Justice Department said it will not pursue criminal charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc or its employees related to accusations that the firm bet against the same subprime mortgage securities it was selling to clients.

"The decision not to prosecute Goldman, a firm held up by critics as a symbol of Wall Street greed during the 2007-2009 financial crisis, highlights the difficulty in prosecuting crisis-related cases.

Few expected the bank to face criminal charges, but in April 2011, U.S. Senator Carl Levin asked for a criminal investigation after the subcommittee he leads spent more than a year looking into Goldman.

The accusations were aired in a heated 2010 Congressional hearing in which Levin grilled Goldman Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein for hours about whether it was morally correct for the firm to sell its clients products described internally as crap."

Ethics, morals and human dignity are all secondary to the profit margin these days, or so it seems. Bankrupt bankers have to be bailed out even though we can all see that they and other business leaders are unable to make progress towards solving the economic crisis.

No wonder then that our governments are completely incapable of facilitating conditions for the stability and improvement of people – because all social, political, educational and communal values exist solely to serve economic growth, which simply means growth in money supply, in GDP and in consumption.

As long as we are wedded to this financial archetype and its money model, the strong will exploit the weak, and our social and environmental fabric (and morals) will continue to fall apart.

The current economic crisis gives us an opportunity to look deeper and examine the consequences of confusing the means with the ends. Money has a place, of course, but we must keep it in its place and not allow it to dominate our lives in such a manner that we lose ourselves and become its slaves. Money was made to serve people, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, we have allowed money to become the master and prevail over all other moral, ethical and ecological values.