Financial news is ongoing and uniformly, breathtakingly clear in the systemic corruption that infects the artificial currency running through a man-made artificial circulatory system that, rather than flow equally everywhere as in an organic body of whatever scale, keeps on squeezing into some kind of holding tank that only a very very few folks (let’s call them the vampires) can dip into.

I had never heard of Comedian Russell Brand until I watched his hilarious tomfoolery with morning anchors at MSNBC. That one went viral instantly. Now he’s anchoring the extreme left hot seat (or is it the extreme right hot seat? depends on whether we’re looking at him or he’s looking at us . . . I always sensed that the two ends of this right/left circle met) of a sober, let’s-be-reasonable BBC panel. What’s especially interesting to me, are the sober, blank, even wooden stares on the audience’s faces. Zombie land? Or in shock at his audacity. Come on gang —

Let us Learn from him!

Karen Hudes, who used to work for the World Bank, and whose revelations were overshadowed by the still breaking Edward Snowden story that for some still mysterious reason, the MSM played up to the hilt, speaks again.

• Whistleblower reveals World Bank Corruption in New Interview

I know there’s been some sweet-sounding even populist social-and economic-justice rhetoric from the new Pope Francis, but lookee here, what, apparently, he’s really up to:

• Vatican monsignor arrested in 20 million dollar euro plot

Also, this:

• This is Reform? Pope Francis to appoint a World Bank insider and an advisor to dictators as new Vatican Secretary of State

“Rome: Birds of a feather tend to flock together. Pope Francis – Jorge Bergoglio, who rose rapidly through the church in Argentina by advising and funding the military junta in that country during the Dirty Wars of the 1970′s, will probably appoint a fellow junta-lover to the crucial post of Vatican Secretary of State.

“In the wake of the sudden and unprecedented resignation of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone from that post last month following his indictment for crimes against humanity in the International Common Law Court of Justice, Pope Francis has met with Honduran Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodrigues and apparently offered him the Secretariat position.

“Rodrigues aided the military in Honduras in their June, 2009 overthrow of democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya after he tried liberalizing the constitution. The Cardinal gave the new junta official church backing and justified the coup to the world.

“Cardinal Rodrigues is also an insider with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and serves as the Vatican’s representative on these bodies, according to Wikileaks.”

I feel about Matt Taibbi much like I feel about Jon Rappoport re: politics and culture; Taibbi’s got his probing, skillful finger on the gushing pulse of the financial meltdown and bankster scene. Again, read everything you see by him and do not pass go. Mostly in the Rolling Stone. Here’s the latest there:

• The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis

It’s long been suspected that ratings agencies like Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s helped trigger the meltdown. A new trove of embarrassing documents shows how they did it

And BTW: Notice how the financial scene is (of course!) interwoven with the whistleblower scene.

• International Confidence in U.S. Economy Crumbling after Snowden Leaks