US Government Fraud

Nobody who knows me will accuse me of being an enemy of the US, but what I am reading today in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (very respectable business paper, comparable to the WSJ) is rather shocking. Incidentally, a search of the WSJ online results in no articles found on that issue.

We've heard of the collective law suit Cobell vs. Norton with which over 300'000 American Indians sue the Government for due contractual payments over the decades which apparently have been willfully mismanaged and run up to the tens of billions of USD now. What's so shocking though is that a continuation of governments claiming the moral highground would try to sneak out of setting an old cause right when it comes down to paying up. Already two Home Secretaries have been found in contempt of a Federal Court.

Especially we in Switzerland will feel very uneasy about this issue, seeing that Swiss banks have paid billions in Holocaust settlements under direct pressure from the very same Government. Ought we to take lessons from the US Government on how to stand tough, or ...?