"Normal" people (clinical term, not mine) make choices with their hearts, minds, and spirits. Every single thing we do is done to fulfill a combination of emotional, intellectual, and behavioral needs -- and is guided by a set of personal values. The more "basic" the need, the broader the set of values that we will apply (for example, I'd consider it okay to use physical force against someone if he was holding my head underwater trying to deprive me of air, but not if he was a competitor who did something sneaky to deprive me a potential new client).
So all human behavior is situational. Although not everyone will make the same decision or take the same action in a given situation, a "normal" person (again, that's a clinical term, not mine) will tend to make the same decisions and take the same types of action when facing similar situations. In other words, behavior in normal people is relatively predictable -- which is why employment interviews, background checks, reference checks, pre-hire testing, etc. are relatively reliable indicators of future job performance if done properly. A normal person doesn't commit fraud out of the blue -- there will be a history of having lied, cheated, deceived, etc. to fulfill personal needs (perhaps not on such a grand scale as embezzlement, but lots of smaller incidents).
Beyond that, mental illness, drug or alcohol problems, etc. can cause a person to misperceive or misinterpret the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of a situation -- and therefore behave abnormally and unpredictably.
Likewise, a "significant emotional event" can induce someone to radically modify his/her set of values -- and behave abnormally and unpredictably. (That one is a favorite movie theme -- perfect husband and non-violent gentleman becomes a stone cold vigilante executioner when criminals take his family from him).
Chuck, you noted that you only saw "black and white" in Diva's posts, yet the dichotomies that stood out most to me in all the dialogue above were in your comments regarding a "good" person and a "bad" choice. There are just people and choices -- "good" and "bad" are situational. Fraud, on the other hand, is against the law -- and that seems very black and white.
Regarding controls (or lack of), controls on the banking industry overall, and controls at the branch level to prevent or reveal fiduciary fraud, are completely different issues. In my experience with banking clients, there were about 160 investigations into suspected fraud -- that turned out NOT to be fraud -- for every one case that actually was. How many of us run our businesses that well? Do you have a certified third party that double checks and verifies the work of all your employees and contractors -- and not only catches and reports the things they occasionally do wrong, but monitors them closely enough to catch and report 160 things they MIGHT have done wrong (but actually did right) for each one thing they do wrong? I certainly don't.
