In this day in time it is critical for one to shine a spotlight on those individuals who exemplify integrity, and whose moral and legal principles cannot be purchased. It was just announced this morning that an ex whistle blower who worked in risk analysis for Deutsche Bank during the financial crisis has rejected a $16.5 million reward from the SEC for his role in exposing fraudulent behavior within Deutsche Bank. In order to clarify the order of events on the matter let us start with the beginning. Like many large investment banks, during the crisis Deutsche had poor performing credit derivatives on their balance sheet, and for fear of bankruptcy they falsified the value of these assets to their shareholders and market participants. Some examples of a credit derivative include credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations. These are essentially value producing financial securities that trade on domestic and foreign exchanges. They act as insurance policies against loan portfolios that have the potential to default (ex: mortgages, possibly student loans etc). In this case they were mortgage backed securities. These credit derivatives once gave high returns, however, with the financial crisis and the general recognition of the toxic nature of mortgage loans, the value of these securities plummeted and Deutsche panicked. As a result they inflated the value of these securities on their books by $3.3 billion in order to avoid a potential bailout. In 2012, two whistle blowers, one by the name of Eric Ben-Artzi, called attention to this fraudulent behavior. As a result there was an investigation by the SEC, however coincidentally, Deutsche's top lawyers had been vacillating in and out of positions at the SEC and also within Deutsche Bank. Naturally a conflict of interest and corrupt interpretation of legal precedent ensued as a result. Ultimately the bank was fined $55 million for their illegal activity, no one went to jail, and none of the managers who benefited from inflated portfolios lost any personal funds, whereas the shareholders were the ones to actually pay for the mistakes. It was just announced today that Eric has declined his $16.5 million compensation from Congress upon principle and to protest the corruption behind the punishment to Deutsche Bank. He did write a letter